Here Comes The Bride - Quick Hide!

Spare a thought today for calamitous wedding planner Michele Connelly who made the mistake of expressing the views of 'da management' in email, accidentally sending it to the client and then incurring the wrath of her bosses.  Ms Connelly's apparent faux pas was to suggest that the prospective bride and groom weren't the kind of client Stoke Park Hotel in Buckinghamshire wanted to attract. (The hotel has been used as locations for "Four Weddings" and Bond film "Goldfinger"). In her defence, I'm sure her assessment was entirely in line with what her bosses required of her. 

Leaving aside my irritation at the Media's tendency to make random incompetencies in the working world headline news, what's even more ridiculous in the story of Stoke Park's navel gazing is that the insulted bride is considering legal action for defamation.

In case you missed it, here's the story http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221351/Stoke-Park-Hotel-wedding-planner-sends-snobby-email-wrong-type-people-bride.html.

I'm sure that there are conversations like this happening around the UK as I type.  I married in the lovely St David's Hotel & Spa in Cardiff Bay in September 2011 and couldn't have been happier with the service I received, but a certain other well known hotel in leafy woodland was far less helpful and clearly had the attitude that it had quite enough business, thanks, without negotiating on minimum numbers - irrespective of the fact that they would have had the business 'in the bag' and we were at the time in the middle of a recession.

Hubby & I outside St. David's Hotel, Cardiff

However, miffed as I was, I did not go to the The Daily Mail or consult 'Injury Lawyers 4U' or whichever nebulous body it is that deals with emotional slights to the frail bridezilla.  

I'm not quite sure what the the bride to be here hoped to achieve and in fact nobody in this story comes out of it very well.  I would have had more respect for Stoke Park's management if they had supported Ms Connelly rather than panic and wash their hands of her. But this seems to be typical of the standard of management across businesses of all types in the UK.  For all the jolly team bonding / team building / office parties we're forced to endure, if you cock up, you're often on your own.   

As it is, the bride and groom to be have found another wedding venue - Parklands, a 17th century mansion on the Essex/Hertfordshire border. Presumably a venue with a harder grasp of the idea of sales and profit than Stoke Park. Let's hope to God their service is seamless or it'll be another easy day for reporters and a whole heap more 'upset' for the hapless couple.