Pre wedding tension- for the staff, not the guests!

In some hotels, sometimes the boundaries between roles and job descriptions can be very blurred indeed. In smaller hotels, one person can end up doing several roles.

Giles illustrates this with a humorous anecdote from his days at a small national chain of boutique hotels. A wedding been laboriously arranged. Hosted in the hotel itself, as per the package agreed, many of the party were staying ion the hotel itself, with various function rooms given over to the wedding itself, the reception, etc.



Inevitably, the previous night had seen heavy drinking and partying. The men, however, had elected to drink outside the premises, and had returned in good order, merry and having enjoyed the evening, but still responsible. The women, however, were a different story.

The wedding was taking over a large part of the hotel. Working in the restaurant over lunch, Giles was finding the day fairly straightforward. This contrasted with his colleagues working frantically for the wedding, or those running an over booked afternoon tea service. Upon seeing the (slightly harassed, but hiding it with great professionalism) Deputy General Manager (DGM), Giles enquired as to how things were. It proved to be the wrong question.

Five minutes later, Giles found himself leaving his restaurant in the sole hands of the Duty Supervisor, and sent to the room where the bridesmaids had been. Upon entering, he found the room swarming with staff. The bridesmaids had spent the evening and night partying there, before using the whole suite to get ready. As such, the room was giving the impression that it has been struck by a guided missile. The problem was that room had been sold for that night, and was needed in little over an hour. It was all hands to the pumps to clear, clean and prepare the room. When the Duty Housekeeping Supervisor is picking up litter, and the DGM is frantically folding collapsible beds together, you know it’s an emergency, Giles laughs.

The other factor was that the bridal couple had been given a suite the other end of the hotel. As such, all of the bride’s things had to be located and placed in the suite, along with the armada of wedding gifts and paraphernalia that was around, it was a fairly hectic hour or so, recalls Giles, with the bridesmaids making an appearance to collect items, to offer and try to help (coldly but politely rebuffed) and shamefacedly apologising for the disgraceful mess they had made of the room. An entire trolley was necessary to place all the F&B plates, cutlery, plates, glasses, bottles, etc that had somehow made their way to the room.

In the end, the job was done. With the mess cleared up, and the room cleaned, now the housekeepers had around an hour to get the room to the required standard prior to check in (not a long time for such a task). The bridal suite was also ready, as the DGM pronounced with satisfaction. As Giles returned to his (nearly empty) restaurant with a stacked trolley, the wedding reception was getting underway.

To the outsider, perhaps that was a great feat, accomplished against the odds, reflects Giles. However, in the industry, such things happen all the time. The only thing is, guests do not realise at all the work that goes on behind the scenes. They just see an immaculate, prepared room upon arrival, or a wedding reception or similar. These little things, however, take a great deal of effort and time, to get not right- but perfect.