Eat it, Embassy Suites

Sorry this follow-up post has taken so long. I was busy stewing in my rage… and Brian was in town.

For a few weeks, I tried my best to repair my relationship with Embassy Suites New Orleans. I called, I wrote, but apparently the catering manager had decided to break up with me by avoiding me altogether. I was more than a little insulted. I haven’t gotten this kind of treatment since freshman year of college when some guy I was seeing (who I didn’t even like that much) stopped returning my calls. No! This is all wrong. I should be the one doing the breaking up. Don’t you know that I am a catch? I am totally cuter and smarter than you, and… I mean, don’t you know that our wedding is a good sales opportunity?

I grew tired of our little game of “playing hard-to-get” and called her boss, the assistant general manager of the hotel. I explained who I was, why I was calling and that I had been trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with this chick for more than two weeks. Silence.

I tried a different tactic, using my friendly phone voice and describing how much we loved the space and how we really wanted to work out a way to have our reception there.

Me: We really love the Embassy Suites’ atrium, and we want to have our wedding reception there. The only problem is that we had negotiated a six-hour reception from the beginning, and your catering manager said that was fine, but at the last minute, she said we can only have it for three hours.

Assistant General Manager (who I suspect might be the “assistant to the general manager”): We only do three-hour receptions.

Me: OK, well, she told us we could have a six-hour reception. Why is that changing now?

AGM: We only do three-hour receptions. (long pause) I can maybe stretch it to four hours.

Me: (now I’m really imagining this guy is Dwight. “Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.”) Seriously? We are talking about a wedding in New Orleans, right? Why won’t you do more than four hours?

AGM: (slightly irritated, condescending tone, as one would speak to a slightly challenged five year old) Ma’am. It is a liability for us to serve alcohol to people for more than four hours. If someone were to get hurt, we would be responsible. It’s just not possible.

Me: (talking in my own babysitter-who-has-a-difficult-charge voice) By all means, you should have the right to refuse service to anyone you think has had too much to drink. Would that allow us to have a longer reception?

AGM: No.

Me: What if we switched from a full open bar to just wine and beer after four hours? Or supplied our own alcohol for the last two hours?

AGM: NO. I am not flexible on this matter. Our maximum is four hours. You won’t find anywhere else in this city that will give you more than that.

Me: (in my “Oh, really, fool?” voice): I find that very hard to believe. This city has bars that never close. I’m sure we can find a reception venue that will serve alcohol for six hours. By the way, is your catering manager on vacation or something? She hasn’t gotten back to me.

AGM: No. She’s the one who gave me your number. Do you want her to call you?

I was all kinds of riled up when I got off the phone, and Brian and I made it our personal crusade to find another location. Call me crazy, but I just didn’t feel like forking over a few thousand dollars to these teetotalers. (And that woman never called me back, by the way.)

We trolled the Warehouse District and the French Quarter looking for the perfect spot, and we found it– Mulate’s Restaurant. It’s funky, it’s also on Julia Street, the food is fantastic, the space is huge and the people are nice. Where do we sign?