Last night was painful. Personally, it didn’t quite top New Years Eve 2006 for the worst working night of my life but it did come pretty close. Had I been Duty Manager, then the scales would have been tipped.

The wedding breakfast went just as well as any other wedding breakfast. 45 people enjoying a three course meal with mine and champagne. The bride and groom were enjoying themselves and the day was on course. When the group disbands and leaves the room, we have a short amount of time to strip down the tables, clear whatever dirty glassware and crockery remain and prep the room for the evening reception. For us, this consists of setting up with the DJ, adjusting any table layout for the increased number of guests arriving in the evening, and preparing for the buffet.

By 7:30 there was still no sign of the DJ and all attempts at contacting had failed. Even his mum couldn’t get him on his mobile, but she told us that he was not working tonight. With the room due to open at about 7:30, time was running a bit thin. More guests were arriving but there was no entertainment to provide for them.

By slim (good?) fortune, we knew another DJ. He doesn’t have any of the certificates or insurance but at this time, we had little other choice. He jumped at the chance to make some easy money, but had we got in touch with him half an hour later, chances are he would have been out and unable to help us.

Even with a new DJ on the way, time was still mounting up. Between waiting for the people carrier taxi to pick him up, collect his stuff, bring him to the hotel and set it all up, the room was still going to be some two hours late.

Crazily, we (well not I) spun the bride and groom an initial story that the original DJ had suffered a technical fault and was delayed by seeking some replacement equipment, but it was sensible to save our skins by admitting that the original DJ was, for whatever reason, unable to come tonight and that we had sought a last minute replacement.

Making matters worse, our replacements equipment was playing up. The decks were up and running, pumping out great sounds from a mixture of CDs but the output from the PC was full of distortion. This is a wedding reception, and the kind of hard house stuff on CD was not all that suitable. The best material was on the PC, but for the life of us, it was going to work.

T of us had to hijack someone’s car and dash home to get some new CDs, with all that cheesy pop classics on them. In truth, the music we played was way better than everything you usually here and these sort of gigs, and from the smiles and dancing of the guests when they finally got in to the room, I guess they thought the same.

Once the party got going, there was little to complain about. There was music, lights, food, and good company. There was still plenty of banter between a number of half drunken guests and our new DJ, mainly about music choices and the whole scenario but the night did end without any thrown punches.

The groom, who I should add was a twat, was totally up his own arse. Despite the best efforts of everyone in the hotel, he just wouldn’t finally take back and enjoy his wedding night. We all understood the unacceptable position we had put the night in but there is only so much we can do, and whatever we could, we did. We kept the bar open until 1:30am (usually midnight) and the DJ played until 2:00 (usually 12:30).

So someone, somewhere, is going to get a severe bollocking for not booking our house DJ. All I can compare it to is me not ordering the drink or the chef’s not ordering the food. Simply put, it is a mother-of-all oversight that should never have happened. Our house DJ does gigs for us on a weekly basis, so how this one was overlooked is beyond me. I personally went hunting for a contract but to no avail. It was definitely the hotels fault.

What will happen now is unclear. Presumably there will be some sort of massive refund if not just for the entertainment but for other aspects too. The sadistic side is quite looking forward to someone in that office realising that their arses are not made of gold, and when they swan off for their weekends off leaving the rest of us in the crapper, they are ultimately going to pay a price.