The Journal
Diary of a Retired Catering Manager.
Forty-five years of ballrooms, banquet math, and other people's biggest days — written down before I forget any of it.
No Room at the Inn
What a revenue manager actually does, why your confirmation number is a suggestion, and the night a hotel I worked for walked a Dodger.
Read the postForty Pounds of Bible
Booking a hotel in pencil, mimeographing the BEOs, retyping a banquet check because you misspelled one word, and the small office fire that ended smoking at an entire property.
Read the postDelphi, or Garbage In, Garbage Out
The software that ran my working life, the average prices it invented on my behalf, and the day two clients showed up holding contracts for the same ballroom.
Read the postTwenty-Four Percent, Plus Tax, Plus Whatever We Are Calling It Now
A father of the bride with a legal pad, forty years of service charge arithmetic, the event fee I can barely say out loud, and what actually lands in a banquet server's pocket at the end of a very expensive Saturday.
Read the postPolitical Events and Bill and Hillary Clinton
Twenty pop-up events in seven days at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, a hotel ringed by men in face shields, a sealed service hallway for Hillary Clinton — and, ten years later, a President undone by static cling.
Read the postKosher Weddings and the Rabbi that made me Cry
Twenty-four years old, my first Orthodox kosher wedding, and a rabbi who explained — in front of eight people — exactly why he would not shake my hand. Also: kashering, glatt vs. kosher-style, and why the only thing you can add to a glatt kosher minimum is more booze.
Read the postMy History with Weddings
Fifteen hundred couples, $125,000 receptions, a surprise Ford Explorer in the valet, and $50,000 of white carpet that existed for eighteen hours. Also: the actual secret, which is boring.
Read the postMy History in the Industry
From Executive Office Receptionist at eighteen to the ballrooms of the Millennium Biltmore — by way of a nunnery in Ohio and six months of telling wealthy people where the beach was.
Read the postLetters from Valerie
A thoughtful note, occasionally.
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