I’m (29f) a wedding bartender that works for a specific venue. I’ve been there over 5 years and I was the bar manager for just as long up until last month (left because of summer classes).
We had a wedding last month where the bride was in the service industry and decided to forgo our beverage packages and throw the everyone’s drinks onto a card. She signed an authorization form that showed what she wanted included, the max and that 20% gratuity charge will be added to any tab over $200. The tab was capped at $8,500 which is far bigger than anything we’ve done.
At one point in the night, the running tab hit 999 items (the max) where nothing else could be rang in or deleted. 20% could not be added. So we started a new tab and at the end of the night, I spoke with the point of contact (person assigned by the bride to handle things day of) and asked if with her permission I could add the 20% from BOTH tabs to the second tab manually. She said yes and I gave her copies of both tabs, circled the totals and pointed out where the gratuity was added.
It’s been 3 weeks and my co worker and I have not gotten our money. The owner has made 100 excuses for not paying it out among them being he needs to investigate, thinking I did something shady (even though all the math adds up), claiming the authorization form is missing even tho there’s multiple copies, worried the bride will sue us for the manual entry, or even that he’s out of the office and has no time to go to the bank. There’s been a multitude of other big issues with him but this is the final straw. Even the Bride from the wedding is pissed we haven’t got our money!
The banquet manager is the middleman in this as the owner has been speaking through him, but he’s a friend and been keeping updated and it’s obvious he’s no intention of paying it out. Last week I gave him an ultimatum: I don’t work until I get that money. He understood and relayed that to the owner hoping it would light a fire under him (we had a wedding on Saturday I was scheduled for). I got a call shortly after, berating me for “throwing a temper tantrum” and “acting like a little girl” among other misogynistic comments with no mention of when he’s going to pay us.
My fiancé thinks I should hire a lawyer but here’s the kicker: the owner is my older brother. That’s presents a difficult position
Edit: add age for reference