Seriously?

This is one of my long venting posts so consider yourself warned.
So, wedding plans.......isn't it exciting? NO, it sucks major a**. The latest drama in my wedding plans is the cake. Well, actually not the cake but pies. I'm not a huge fan of cake so I got this brillant idea to do pies. I have a favorite restaurant that does the most amazing desserts and pies and I thought it would be perfect to have them do a variety of the their awesome desserts and pies in lieu of a cake. I figured this wouldn't be a problem with my venue because they allow outside cakes. The venue does have it's own fabulous bakery and can do a cake/desserts if you wish (it's very pricey) but they also allow a cake to be brought in. This was made very clear at the beginning of our planning. Last week while at a meeting with the event coordinator at our venue, I mentioned we would be doing pies and not a cake. She told me that she would have to check with the chef and the head of food and catering to see if they would allow this. Huh? Why wouldn't they? Ok, whatever I still figured it was just a technicality to get the thumbs up from the appropriate people. A couple of days later I get an email saying no go on the pies. What?! Here is an excerpt of the email:
Per our insurance, we cannot guarantee that they were made in a Health Department approved kitchen and if someone was to become ill, we would be at fault. Okay, that's fine I get it. BUT, how can you prove that the cakes you allow to be brought in from outside vendors ARE made in this Health Dept. approved kitchen?! It's a freaking restaurant I'm pretty sure their kitchen is Health Dept. approved and I'm sure they would be willing to prove it. What if I had this restaurant make me a cake, would it then be ok? From what they've told me, that would be perfectly ok. Basically I can't have pies, but they don't even have a legitimate excuse as to why not! I sent them an email back explaining my confusion on this issue and asking why that now that it's pies, it's all of a sudden an issue. It took them a full week to come up with this response that didn't even address any of my points:
Brianna:

Please, allow me to apologize about the misunderstandings regarding the planning of your future function at our property. Regarding the cake issue, we do allow wedding cakes to be purchased off property. This is our policy, when the minimum price of our cake is not met. We currently do not produce cakes in-house for less than $300.00. With that in mind Joanne offered you the opportunity to have a cake made elsewhere. Although, we do charge for cake cutting at $3.00 per person.

In reviewing you event I recommend that you serve the pies at the condo. I hope this is agreeable to you.

They didn't even address anything I brought up! My question about having the restaurant make me a pie versus making me a cake? Not even mentioned. About how they get around their little insurance issue with their other outside cake vendors? Not even mentioned. The best part is how they are now going to charge us a $3.00 cake cutting fee! When I first met with the event coordinator one of my many questions was about some fees that I know some venues charge and I asked specifically about a cake cutting fee. She said that wouldn't be a problem, because I had a budget I had to meet and that was a fee that they would and could easily waive . I guess I should explain the last line in the response about serving the pies at the condo. Well, Karl's family and my family are renting some condos that are on the property. I said that if this was going to be such an issue we would just serve the pies there, instead of at the event space. Hell, maybe we can have the whole damn wedding at the condo so we can bypass all the drama and save some $$! Too late though, I already signed a contract. :( BUT, the contract didn't have ANYTHING about a cake cutting fee in it! :) So I might just be having my restaurant make me a cake! To be continued..........