catering!
so let’s talk food. this is definitely a large piece of any wedding. yes, we are serving food. the menu? hawaiian barbeque. why? because it’s brian’s favorite and i’m not all too particular on what we eat.
the ‘preferred’ list
we haven’t made a lot of progress in this area, which makes me nervous, but i’ll tell you what i’ve learned so far. venues sometimes have preferred caterers list. this list can simply be who the venue prefers to work with since the caterer is familiar with the site, good to work with, etc. the list can also be more of a requirement where the venue will charge you a fee for not going with anyone on the list.
the oakland zoo has such a list and the fee is $750 for picking someone off the list. there’s a nice range of foods represented and most places brag that they can do any menu you want. we found a caterer in walnut creek that seems to be all that we’re looking for: 1. not too pretentious/fancy, 2. able to do hawaiian bbq, and 3. probably not really expensive. we’ve been emailing back and forth for a couple weeks now and have finally received a formal bid.
the process
here’s how it works, you contact the caterer and tell them what you want. they give you an estimate, you haggle with them a little, and then, when things seem ok between the two of you, they give you a formal bid to consider. they tell you what they can do for you and for what price. you compare with other caterers and then pick. that’s what i have so far. at some point there’s a tasting process and a hashing of details face to face, but we’re not there yet.
pricing
what would guess would be the price for food for a wedding of 150+ people? try nearly $9000. surprising, no!? here’s the deal. most big caterers, like the one we’re looking at, do more than just prepare food. many offer “event planning”, which means they do other important, coordinated things. for example, $9000 would get you food, food made on site, labor for the chef and servers, table linens, bar service, and plates/glasses/flatware - plus the coordination of all these things. so… while the food itself is close to $3500, we’d be paying for all this other stuff we’d otherwise have to rent independently of each other and coordinate. you’re paying to have a lot of work done for you. a reasonable trade, i believe.
the delay
so part of the delay in actually booking this caterer has two parts, as of now. pricing was one, but that’s been handled (we got a lower quote and pulled some resources, so we’re ok). one, we probably want to contact another caterer to get a better idea of what’s out there. we found another one who seems reputable and possibly would give us a hook up as he’s the brother of one of brian’s mom’s friends… so we’ll see. the second thing is that brian is interested in going off the preferred caterer list!!!!! there’s a restaurant in orinda that does hawaiian bbq and might be able to serve us. it’s been a heated debate as the restaurant would only provide food, so then we’d have to rent the necessary equipment and hire servers on our own, which is the source of debate. is it simpler to do that or to pay more for a caterer? there’s difference in opinion on that one.
overall, it’s been interesting and i hope to settle this soon as we’re running out of time. five months, folks!
