Catering Advice

jbeaupre75

Hey girls, I need advice for caterers.  My brother worked for Russell Morins Catering for many years so he is advising me to look into them. However, I am not sold on that alone.  I have tasted their food at other wedings and it was great. I just want to be open and maybe find out from other knotties their experiences with caterers and future advice.  We are planning a Saturday evening reception so I know that is probably going to increase the cost it self.

TIA

BelleandIzzy

We are using Westbay Gourmet.   KC BIshop has amazed me with the menu she has put together for our budget.  We live in LA so we haven't had our tasting yet but we are scheduling it for October when we're finally in town, but the extensive review we read and her initial proposal/responses were enough for us to put down a deposit without meeting her/having a tasting first (the joys of planning from 3,000 miles away).  Also, talk to your venue (if you have already booked) for suggestions.  We are having our reception at the Towers so they have a preferred vendor list of those that are familiar with their very strict/specific load-in/out times and policies.  When I asked Kate (our contact at the Towers) about caterers, her first suggestion was Westbay and she said that KC and her team had done a majority of the weddings at the Towers in the year before.  So your venue coordinator might have a similar suggestion.  Good luck! 

RoyalOrient

I used B & M catering for our rehearsal and cocktail hour catering. The food was amazing and the service spot on! I thought they were also the most reasonably priced out of all the caterers. Since we had a smaller budget, they didn't brush us off. I also like Blackstone catering - every wedding I attended with them as the caterer was impressive. Definitely get in touch with Karen, she is so wonderful and very responsive (we used Blackstone for number of social functions in the past) so I also highly recommend them. Honestly, I didn't have such a great experience dealing with Morins when I contacted them about our wedding. Guess we didn't have a big enough budget. 

jbeaupre75

Thanks for the advice.  We do not have a big budget either and that was my main concern with Morin's although they do have great food.  Good to know and thanks for the other suggestions.

KBinRI

I'll second B&M; they did our cocktail hour and dinner for 61 people for less than $3,000 and are willing to work with budgets, which I do not find to be the case with some other caterers as Moni references above.

I've used both Blackstone and Morin for work events and far prefer Blackstone.

Westbay also gets consistently good recommendations here and I think we would have booked her if we had gone with Kinney Bungalow, which was our second choice venue.

i2012do

I'm biased, but am using Blackstone.
I had a really bad taste in my mouth from Blackstone. I guess because my boss sent me there and she has about an event a month with an unlimited budget, so when she sent them my name perhaps they were expecting that from me?
I felt like I was getting the brush off, and our budget is probably average.
I didn't like the response I was getting so i asked to switch the personal i was dealing with-- this ended up causing an internal issue and I got a few nasty emails.

I mean overall, Morin's food is exceptional and they had a great "open" house i went to and tings were very nice. Other brides used them in the past and loved them. I just had a bad experience. I would suggest attending one of their open houses. And other brides in the past said they are willing to work within all budgets.

Danielle at Blackstone has done nothing short of bending over backwards for me. She has arranged multiple tastings so my dad, who has an insane work schedule will be able ot accompany us, and has let me know each adn everytime she is heading to my venue so i can go in and see it all set up.

I also 2nd BnM their prices are fantasic. We are thinking of using them for our rehearsel as well!

krines01

I'm using Blackstone! They had a fantastic tasting, the food was so delicious and they set extra place setting for my fiancee's children and let them taste everything which I thought was very nice.  Karen is super helpful and we came up with a great menu that fits my budget. 

 Morins would not give us a tasting without booking them first...I didn't like that idea.

calindi

I'm a huge fan of Pranzi, but I am having my wedding just over the border in Groton, CT and we're having Emily's Catering.  Honestly, the best value I've seen!  The food is 'gourmet foodie' good, which is awesome, and they've been incredibly flexible and helpful with everything.