Any MacRay Harbor brides out there??

kd1986

I'm having my reception at MacRay Harbor in Harrison Twp, and am trying to schedule my food tasting, but have some venting to do and am wondering if anyone else has had/is having their reception there and what your experience has been!

Milsey32

I went to a reception there and absolutely loved it - sorry you're having trouble!

kd1986

Alright well, here it goes!  This is long. 

...So at MacRays you set up your food tasting on an individual basis, it's not a "mass tasting" like some reception halls have.  We plan to have individual plated dinners at the reception.

So I contacted my reception coordinator at MacRays, telling her we'd like to schedule our tasting, and asking what I needed to do to make this happen.  She came back and told me that it would be free for my FI and I, and $15 per additional family member we chose to bring.  Totally fine.  She then asked which entrees we would like to try.

Well, we're allowed to offer one beef, one fish, and one chicken option at our wedding.  Therefore, I responded to her that just my FI and I would be attending, and we'd like to try the single beef option in our budget (prime rib), 2 of the chickens, and 2 of the fish options.  She responded that we would only be able to choose 2 entrees TOTAL to try, as they make them into full plated portions, not sample sizes, and we also could not try the prime rib because they would have to make an entire piece of meat, which would serve many more people. 

Now first of all, how is it a tasting to decide what you'd like to offer at your wedding if you arent even allowed to try multiple different things to make a choice?  Putting this whole issue aside, we finally decided to just bring along 2 additional family members, pay $15 each, and try 4 entrees total, 2 of the fish and 2 of the chicken. 

Now onto hors doeurvres.  We're doing tray passed hors doeurvres, and are able to choose 3 for the night of the wedding.  There are 8 different options for these try passed hors doeurvres.  Our wedding coordinator told me to pick 3 of them to try at the tasting.  Now again...if we choose 3 to taste, and don't like one, we're taking a shot in the dark that one of the 5 that we DIDN'T get the opportunity to taste, is decent enough to serve at the wedding.  Why arent we getting to try more than 3 so we can actually make a choice which ones we like best?  So I write back, asking her if there's a charge to taste more than three, and she writes back and simply says:

"At 6pm on January 28th you'll be tasting 6 hors doeurvres.  Make sure to remember which 3 you like.  Any questions?"

Not only has she continued to come across rude in her emails to me (I promise I'm VERY bubbly in response to her!), but in the very last response, when she didn't address my question as to an extra charge to taste additional hors doeuvres (which I'd be willing to pay), but she simply said we'd now be tasting 6 of the 8.  Well how do I know which 6 of the 8 she's letting us try?  Now suddenly I don't get to choose what we're tasting?

I'm going nuts!  She's always been very short in her email responses, very vague, causing me to ask more quesitons for clarification, and then in her responses to my questions, makes me feel like I'm being annoying!  Why don't these places have set guidelines as to how they handle these things!  Tell me up front so I dont have to bombard you with questions!!!

Oh man what a day Congratulations if you made it to the end of my rant!!!

acaponi87

I read the whole thing! And that's really annoying. Sorry you're having to deal with all that and good for you for stlill trying to be bubbly. I'd give it another day (for you to get less angry) and then call her. People tend to be less pissy over the phone.  And then you can probably clear things up in one 5 minute conversation rather than a whole bunch of emails that you probably don't want to write and she probably doesn't want to read/respond to.

Good luck and make sure to let us know how the tasting goes! I love hearing about food

sparkles776

i read the whole thing too. Im sorry thats happening to you, it has to be very frustrating. I agree, I would wait a couple of days and then call her.

kd1986

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_michigan-detroit_macray-harbor-brides-out-there?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:88Discussion:2e0e5b9e-78ff-4535-bf07-f82c6ca21ec7Post:13242e81-a9df-4cf0-9c25-a4d5f9e538d9">Re: Any MacRay Harbor brides out there??</a>:
[QUOTE]FWIW, we didn't get to taste all of our entrees either at our reception place.  We had fish, chicken, and beef and we only were able to try the fish and chicken.  And we only got to taste a few of the sides. Would it have been nice to try everything?  Absolutely but I guess it wasn't that big of a deal for us.  I'm a picky eater and wasn't making the food decisions in general (since if we had my way everyone would be eating pasta) and DH was so thrilled that the butter had little MSU Spartan heads on it he didn't seem to care about what he was being served at the tasting.  In the end, we figured that even if we didn't like it others might and if we liked it others might not.  It really was a shot in the dark anyway and just hoped for the best :) The food ended up being really good.
Posted by emarston1[/QUOTE]

Thanks :)  This information actually really does help.  I just don't know what's "normal" in general (though I know there probably isn't a 'normal').  I guess in my mind, based on what other brides have told me, tastings involve tasting multiple dishes and then choosing, hence the reason for the tasting in the first place.  But it sounds like you tried a similar number of dishes to what they were telling me we could try, so that makes me feel a bit more relaxed about it.  I thought maybe I was getting cheated of a tasting experience!  I do love food :)