Caterers -- Please chime in!

KCLindgren

Hello!  Looking for some opinions from you lovely married/engaged girls! 

We have narrowed the catering list to 3:

Catering by Christine
Coastal Gourmet
Gourmet Galley Catering

Fiance and I are looking at menus & proposals....Help me/us decide!!!  Thanks!!

missmarry2013

Gourmet Galley Catering or Coastal Gourmet.  My sister used Catering by Christine.  The day worked out and the food was amazing but there were a lot of communication issues or lack of communication, which caused stressed for her. 

KCLindgren

Ok, that is good to know.  Anyone else have experience with these 3 caterers?  Thank you!

Betje81

We are using Coastal Gourmet and love them!  The food at our tasting was very good and we love the cakes their baker made!  Keri is so great to work with too.  She's been very patient and had some great suggestions too.

We were between Coastal and Gourmet actually.  We truely loved Gourmet and everything they had to offer but unfortunately they ended up being out of our budget because they don't include linens and plates, etc in their pricing.  With Gourmet they guide you with rental companies and then whatever you get will be added on to the price- if they had included all the stuff we could have found a way to have them but alas we couldn't.  

Teacherbride77

Same here with Gourmet Galley...they were way out of our budget.  I am waiting on a proposal from Coastal.  I got a good vibe from Keri & hope the proposal we receive from her is within budget.  We have Krause catering as our back up if Coastal doesn't work out. Did you have a tasting with any of these caterers??

 

Betje81

Keri is awesome!  And she definitely is really good about staying within your set budget.  She even gave us a high and a low proposal within our range which was really nice to be able to see what we could get.  We did the group tasting which was cool since we got to taste a whole bunch of different options and not just what we originally picked at our first meeting (ended up changing a few of our options based on the tasting).  

Krause- we were set to meet with Heidi at Krause catering but when I set up and appointment (we originally said one time but realized with travel time from new Haven it was better to make it 15 min later) and showed up at the location, she was no where to be found and left several messages.  We  gave her 20 min and then left.  Apparently she thought we had scheduled it 15 min earlier then we had eventually agreed upon and waited a bit and when we didn't show up- she left since she had had a long busy weekend and went home to rest.  She never called to see where we were and we literally arrived probably 5 min after she left- on time for the time we had actually set.  Wasn't too pleased with that-would have liked a phone call at least.  She may have good food and reasonable pricing but after that experience we didn't care.  Just our experience

KCLindgren

Yes, we've decided against Gourmet Galley for that reason--they are too expensive! I'm talking almost 2,000 over what the others were asking.

Betje81

They are expensive!  We stupidly didn't discuss budget when we met with Emily and when we got the proposal it was crazy over and even with whittling it down it was still over budget (and without all the rentals too!).  I was sad because all the food sounded amazing but you need a rather large budget to use them I think.

KCLindgren

Any feedback about Catering by Christine (other than what pp said)? We did a tasting with them today and their package may be too tempting to pass up!!! Great price!!

Teacherbride77

I really would love to go with Coastal G but the proposal we got yesterday was about $100/pp!! Yikes!! I know she said she can work with us but I'm just not sure if she can go low enough for us.:(

The $20/pp rental fee is killing me since some caterers include that in their pp quote that we've met with already. I tell ya though, their food proposal sounds Ah-mazing!! LOL I wish money wasn't an issue!

KC-Can you share the package Catering by Christine offers? I havent reached out to them yet.

KCLindgren

The package from Catering by Christine was around what Coastal Gourmet asked. BUT, we found tremendous value in their plan (champagne toast, day of coordination, surf and turf entree, butler service for bride and groom, and 5 hours of bar--coastal gourmet did not offer those things and they offer only 4.5 hrs of bar). Also, Catering by Christine does several tastings and Coastal Gourmet only allows one tasting per couple. They make you sign the contract and give deposit before you taste the food. That turned me off.

KCLindgren

Oh and C by Christine only does two events a day so the owners (husband and wife) can each be present at the event.

And the food at the tasting yesterday was yummy!

Teacherbride77

good to know, I'm sure they're already booked for my date but I'll still check them out. Thanks for posting!