Wedding Blog

jann’s - I think when you do a tasting totally depends on the caterer. The one we booked did a consult and tasting before we signed. We did that with one other, and did a plain old consult like you mention with another caterer.

If you want to try to food first, I would have a few more consults and ask for tastings once you have it narrowed down to a couple or few caterers. This is just my opinion, so someone else might chime in you should have a tasting every time. Maybe it’s regional, too. Either way, I would definitely taste food before booking whenever possible.

As far as food quality a year later, I guess you just hope for the best. Our wedding will be a year after our tasting and I just assumed same chef, same quality!

If you don’t like the decorating, don’t book the caterer or tell them you’d like to try something different. If you have a coordinator or florist who can work it, perhaps let the caterer know that he/she will be taking care of arranging the tables with the caterer.

Bottom line, you’re paying and these people will be working for you, so I think you should get what you pay for and what you are comfortable with. Don’t be afraid to voice concerns in a friendly, professional and productive manner, because you are working with the caterers in many regards.

bliss - Nope! I got my invite for an August 11th wedding yesterday, and I haven’t even sent mine out for my July 7th wedding. I didn’t even give it a second thought!

Andria - I know the ones I had sampled were metallics, and I thought the quality was nice–were yours metallics? I know others have ordered through My Gatsby and other sites–not as affordanble, always, but maybe a better quality.

Andria–do consider that your invitation is probably going to have many, many additional layers, most if not all printed on 65-80 lb cover stock. My pocketfolds (from a different company) weren’t exactly the sturdiest thing out there when they started, but once they had three cards and an envelope inside and two more layers pasted to the front, they were solid.

Bliss– if yoru invites are over one oz, it makes sense to wait. They rate for heavier things is actually going down! Just make sure if you do send thiem out before the increase that you account for the NEW rates in your rsvps.

hmm… thought I posted this before but it didn’t show up.
Andria- I sampled several pocketfolds from the same company. I liked the ones I sampled, but for some reason I did not like the coco paper–the color was a bit off. It doesn’t sound like that is your reason for not liking it, but perhaps you’d like a different color better (or try the brown from a different vendor). good luck!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I had this big plan that I was going to order the invitations and inserts from Jean M, and then order the invitation mat and pocketfold from Cards and Pockets. I suppose when you add in everything that is where your weight comes from. But, like I said, when I opened mine up, the part where the invitation would be glued on was curving up on me, leading me to think that when I glued my invitation on, it would take a long time to dry and even then I’d be concerned about it just popping off when I opened it.

And the only other thing is that the pocket for the inserts seemed so small width-wise. I don’t even think my inserts that I was thinking of ordering would fit in there. I wasn’t interested in doing my own printing so that’s why I wasn’t considering just ordering blank invitations and mats from C&P. I don’t know…to me it almost looked like a “mini-invitation”, especially considering the size of the insert pocket. Oh well, at least now I know and I can rethink everything with time to spare.

andria - i felt the same way about those pocketfold - try mygatsby. the card stock is heavier and the quality is much better. the price is a bit more, but i think it’s worth it!

Yeah, one impression I never had was that Cards and Pockets wasn’t interested in delivering great customer service. They have been very helpful and kind to me, and I like the idea of supporting a smaller business. I’ll just have to see!

Jann - the first (and only, actually) caterer we met with not only came to us from the other side of DFW, but brought us samples of her food - enough to feed me, FH, and both FH’s parents - for free. I couldn’t imagine dealing with a food company that didn’t let me try the food. Not for that many people, and certainly not for that much money. Why should you have to waste a whole bunch of time talking quotes, rental needs and other various details they WON’T be handling if the food’s no good? I think a tasting for at least you and your FH should be complimentary off the bat - if they are hoping to get thousands of your dollars, they can fork over a piece of chicken to split between you. You wouldn’t order your wedding cake without sampling it first (in-house and required bakeries the exception here) so why should you expect less from a caterer?

As for the food tasting the same, you could approach it one of two ways. First, have a taste of the food from the chef. Include in your contract that if in the next year the chef leaves and a new one is hired, you can have a taste of the new chef’s food, make a decision, and have the option to get out of the contract if it’s not up to standards. Including the chef by name in your contract should take care of this, nullifying your obligations if they pull any type of switcheroo. OR, you can have a taste now, sign a contract, and arrange to have another tasting say two months before the wedding, just to make sure nothing has changed too drastically. The catering company should be fine with this, as the assumption should be that the chef’s culinary skills will only improve with time.

Miss Popcorn - I wouldn’t put anything on my satin shoes that didn’t explicitly say it would work on satin. No use ruining a good (and potentially expensive) pair of shoes if the whole mess could be avoided by spending a few bucks on satin-friendly sprays. I have a feeling your gut thought the same thing, or you would have done it already

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions!

Andria -
I had the same experience, I ended up buying my pocketfolds through the invite girls who designed my invites. They are made by Marsupial and such a better quality than Cardsandpockets. GL!!

i used mygatsby.com as well. i was actually pleasantly surprised by the quality. my invites looked so much better in real life and after constructing them i thought they were beautiful. they also sent a few extra invites for free.

also i would used double sided tape instead of glue to put together the parts. i used memory tape runner permanent bond which i bought from michaels for $10 (included 1 refill) and $4 for refills and the invites look perfect (i think we’re using a total of 6 for 100 invites).