Miss Peacock, Chicago
Age and Occupation: 26, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Internet Whiz
Engagement Date: December 5, 2006
Wedding Date: September, 2008
Blogging Since: December 13, 2007
Venue: St. Clement Church, Cafe Brauer (or a big church wedding and a fancy party at a cafe in Lincoln Park.
About Me: I am a grad student with a secret obsession for all things wedding related. I also love to read, travel, drink champagne and go for walks with our dog, Maisy, and Mr. Peacock. We are planning our very vintage wedding in the greatest city in the world, our hometown of Chicago. I am so proud to be a Bee!
I Have Issues With Food
June 13th, 2008 @ 1:33 pm by Mrs. Peacock
We picked our caterer very carefully. It is, by far, our biggest expense. There are quite a few good caterers in Chicago, each with a unique perspective on cooking and serving. After emailing the ten caterers on our venue’s preferred caterer list, we requested sample proposals from the six that responded. We read through all of their materials and menus and considered the customer service that we had received thus far. We narrowed the list down to two.
Both were large catering companies, well known in Chicago, with very experienced head chefs. One of my bridesmaids worked for Company A at the time, although she was in their marketing department and we were assigned a different sales person. Company B’s sales person blew me away with her customer service and their take on fresh, local products really impressed me and Mr. Peacock. They also have an “assistant” who is, basically, at our beck and call that evening- setting up place cards, making sure that Mr. P and I have drinks and appetizers and packing up our gifts at the end of the night. Sweet, right?
My first tasting was with Company B. Mr. Peacock was not able to come with me, so I dragged my BFF Erin along and we took notes. There were a few misses, but most of the food was really amazing. We were able to pack up and take home the leftovers, which Mr. P devoured right when he walked in the door. The food was cold and anything that was originally crunchy was no longer, but he still loved it. Company A’s tasting was nothing compared to Company B. They tried to pass off a mini quiche as a deep dish pizza (Come on! We live in Chicago!) and they didn’t take any of our suggestions into consideration when preparing the tasting menu. The customer service was also sub par. In fact, I still haven’t heard from them since the tasting a year and a half ago.
I happily called Company B to let them know of my decision. Since then, I have had quite a few wonderful conversations with my sales person. She was always prompt, emailing me back within 10 minutes of sending it, even on Sundays! Her knowledge of the business was incredible.
Then, I got the email of doom #1- she was leaving Company B to become a hot shot at another big catering company. I was honestly heartbroken. I set up one last meeting with her and her “replacement” (I will call her Sally) so that I could feel confident in their services again. The meeting went well and I walked away assured. Until email of doom #2 arrived from Sally, introducing me to the true replacement, “Nancy”. Apparently Sally was simply filling in during the interim. I could either decide to stay with her or work with Nancy. I left the topic alone for awhile to think about it. I was confused, and very unhappy with how they had handled the situation. I was set to meet with Sally again at the rental company’s warehouse to select our chairs, tables, dishes, etc. in a few weeks and I would make a decision after that meeting.
Sally didn’t show up at the warehouse. In response to an email that I had sent her the night before, she called me that morning to let me know that she wasn’t aware of the meeting (although we had discussed it at our first meeting) and that she didn’t need to be with me. She felt that my mom and I could handle it without her. She was wrong. The warehouse visit went poorly because their salespeople weren’t sure what Company B would need to prepare the food, serve the coffee and create the bar. I wasn’t able to place my order and I walked away crabby.
I have my first meeting with Nancy this afternoon. I am already frustrated with them. I am very concerned because this is our biggest bill and the vendor that I will have the most contact with leading up to the wedding day. I chose Company B because the food was good, but truly it was for the customer service. I hadn’t been planning on hiring a Day of Coordinator, but these experiences (along with conversations that I have had with other Company B brides and coordinators) have caused me to rethink that move. The wedding is in less than three months. It has been smooth sailing until this point, and now I am starting to worry.
Has anyone else had a big vendor flake out on them so close to the wedding day?
9 Responses to “I Have Issues With Food”
Ours isn’t close to our wedding day, but our coordinator at our venue (they handle it all, onsite chef, tables, tent, etc) left and since then my comfort in our venue has declined. All the current brides have said that their days were perfect, but leading up to the wedding day was horrible! The person that left sounds very similar to the one you loved - very responsive, made you feel special, now we can’t even get a call back!
I have hired a day of coordinator though, as I just want to make sure I don’t have to worry about anything, and that does ease my mind a little.
I’m so sorry to hear about your troubles! Just have faith that everything will turn out!
What I find odd is that I work with caterers for my fundraising events and have zero to no problems, but the catering I am using for my venue has done a fake out on me! I need to post about this, but to keep it brief, after signing our contract I contacted our catering manager to schedule a tasting. At this point she informed me that tasting cost an additional $500 dollars. I was furious! Although, this isn’t a fake-out before the wedding I felt very deceived!
If you get a DOC just b/c of the caterer, you should try to negotiate your catering contract down a bit….would you consider going to the new caterer your original sales lady went to? To big of a deposit?
I’m so sorry. We also had an *amazing* experience with our sales person, only to have to venue (which also does our catering) drop the ball after they made the sale. 
We hugely made the decision on food and like you, customer service!
The event manager assigned to us was unresponsive and hurried when I tried to speak to her. She also gave very poor advice and clearly did not know weddings or her own job very well. My fiance called our friendly sales person and complained, so we were assigned to a new event manager.
This person has also been very slow to return phone calls and emails and we got a little nervous, so we are meeting with her today. I hope all goes well.
And I hope it works out for you, too. Put it in writing - they take it more seriously! And don’t be afraid to speak up. {{hugs}}
I have just started planning my wedding and Catering is a huge point for me as I work for a high-end hotel company that has built a reputation on service and food quality. Since having a reception at a hotel is not my gig nor would I want to have my wedding where I work (plus I work in catering &meeting planning,) we are off to Florida. Customer service and food/beverage service the night of the event are going to be hot points for me.
From what I have seen on my side the more you escalate your cause and explain your issues to someone higher up you probably will get better service. I hate to say this but I have seen clients get nasty and complain that they are not getting the service they are expecting. This puts them on everyone’s radar since the ones below need to listen to the message from the one that is higher up.
I have been on the side when a bride has been handed over to 2 or 3 catering managers and it is not fun! We know the bride is or has started to lose confidence in us so we know we need to kick it up a notch with customer service. Nobody likes to repeat themselves 3 or 4 times. I hope this helps.
Unfortunately, I think the change of hands in point people is part for the course in an industry with such high turnover. It happened to me, and under similar circumstances. Like other said, you just have to take it to a more senior manager.
We’re now 2 weeks out from the wedding and my best advice to you is to make sure your DOC has ALL the details down and can wrangle any wayward caterers.
Thank you all for the consolation! I’m sorry that I am not the only one dealing with this problem I am definitely hiring a DOC. My meeting with “Nancy” went well, but I am still not totally confident in their abilities. I have no problem raising the issues to the next level if I need to!
Miss Peacock,
You’re article is very interesting. I just had my wedding at Cafe Brauer on June 7th and used “Company B”. I know exactly who you are talking about in terms of leaving (starts with P) and “Nancy” is probably the same person we used as her replacement. Imagine having P leave around 1 month before the wedding! That is the most important time of all.
We were very upset and initially dealt with another person (I’m not sure if it was “Sally” but whoever it was was horrible). When Nancy took over, things were better but everything did not go smoothly as they would have with P.
Please let me know if you want more details as I can give you more info especially with regards to how the food was at the wedding versus the tasting.
Good luck, and my best advice is to make sure no detail gets forgotten by Nancy. That might mean calling her 5 times a day leading up to the wedding, but at this point her experience level is no where near P’s. You may also want to raise your concerns to a higher level
Chris
p.s. I just got an email yesterday from Nancy (no phone call) that they forgot to bill us for one of the dishes. Now we’ll have to pay even more after shelling out a huge amount of money already.
