Weddingbee Blog

Vendor reviews ahead. Hopefully this is helpful for folks looking for a caterer in the Washington, DC, and surrounding areas. Here’s our experience:

Long awaited were the days when we’d be narrowing down the search for our caterer, going to private tastings, and determining our menu. We knew early on this was going to be our toughest decision after choosing where to get married, especially since we have to bring in an outside caterer to our venue. Nevertheless, we felt up to the challenge! I mean, who doesn’t love free food?

Let me start by saying we had no idea which catering company to choose or where to even begin our search. We gathered information from anyone and everywhere. We looked to the blogs to keep us abreast of open houses, tastings and events, and also made sure we compared places we read about in local directories like the Knot.

Our First Taste: Caribbean Caterers

Overall Experience: ****

Food Experience: **

Our first tasting was at an open house event at Caribbean Caterers. We heard about it during the bridal show at our venue. The facility was really difficult to find, as it’s a warehouse. It’s in the middle of nowhere and it seriously looks like a shack on the outside. They did a good job dressing up the inside, though.

Caribbean Caterers’ event was completely DECKED OUT with tablescapes of beautiful vibrant linens and gorgeous flowers. There were candles everywhere and centerpieces, both big and small. We were escorted to our table and management was very friendly. We were impressed, to say the least! The setup really blew us away, and the service was impeccable. They served a soup for the first course and the main entrees were served buffet style.

While we really liked the experience, we weren’t crazy about the food. The food was pretty good, but it was our first tasting and we wanted to be blown away. When we left, we both knew we had more looking to do. When we compared notes, we realized neither of us went back for seconds, and there were a few weird dishes to us. The one dish we both really, really liked was the macaroni and cheese!

Windows Catering:

Overall Experience: *****

Food Experience: *****

Our second open house event was at Windows and it proved to be the most impressive. We later attended a private tasting with Windows as well, which was also very impressive.

Situated in a convenient area of Alexandria, we were greeted by free valet parking, which was awesome since it was a rainy day! As we walked inside, our mouths literally dropped looking at the huge centerpiece focal point in the main room. It was gorgeous!

They has a complimentary champagne bar and live band, and the food was out of this world! It was the unique and tasty. They had a full dinner buffet with everything, including sushi, as well as two full dessert bars! It was to die for! We were only there about a half hour, but we left so happy! It was a very, very nice event and they made an awesome first impression!

Marco Polo Caterers

Overall Experience: ***

Food Experience: *

Apparently Marco Polo has been the in the business for a really long time. Mr. B works nearby their restaurant and that’s how we caught wind of their catering service. Again, we attended an open house tasting, loved the food, and scheduled a private tasting.

The private tasting was somewhat of a letdown for us. They have a lot of choices for you to chose from, so it could have been that the entrees we asked for were the bad apples, but either way we weren’t impressed at all. The pork dish was our least favorite, and that’s surprising since my fiance LOVES pork; but even he couldn’t stomach it.

The other thing that really stood out for us was the size of their hors d’oeuvres. They were really tiny, and there was no way they’d hold our guests over until dinner. I’m talking minuscule meatballs and cucumber bites! It was not at all what we had in mind.

It was hard to walk away from MP because they had a really awesome representative. She was very fast in responding to our inquiries and followed up with us constantly. In the end, it was the price (and the pork) that we couldn’t deal with.

BasiKneads:

Overall Experience: ***

Food Experience: ***

BasiKneads was recommended to us by our planner. We went to their facility for a private tasting (it was our first private event) and had a very good experience. We really liked the chef and his assistant. They were very really laid back, accommodating, and nice.

The food was pretty good, too! We absolutely LOVED the chef’s flank steak with barbecue sauce. It was so delicious! It would have no doubt been a hit among our carnivore-loving family, and paired with the chef’s mac and cheese, definitely something our guest would have been talking about!

With BK, we could tell the chef was willing to work with us. He said they would cook anything we wanted, even family recipes if we provided them, and would tweak their food to match our tastes! They also seemed like the least expensive option. Their prices are significantly lower than some of the other companies we had looked at.

To be completely honest there were two things that totally turned us off from BK: (1) The proposal price was only valid for about 30 days. I could be wrong about that, but basically, we had to make a decision soon if we wanted to get the deal and we knew we couldn’t come up with the deposit that quick. (2) There was a fish dish that the chef served during our tasting that made my stomach turn. It was odd to us that he chose to serve this, because he didn’t have enough of the same thing for both of us. Mr. B got salmon and I got tilapia, and neither of us liked either.

We were really close to choosing BK to cater our wedding, and I’m sure they would have done a great job. We obviously could have just chose to serve something other than that fish, but they were our first private tasting and we wanted to give other companies a try.

Puttin’ on the Ritz:

Overall Experience: ****

Food Experience: ****

We actually met the representative for Puttin’ on the Ritz at the vendor showcase in November when we first discovered our venue. I fell in love with the crab dip they had on display there and we inquired with them shortly after. At that time, we weren’t sure how many guests we would have and when we asked for a quote for 150 people, the per person cost blew us away! We pretty much deleted their email and forgot all about them.

When things with BK and MP didn’t go well, we decided to email POTR again. I don’t know why, but for some reason a year later their proposal looked much more affordable. I don’t think they lowered their prices or anything, I just think we had no idea what we were looking at (or what to expect) in the beginning. Our guest list also shrunk significantly to 100 people.

The first thing we noticed when we took a closer look at POTR was our ability to completely customize our menu until it suited our budget. There were also a lot of extras that were included in the price, like a market display of cheese and fruit, as well as a dip of our choice. At many of the other places we researched these types of add ons could run anywhere from $2-$4 per guest! We were so glad to see it was included, because that meant more bang for our buck!

Our tasting at POTR was fabulous, too! It took us forever to get there, but it was definitely worth the trip! The food was DELICIOUS and the hors d’oeuvres were pretty (yay for pretty food!). The size of the hors d’oeuvres were huge, too! There was only one thing we really didn’t like and that was the fettuccine alfredo.

Whew. That’s a lot of food talk! Can you tell why this was such a hard decision? There are a lot of good places around here to chose from! Can you guess who we chose?