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Mr. Macarons and I are big time foodies. We’ve both traveled a lot, the mister far more than me, so we have pretty extensive palates. An average week’s meals could consist of bún thit nùóng, bulgogi, patatas con chorizo, madras curry, and maybe a little homemade udon when the temperature starts to drop. We’re always on the hunt for new places to eat, and if it’s a new cuisine, say Vietnamese, we make it a point to try every item on the menu and not to just stick with our safe bets.
So it should come as no surprise that we’re not fans of the average catering favorites. We wanted a menu that reflected our varying tastes and travels, but was still accessible to all of our guests.
My searches were coming up short, and then one caterer in particular came highly recommended. We’ll call him Foodie X. According to his website, he prides himself on custom menus based on your tastes and budget. Foodie X is also all about being upfront and honest about cost.
So I gave it a shot. I sent Foodie an initial email outlining the details about how many people we’d be expecting, as well as our budget. I told him we’d prefer a plated meal but we’d do stations if it’s all our budget allowed. I also gave him a little background info on the places we’ve traveled and some of our favorite dishes.
Foodie X promptly wrote back and said he was excited about working with us. He advised us to look at his website, as there were sample menus from the past, and said to let him know what we liked and didn’t liked so he could get a feel for us.
We did what Foodie X asked, but ultimately told him we wanted his creativity and to really push the limits. He thanked us for our input and told me he’d get back in touch with us in a week’s time with our custom menu and pricing.
Two weeks passed. And then another two. And then another. I figured he was busy from the holidays, but that our custom menu would be worth it.
I finally got an email and my jaw dropped to the floor, and not because I liked what I read. There was nothing custom about it—the menu he “made” for us was one taken right off his website, not to mention one of the entreés was one I explicitly said Mr. Mac and I did not approve of: Mother f&*@%#! spare ribs! We love us some ribs, but not on our wedding. I don’t care if you swear they’re not that messy because you remove the bone. Thanks, but no thanks.
Even so, I tried to remain calm and stay positive. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough and needed to give him more direction. Maybe my follow-up email got lost in a series of tubes? But that went out the window when I got to the pricing. It was two times our budget! TWO. FREAKIN. TIMES. And that was for a buffet, no less. The plated, if we so chose, would cost us almost an additional grand.
Needless to say, Foodie X never heard back from us again. I still can’t wrap my head around what Foodie X was thinking. Either he lost my emails or he just didn’t care. Were we too small of a wedding and not worth the trouble? Was our budget unrealistic? We laid our budget cards out on the table; he could have folded right then and there. He wasted over a month of our time, and clearly his.
Did anyone else have a WTF moment with a vendor?
We had a WTF moment when we were searching for florists. The first florist we spoke to knew we had a small budget to work with and she said she would provide us options that worked within our budget. When she got back to us a couple of weeks later, the proposal she sent us was more than twice what we told her our top limit was. Plus buried in the quote was a $400 delivery fee… are you kidding me? The florist we chose is only charging us $50 and worked within our budget beautifully.
We had the same problems with a caterer. I got all excited about a catering company because they said on their website that a certain menu was X amount/person. Then when I got into contact with them and told them our budget, they responded that it would be 2X/per person. I was like WTF??? I can understand upped cost because of tax and whatnot, but if total cost is 2X, don’t put X on your website as the cost!
Ugh how aggravating!! We went through a crazy moment last Saturday with our caterer (chef). We are foodies ourselves and were adament that we not serve the pilaf, chicken, roll dinner we usually get. That works for some, but I love cooking and trying new cusines so for us the food is a very important area. We decided to have our reception at a restaurant so that we could work with a chef and have the menu custommizable. We ate there before booking, we were blown away! He was also very eager to help us fit in wine peairings with our budget as well as dessert, I was on cloud nine! That is until I e-mailed him a rough estimate of guests (56), while eating there I had asked what the capacity is and his wife told me they could fit 58. So when I received an e-mail tell me they only have furniture, glassware, plates etc. to feed 40! He then said that 58 is their fire mrashal capacity and that includes all staff. Ugh…. save the dates had been sent and we had to cancel! I had even asked his wife if she was sure everyone could fit and she said that they can arrange to the tables so it would be fine. Wrong. He then suggested we just cut a few people and then rent the remaining necessary items! Yeah right. Thank goodness we were able to book another reception spot on such short notice (our wedding is in less than 5 months)! I was just shocked that that large of a miscommunication could actually happen, he seemed equally shocked that we had to cancel and weren’t willing to just chop our guest list by 16! Luckily the deposit wasn’t required until the menu was created and we didn’t have the final one yet, so we weren’t out any $. But it was enough stress to make me crazy!
oh yea! we HAd to have a foodie caterer as well. Luckily we found someone who was amazing and in budget. I’d try seeing if other placed could accomodate your non chicken standard ideas. Our caterer growned when we mentioned having 1 chicken appetizer… “chicken, really? well okay if you really want”. I loved them for being that awesome. We served salmon & pork.
That is so frustrating. I always wonder how people can runa business in such a manner that they blatently ignore their customers requests!
That is so annoying! I had a similar instance with a vendor that after meeting them took forever to get back to us with a price, that ended up being way high.
So frustrating! My fiance and I were thrilled to find out that we won an hour of ceremony music by a well-known string trio in the area. Until we started trying to get in touch with them….so far I have been pushed around to four different people from the organization — all of which either try to sell me on their other music for our whole day (well out of our price range) while saying we can use the prize we won as a discount, not an actual hour of music, or or just flat out do not respond after the initial contact! UGH, so much for winning it…
Our WTF moment came with the florist. I had a vision in mind, called a florist I use all the time and I was give a reasonable figure given what I was looking at. Then several friends advised me to try another florist for pricing. I met with said florist only to discover she was drinking paint thinner while writting my quote. I had a 2.5 hours meeting with her, specified exactly what I wanted. a week later she e-mailed me the quote and it was NONE of the flowers I wanted and 3 times the price of my original florist.
Oh hoh hoh. I went through hoops with several vendors. I finally found a caterer (thank God!).
They all reserved Saturdays for bigger weddings. (I tried, but Sundays and Weekdays just won’t work for my family!).
They basically told me that my wedding was too small to be important. Screw those guys. They’ll never get my business. Good luck finding a caterer.
I too have been getting the run-a-round from our caterer. I live in a different city from where my wedding is being held. Sooo, I went with the suggestions of a few of my family members. For the past two weeks I have been in town visiting and I have yet to still meet our caterer face to face. I can never get him on the phone when I am in town. I have only spoken to him on the telephone about what I I would like to have for our special day. I too know that it is wedding season so many caterers are really busy, but I am not sure about him. I am waiting on the quote as of now, I know if that is not what i was expecting then he is out the door.
I hate when vendors, or any business for that matter, does this! I understand that people are busy and lived get in the way, but at some point they need to learn customer service. I hope you found a wonderful caterer that deserves your business.
Ew this stinks! Sorry he got your hopes up for absolutely no reason.
Caterers have been our biggest headache. I actually had to dedicate an entire blog post to one of the caterers we were considering. To keep it short and sweet - we had been discussing venue and food options w/the owner’s wife (Mrs. S) since at least a year out. They are a full service catering service - food, 3 locations, rentals from over the top dishware to linens to decor. We loved talking with Mrs. S and since the location is very near FFIL’s, we’ve hung out w/the staff and they’re wonderful. We emailed back and forth w/Mr. S to start discussing food. We didn’t get to meet with him face to face until March. When we did, he didn’t ask a single question about the feel or type of day we were going for. Instead, he just kept trying to sell himself and his “tricks”. Instead of ordering lots of shrimp that “Uncle Bob” will pile on his plate, wasting your money, he orders a small amount of shrimp, fills up the display bucket with ice/crystals to make it look full, and spices the shrimp up so that “Uncle Bob” can only eat 1 or 2 instead of a dozen. So…you want me to pay for food no one can eat instead of paying for larger amounts that everyone would eat? When we didn’t praise him for his cunning, he moves onto the pitch of “well, I can got to Sam’s Club and get the shrimp there, or I can get you higher end shrimp, you just need to tell me what you want.” I can tell you what I don’t want - to pay you thousands of dollars to go to Sam’s! Little to say, we very quickly wrote Mrs. S back after the meeting and ruled Mr. S out as a potential caterer.
It’s a shame, too, they have all the makings of an incredible successful business but his personality and the way he handles people has really earned him a bad rep and will really hurt the business.
That is so frustrating! I had a couple moments like that with potential vendors. It got to the point where if they screwed me around then I didnt even consider booking them, no matter how good their product or service was. It saved my sanity.
i had something similar happen with the first florist i met! on our way to meet with her (we drove 2 hours), i get an email on my smartphone from her confirming our appointment. who sends out confirmations an hour before the appointment time? since she emailed me from what i’m assuming is her smartphone, i emailed back immediately telling her we were stuck in traffic and would be 15 minutes late. we get there, she looks annoyed that we’re late, i ask her if she got my email, and she pretends that she didn’t, although I can see she has a blackberry. she then proceeds to be rude, turn her nose up at our small florist budget, and when i asked her about how the flowers are kept fresh (completely honest question as i know nothing about florists, and she told me she works from home), she got all hoity toity and talked about how she’s a PROFESSIONAL and has a PROFESSIONAL refrigerator. The fiancee got so annoyed with her attitude that he stood up and left.
though her flower arrangements looked nicer, we ended up going with a guy who was super nice and bent over backwards to make us happy.
Caterers were the worst for me. My fiance and I had one in mind, since we had had his food at several events and loved it. I called his restaurant, had a really nice chat with him, he said he’d send over his sample menu and I should email him back with things I liked so that he could get an idea of what we wanted. I did. He never contacted us again. (I guess this is a common thing?) WTF?
So after giving him a couple weeks and a couple of unreturned phone calls, I found another caterer that seemed perfect — dedicated to local, organic, seasonal food. I emailed back and forth with the manager several times, we were *this close* to finalizing a menu. I told everyone they were my caterer. And then radio silence from them. I sent several increasingly desperate emails, the last one offering to send in a deposit and saying we could finalize the menu later. She finally wrote back saying they had given that date to another couple. WTF?
So now I’m freaking out. I contact anyone else I can find. Most don’t even return my calls. (WTF?)
One of the companies who did, however, was a caterer who I thought was totally out of my price range. Turns out they’re not, they’re awesome, and we booked them. SCORE! We had a tasting and the food blew me away. They’re also local/organic/seasonal/etc., as well as responsive to our various guests’ food allergies and restrictions, and I’m completely confident we’re going to have a WONDERFUL meal, which was one of my top priorities for the wedding.
So it definitely worked out, but I don’t know that I’d choose to go through it again. Finding a good caterer just sucks, I have decided.
Oh ya, I just experienced a similar catering oofda! Same deal; gave them our “vision”, our budget per head and when I got the quote back, it was nearly our ENTIRE wedding BUDGET!! *fail*
I guess they thought I wasn’t serious about the per person costs? Maybe they were hoping to “aim high” in hopes that we’d buy into a more expensive menu? ((Who knows?!!)) I DO know that they didn’t listen to us and that is a big fat red flag. Giving them one more shot…
That’s crazy!!! Good thing you decided not to work with him. Taking that long to respond is not professional!
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Mrs. Macarons, Tampa Age and Occupation: 26, Graphic Designer Fiance's Age and Occupation: 34, Renaissance Man Engagement Date: September 12, 2009 Wedding Date: September 2011 Venue: Lange Farm About Me: I'm creative at heart and a graphic designer with an unhealthy obsession with type. I love roller coasters, spicy foods, and a good glass of Crianza. We’re planning a soft and lovely vintage-meets-modern wedding in a state that’s known for its beaches, glitz and glam. I have a ton of DIY projects and lots of little details I’m dying to share and can't wait to celebrate with our closest friends and family.
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