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Need some more information...
Where is your wedding located? What kind of food are you looking for? Sit down or buffet? Casual or formal? BBQ? Inside or Outside?
What kind of feel do you want your wedding to have? And last but not least, what is your budget?
Thank you for responding TPHoliday :-)
Where is your wedding located? Thornewood Castle
What kind of food are you looking for? Not sure yet. Depends on the cost.
Sit down or buffet? Not sure yet. Depends on the cost.
Casual or formal? Semi-formal to formal
BBQ? Definately not.
Inside or Outside? Depenendant upon the weather. Right now, we are saying inside, but if the weather is nice, we want to move it outside.
What kind of feel do you want your wedding to have? Intimate; we are only having 50 guests.
And last but not least, what is your budget? I really don't want to go over $1,000.00 for just the food. I realize that set up, settings, etc., will be extra. I already have my linens and charger plates.
Hmm, you're going to have a bit of a hard time finding something elegant on that budget. Look at it from a per person perspective. That is only $20 per person.
What time of day is your wedding? What day of the week is it?
Check Brown's Catering. I don't believe they had a minimum and I think they were close to $20/person. Their cost included linens though but you could probably get them to set yours up for you. I checked them out but my venue only allowed their exclusive caterer.
Are you interested in a no name-ish to save money? My mom's friend caters for the church but takes side jobs as well. She catered my sisters 300 person wedding this last August and her food is always amazing. I thought I would throw that out there. This isn't a "my sister's boyfriends mom did a church picnic once" situation. She's been working there for many years and books quite a few events throughout the year. She's also started a cupcake business.
Another option my cousin did was her mom and grandmother and a friend cooked all the food and hired some other people to serve it. They had salad, meatballs, rice, and a few other items. Mostly things you could cook in crockpots. The cost per person (for food only) was less than $6.50/person and there was TONS of leftovers.
Buffet is going to be cheaper. It takes a lot less man power. But I see now that you want semi formal to formal. Does a buffet qualify as at least semi formal? I think it probably does but you are probably going to want chicken or steak although I wouldn't serve steak in a buffet unless you had a carving station or something. Which, by the way, Brown's catering will do.
Thank you TPHoliday and Talishazwi.
I am looking at it as a per person cost, and that cost is just for the food. The wedding is at 1:30 and the reception will be directly following. Buffet does qualify for semi-formal and a no name-ish might be just what I am looking for. I did check with Brown's and they told me that they have a $4.400.00 minimum.
Have you looked into in home special catering companies? I don't know if they exist here - - They are companies that don't have restaurants per se and only do small intimate catering events. That might be right up your alley or something of interest...Oh have you looked into the below!?!?!? I think having a lovely buffet will help keep your costs down - - oh what about family style? That may help, you know a few dishes per table - that can still be really nice and enjoyable....
I do catering on the side for friends and loved ones, and I think jackie-o is right on target. I would offer my skills to you, but I'm not licensed. I'll look around in my network and see if any of my friends are doing catering anymore, if that will help?
It doesn't hurt to call up companies and if they can't help you, ask them who they would go too for a catering company. Don't be afraid of being assertive with them.
Thank you so much for your help ladies.
@jackie-o: I will look into the ones that you have suggested. Right now we have tastings set up with Snuffins and Mama Sortinis. I haven't heard of any special catering companies, but I am open to that and also the family style would be good too. Thank you for the leads.
@TPHoliday: I will try to be assertive. I didn't think about asking them to refer me to someone else. Thank you for looking in your network for me.
I appreciate you both very much :-)
I LOVE Lake Street Catering. I think Pretzel might be using them for her rehersal dinner too.
Yep! Joey's right lake city catering is doing our RD... reminds me I need to blog on that. :) They are amazing and will work with your budget. I also am using City Catering- Rebecca is the gal I work with. They are also very flexible and super awesome.
I am also having my wedding at thornewood! Such a beautiful venue i love it. As for catering we have a very small budget and found its cheaper to make some of the easy things ourselves, but for the meat (we are going with huli huli hawaiian teryaki chicken) we are going to order it from a hawaiian restaurant that does catering and party platters and will make enough for the number of people your having. We are also only having 50 people. Also if you want it all catered i beleive their full catering service starts at 15 dollars a person and includes a LOT of things.
Either way keep us updated as to what you do! Im very interested in knowing since we have the same venue and amount of people lol
Thank you pretzel and caborrett.
@caborrett: I just had to have Thornewood when I saw it. Your wedding is before mine, but I will update this post when I have more information. We just ordered our cake today from Mike's Amazing Cakes, and they are truly amazing. And the price is fair too.
We have caterer tastings set up for the 17th and the 24th and another one is going to send us a proposal to reveiw before we go do a tasting. I am glad the cake is done. We only have the caterer and music left to set up. Then I just have a ton of DIY to do.
same here, just had to have thornewood. if you dont mind me asking what was your price range for your cake? we also did a tasting at mikes amazing cakes and really want to go with them but i wasnt sure if they did a 2 tier rather then 3 tier since we are only having 50 people. grats on getting the cake part done though! i love when i get things checked off the long list of things to do before the wedding. I hear you on the DIY things to do, i have a ton of that and i only have a few months! time flies too fast lol
Ou ou, I'm another Thornewood bride :D My catering budget's a bit higher than yours (family and fiancé objected loudly when I told them my plan of a fruit plate, cake, and strawberry lemonade, lol,) but maybe my data will be helpful anyway. We're havaing to cut real wedding cake for favor of cupcakes and cut a lot of the flower/decorating/dress budget to make room, but having a lot of food seems to be important to a large majority of my family so sacrifices must be made! :)
I started out speaking with Herban Feast which was delicious, but waaay out of our price range. They quoted between $7400 - $8500 for ~100 people (we're only having 50-75, but they price based on 100? I dunno, it was confusing and too high out of our budget to make it worth getting more details) I'm sure they'd have been delicious, but at least they've got a storefront restaurant we can eat at and only pay for 2 people at. ;)
The Caterer we ended up signing with was Snuffins Catering. The first option they quoted us was around $4500 but that was for two entrees, hor'dourves, vegetarian options, chocolate covered strawberries, breads, salad, and a bartender. They seemed to be pretty flexible with prices ranges so they might be worth checking out. The hor'dourves we had at the tasting were delicious. :)
The main shock to be was finding out how much the wait staff (even for a buffet like we're planning) adds to the budget. I was not prepared for that. x.x
I can't wait to see how all our weddings turn out! I love seeing photos of other bee's weddings at Thornewood, we're all so different. :D
@caborrett: Our cake ended up being $503.25. That includes a $100 delivery/setup fee and enough cake for 75 people. I know we aren't going to have that many, but we thought everyone might like a taste of each. I don't have a picture of it, but it is a three tier hexagon with a double swag and two dots on the 6" and the 10". The 8" will have a rose garland around it. We decided on 7 large pink airbrushed roses for the top of the cake and there will be a 1/2" green chocolate ribbon band with a bow around each layer. The cake itself will be finished in smooth ivory butter cream and it will be on a gold base. I gave them swatches of our colors, so they could match the decorations. The bottom flavor will be chocolate with cookies and cream mousse and the top two layers will be lemon with marionberry mousse. They will deliver the cake at noon to set up. They require 1 1/2 hours. I have no idea. It can't be that hard to set up a cake.
@Rivenchan: I know the "help" can cost almost as much as the food. I am looking forward to meeting with Snuffins this weekend. That is who we are leaning toward, but we a still going to check out some others.
Are you both using Thornewoods linens and centerpeices? And what about the music. We have a harpist and a flutist set up for the ceremony, but we are still working on what to do for the reception. We are supplying our own linens because I want the tablecloths to go to the floor, but we will be using their centerpeices.
I would also love to see both of your wedding pictures :-)
I am actually using their linens and not their centerpeices. If i didnt have my heart already set on submerged flowers i would use their centerpeices though. We are doing a ipod for the ceremony and for the reception. Some classical music while we eat, then some fun music for the dancing. Its very conveniant that they have a great sound system! Ill definately set up pictures of our wedding. Just crossing my fingers it doesnt rain so i can get that garden ceremony.
We are definately going with Mikes Amazing Cakes, and doing the chocolate cake with kalua mousse that has chocolate bits in it, and also having the banana cake, not sure what filling with that one yet though. Their cakes are so good.
@caborrett:
Their cakes are really good. We are having their chocolate cake with cookies and cream mousse and their lemon cake with marionberry cream cheese mousse. I had like three pieces of each of them when we went to order our cake. Yummy!!! I just wish they didn't charge so much for delivery, but we are getting what we want, and I am sure it will be worth it.
They do have a great sound system. We are also thinking of going the iPond route. We are probably going to end up having ours inside because of the season. I really want it outside, but it will probably be too cold and rainy.
Joys Catering Plus
Serving Snohomish and King County
Owner Joy Max
website www.joys-cateringplus.com
She quoted me as little as 1500 for 125 people. Although I want low-brow and fun food. Like tiny grilled cheese sandwitches w' shots of tomato soup. We are doing a cocktail party reception without a sit down meal.
We're using Thornewood's tablecloths, though I'm with you about wishing they'd go to the floor. I figure none of the gusts will notice or care though so I'm not gonna sweat it. :) I have no idea what Thornewood's centerpeices will look like in September, so I can't say for sure I wont be using them, but right now I'm leaning toward groupings of cooking herbs planted in silver cube ceramic planters :) Kinda modern, but I like the juxtaposition.
We're planning on doing iPod for the ceremony in the sunken garden (though I forget if they have a sound system out there? I remember a little boom box maybe but.. erm.. maybe I should double check that, lol,) but we're hiring the Uptown Lowdown Jazz Band for our reception, they were the second thing we booked and we're so stoked! :D
Rivenchan, that centerpeice idea sounds lovely! I am also having old aqua antique jars filled with white flowers along with the submerged calla lilys. There is no sound system in the garden, you got to bring your own boom box or ipod dock i beleive. jazz band sounds fun!
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Beekeeper
Hello Seattle area bees.
I am looking for a caterer. The problem that I am having is that the ones I have contacted are extremely expensive. For example, one that I contacted today had a $4,400.00 minimum. We are only having up to 50 guests, so I really don't feel compelled to spend that much.
Please help if you can.
Thank you.