veganjenni :
ok in regards to your first post: I honestly don’t know in your specific case. For me I found a company that offered servers and bartenders and hired one bartender and two servers. It wasn’t necessarily the cheapest thing in the world but they were licensed and insured and did a good job. If you happen to have any friends who are waiters/waitresses they could probably recommend some of their friends to work the event. A second option. Cheaper, but then you don’t have a yelp page to ream them out on if anything goes wrong.
regards to the timeline: so 3:15 is where things get cray. Typically a DOC would stay and watch the ceremony and if anything went wrong during the ceremony they’d fix it. Instead you want her to sprint off to the reception, which hopefully is well out of earshot of the ceremony, and set up hors d’ouvres. I will tell you my DOC (who did not set up our food) made the timeline to ensure food was setup BEFORE the ceremony, or at least on platters ready for the waitstaff to take out the minute the ceremony was over (if it needed to stay indoors/cool) because otherwise our ceremony would’ve had people shuffling around in the background. Dropping stuff, perhaps, or just regular old clanging and clodding that just.. happens when people work.
Also:
- Place hors d’oeuvres out
- Fill beverage containers (ice, fruit, drinks)
- Fill B&G water pitcher
- Place alcoholic drinks in ice in metal tubs
is to much for one person to do in 15 minutes. Really what you want is her assistant doing the latter 3 points from ~2:15pm-3pm. Then at 3:25pm or so, when everyone is clapping as you kiss and leave the ceremony, have her run the hors douvres out. How many ppl run them out depends on how many trays, and how far they have to go, of course, but for 40 people I’m gonna assume no more than 4 trays so her and her assistant should be able to handle this.
From 3:30-4
- Direct catering delivery
- Place salt & pepper, bread & butter on tables
- Place champagne bottles on tables
- Place B&G sparkling drink on B&G table
The last three, split between two people, totally makes sense for a 30 min interval. Probably with 10 min to spare. Here’s the catch: the DOC is dealing with the caterer. It’s shocking your caterer wants to arrive less than 30 min before service, though. Are you sure about this?
4pm-5pm
wait, what?! Really think about this. Think about how many plates you want to be plated and brought out and what time, exactly, you think it’d be OK for all this to be done if you expect dishes to be cleared by 5pm. I really hope the caterers will do the plating. If not, this point is not a 2 person job. If you’re doing family style each “plate” will be heavy, likely a two hand job.. MAYBE one plate per hand if your DOC or her assistant has a lot of serving experience, but.. as a DOC.. seems unlikely. So one plate per person per trip from the kitchen. Just.. think about it. And remember you DONT want your DOC and her assistant sprinting to put food on plates or take them out to tables–that’s how you make messes and trip and falls.
5pm-5:30pm — Ok sure. Her and her assistant can definitely handle this, assuming they put the coffee on while ppl are eating.. if they somehow finish serving before 5pm (but I’m gonna assume you’ll fix the 4-5pm issues.)
5:30pm-7pm: yeah, two people can cut and serve 40 slices of cake in an hour and a half. I would go to the cake, rather than have them bring it to you and back. It’s what most ppl do anyway, cus these things are typically big/awkward/heavy.
The rest all looks good and isnt food related.
So really.. the main issue here is you’re asking two people to do something that may not be physically possible from 4-5pm. Before and after that there are small issues but I think they’re all fixable.. but 4-5pm is absurd. Does your caterer *really* want to arrive no more than 30 min before service?
As for is your DOC worth it? I dunno, I guess it depends on how you settle the rest of the items on the to do list.
ETA: oh, and any staff you have will need a break to eat at some point…. and may have to pee? Just.. you want to remember that these are humans and can’t sprint nonstop for hours, and plan timelines accordingly.