cater 2 me.

see? i haven't forgotten about you. life has just been....life. busy and amazing all at once.

something that happened since my last post....WE BOOKED A CATERER!
woooohoooo!

a holiday miracle!

that was no easy feat. it's good that i was armed with a wedding goddess to help with what seemed like an endless re-tooling of the contract. but i think it ended up being something that is going to make our big day an awesome one.

i have to admit that it was tough choosing who we wanted to go with, even though we were only seriously looking at two caterers. and after much ado, we are going to have R&R Catering of Springfield, VA handle our catering needs!

one thing (of many) that assures us about having made this choice is that they have partnered with St. Francis Hall before, and seem to have a great working relationship with them.

whew. i'm so glad this part is taken care of.

a note to future brides reading this: please PLEASE be ready to put down mega money for the catering part of the wedding. and even more important, be ready to put down a large chunk of dollars for the deposit. we only had to pay a 25% deposit, which schniz tells me is conservative, but that was about $2,150..... now you can do the math of how much the entire catering bill will be.

so, if polotek or i ask, all one hundred and fifty of you bastards coming to the wedding better tell us the food was one of the best meals of your life.

truth be told, we haven't come to a final decision on what the actual menu will be, and luckily we have plenty of time to mull it over. all i know is that mac-n-cheese will be apart of it somehow. that's a definite. and we are doing something special for the dessert portion, so no wedding cake (or cutting fee) is in the catering number. that will be a separate line item of the budget entirely.

but some of the things included were:
* ceremony set-up and breakdown
* cocktail hour munchies
* beer & wine open bar
* buffet style meal for 150
* actual dishes, linens and service for a 5-hour 150 person wedding
* piece of mind

i know people have opinions. any feedback for me on caterers in general or what kind of food is good to eat?

how low can you go...?

apparently, not low enough.

by the way, sorry it took this girl so long to post -- last week was a busy week. and this one looks like more of the same. i'll try to not leave y'all hangin', though.

now i'd like to shout out to my fellow non-kardashians who can't throw ten-million-dollar weddings. what the crap, man?! i was especially irritated to hear about this last week because i spent that day working through catering estimates, all of which are BEYOND the $5,000 number we had hoped for...

oh, frustration!!! i mean, one way to look at it is that we were able to cut out about $3,000 from some estimates -- thanks to some great cost-saving ideas suggested by schniz -- but really, we are looking at roughly $8,000 for our total catering line. and with our budget already being as low as it is for many of the other line items, we know that this wedding is not happening for $15K. it could be more like $20K.

oy.

here's some rough info about the breakdown of our leading estimate, for those of you wondering how it could possibly cost this much:
 - we are budgeting for 150 guests (our original budget number was based on 120 or less)
 - there are a number of incidentals that really add up, and makes up approximately $3K of the $8K total
 - the food and beverage price per person is actually $35 -- this really is a low number because that includes a dinner buffet (all you can eat!), four hours of beer and wine open bar (all you can drink!), and cocktail hour nosh and after-dinner coffee bar
 - some of the incidentals really are things we must have -- table cloths, dinnerware, and servers for 150 people
- the caterer is also responsible for the set up and breakdown of the ceremony in addition to the reception parts

we are still waiting for some revisions to other estimates that could come in a little bit lower, but at best my guess is that the number will still be in the range of $8,000.

to be honest, the more i look at the number, the less frustrated i am by it, because i know that this arguably the most important line item of the event. and we are working with great companies, so we are sure to get great quality and service for our money.

also, being able to rest assured that the caterer will take care of things is not something you can give a price value. unless it's eight thousand dollars.

in other news, the save-the-dates have started to go out! we are sending them in waves, but as soon as they are all en route to their destinations, i'll be sure to post the goods here.

oh, and i have a meeting with ananda from bliss fotography tomorrow! that means engagement shoot photos will be coming soon!!! yayayayaya!

feed me, seymour.

now, on to the next challenge. schniz, polotek and i are looking at our options for the biggest line item of this whole shebang.

foooooood. and booze.

actually there is far more that caterers handle, too. including (but not limited to): linens, china, silverware, servers, set-up, breakdown, decor, yada yada...
all that schtuff costs money.

i can't say how lucky i am to have a dear friend with a catering company in her family!!! this is awesome because we get to talk to and possibly work with a company who we can trust, is bound to be more understanding, will work with us, and we know will aim to please. this is a very good thing. we have already chatted with the company about possible options, and i can't wait to see what they come back with.

there is also another caterer with potential. we've got some personal testimonies about their good quality, and they seem to be willing to work with us and our rinky-dink catering budget.

the line that we currently have for the caterer is $5,000, but that was (1) before we realized we were going to invite up to 200 people, and (2) before we had any flipping idea how much food and drinks cost for a wedding. we want quality AND affordability, but we would definitely be willing to pay a little extra if it guarantees a good time had by all.

the last thing we want people to think is "boy, did they cheap out of the food..." i embrace my food snobbiness, and i feel the food should reflect our tastes. but we have to find that happy balance of also being able to afford it all.

really, this is the one major thing that threatens to break the budget, and it seems to be this way because of all the mouths we will have to feed. but like i have previously said, polotek and i want to include our peeps without exclusion. it's so hard to do the: "i REALLY want so-and-so to cooooome, but we can only have xx people." especially when you have a ton of family, like me.

the good thing is we have lots of ideas on how we can put this together and save on some of the costs. like ditching the expensive traditional flower centerpieces and getting more creative with the table aesthetic. i'm also planning on making some table runners with a lovely fabric that schniz picked out, and that will lower the cost of linen rentals. maybe we will even go with faux chinaware. and yes, some people will be asked to come as singles. sorry if this makes you sad, but everyone will certainly still have an awesome time. and eat awesome food. and drink to their hearts' delight.

not to reveal too much, but a couple noms we are considering include a mac-n-cheese bar (a bride fave!), cookies (a groom fave!) aaaand...yes, i know what you really want to hear: haribo gummi bears! contain yourself, i know it's very exciting. did you know you can buy them in 5 lb bags on amazon? five pounds of heaven is what it is.

so, we'll see over the next several days how things shake out with estimates. i'm sure my pie-in-the-sky ideas of what we can have at the reception will be brought back down to earth. so stay tuned...