Terrible experience
They did the catering for our wedding, we had it at Blenheim House where they’re the resident caterers. We didn’t really have much of a choice to use them although to be fair we also didn’t see any issue either. We could have gotten others but we would still have had to pay them to use their kitchen, so it made more sense to just have them do our food.
We paid £18 per person for the day (Afternoon Tea) & £15 per person for the night (Mexican feast). Now at no point did we specify any budget we had, we went on the guidance of Chris through emails and calls. In our emails we specified both day and night to be buffet style as we didn’t want a typical formal sit down meal.
When we and the guest sat down the food came out, straight away it wasn’t what we’d asked for, it came out on plates. Not the buffet style sharing boards we’d discussed, the wedding planner was even aware of the sharing boards as this is how she’s set up the table to allow for the boards in the middle.
On these plates, which were between 6 people per table, 1 sandwich cut into 6 smaller fingers, 1 mini Yorkshire pudding each, 1 mini pork pie each & 1 mini slice of bread with a spread on top. This was followed by 1 dessert each (a tart/blondie or brownie). For 18pp this was nowhere near enough and not at all what was expected or discussed, also nowhere near what is shown on their website or social media feeds. You’d get more food if you’d ordered a Morrisons buffet, which we did a few nights before the wedding.
I then had to go to the kitchen and ask when the rest was due to be served and the chef’s response was “that’s afternoon tea, it’s what you get”. The style of the food shouldn’t impact the amount of food we receive.
Our guests were going to the bar and getting bags of crips as there was not enough food, we even considered ordering a pizza delivery.
For £19pp you can go to a cafe and get a picnic bench with heaps of Quality food and not be able to finish it, far from what we received. To justify this to us we were told you go to places where it’s £25pp and you get even less food?! I certainly wouldn’t be going to these places, I’ll stick to £19pp for a picnic bench but maybe this is how they justify it by the places they visit.
They have also factored in the cost of staff, I’d like to know which staff we paid for as they certainly didn’t turn up to our wedding. We had one server which couldn’t have been older than 16 for all 40+ guests, more like a deer in the headlights. Our best man, maid of honour and bridesmaids were the ones serving the food, this is very embarrassing. None of our guests should have had to act as serving staff for their kitchen during our wedding. When I’d gone to ask about the food, the paid server was stood arms crossed in the hallway, whilst our guest were serving the food.
We’d paid for our photographer a meal as a guest, this was not done and I’d had to chase this up with the kitchen. As there wasn’t anything left he then received leftovers on a plate, not sure that constitutes £18 a head either.
Then came the night food, surprisingly there was plenty of food even enough for the bar staff?! Bearing in mind we’d paid less for this. When asked about this Chris’ response was “The evening food, is the normal amount we would produce, obviously being a buffet style people eat different amounts.”. I’m not really sure how this makes any sense, we asked for both meals as “buffet style”, paid less for the evening but got more food, again I’m not sure how the style of food being afternoon tea should impact on the amount we’d get. Should we have asked to pay less during the day to get more?
As you can see I did contact Chris who only really tried to justify this by explaining the higher end places he visits charge more for less food, again not really sure how that’s a comparison. This was the only response we got back, nothing regarding the staff levels, the fact it wasn’t presented how we’d discussed or the fact we’d paid for the photographer’s meal but got leftovers as they’d clearly forgotten.
None of our wedding guests should have been doing anything but eating and enjoying the food, I certainly shouldn’t have spent that part of our wedding day chasing the kitchen up several times.
This is just our experience but I can’t quite recommend them as this was the one part of our wedding day that we did not enjoy, to say the food wasn’t something we even thought we needed to worry about. To avoid these issues we had it maybe best to just pay the extra to get your own catering in if you’re getting married in the same venue.
I fully expect a response to this, we have all correspondence to show all the above is true. In fact I’d welcome it as Chris can’t seem to explain any of the above through email and has just stopped responding at all, he can only say how we got a bargain with the food.