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catering a wedding for 120

1093 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  flipflopgirl
So just did my first catering of a wedding where I was running the entire show. Was not a complete disaster but I have a new found respect for the chefs i used to work with. This was an offsite catering and i did not check it out enough before i went out. The main problem was they only had one oven and it was not a commerical oven. I had fullsize sheet trays for rolls asperagus and these vegan towers i was cooking and wouldn't you know it the oven was too small for full size pans. Fortunately my kitchen was about 3 miles from the site we were catering to. I had to drive back and grab some half sheet trays and do everything in batches then we stalled the salads going out so it wouldn't look like we stopped serving half way through. Service went out about half an hour late but i again got lucky. I talked to the couple told them service was going to be late. Told them it was my fault because of my inexperience and they were ok with it. The food could have gone out a bit faster as well i only hired one server and two cooks because i thought with three cooks we could spare one to help with running food. However because of the problem with the oven we needed him. The food did go out and it was cooked correctly so i saved face a little bit. All and all i learned a lot. I didn't screw up someones wedding although they were getting a little antsy and very drunk just before the food went out. I just posted this thread to hear others stories and to get feedback. I have been reading through your threads and i have found them to be entertaining and useful. Thanks guys
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@kman409 ,

For me, I think it's one of the hardest things to do. Going in cold to a different kitchen to produce and especially a working kitchen. Chefs that are good at it have this special anal talent for knowing what they will need off premise and even forecast needs if something goes wrong or there is a little hiccup. Myself, forget it, my labor would be out the roof. I would rent trucks and bring every single thing from my kitchen to the site.

I only bring wedding cakes to a function and we usually stay within a 15 mile radius so we know the venues. If we are asked to deliver to a unknown location, I do as flipflop says and go ahead of time to make maps and demand I get a table diagram. I will usually ask if I can crash another function just to see how the venue runs.

When I was younger I used to love going to help my catering frends with big functions. I never realized the enormous amounts of talent, patience, and hootspa it took to pull the function off without hitches.
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