Yesterday we had our menu consultation with the Berkeley and we came out feeling much more confident than when we went in. Let me explain why…
We’ve been having a bit of planner confusion with our venue. Shortly after we signed our contract last spring, we were assigned a planner named Kristin who turned out not to be the best at promptly answering emails.
Earlier this year, we got an email from her saying that we need to pick a date for our menu tasting. I was a bit confused because I thought we had a consultation meeting first but Kristin didn’t mention anything about that so we picked March 30 as our tasting day. Kristin and I then started emailing back and forth, kind of doing the consultation over email. Then she went quiet but since this had happened before, I didn’t think much of it.
A few days later we were invited to this wine-tasting thing at the Berkeley. We went, hoping to meet Kristin, but instead found out that Kristin was no longer with the Berkeley and that we’d be getting a new planner and that yes, we were to have a menu consultation.
I was then put in touch with Julie who was very helpful and told me that our new planner would be Kathy. She also booked a new date for our tasting since our original tasting meeting would need to become our menu consultation.
So you can understand why I walked into our meeting yesterday a bit concerned.
Thankfully Kathy seems to be much more organized and was ready to meet with us even though we were twenty minutes early. In addition to going over the food stuff, she asked how we saw the day unfolding and gave us a quick rundown on how liquor would work since we’re supplying that ourselves (more on that in another post). She was very helpful and had solid answers to all of the questions we had, whether it was about what vegetarian dish would be the best choice to how the uplighting worked.
I think it helped that we also came to the meeting very prepared. Because we thought that we weren’t going to get a menu consultation, Shawn and I had already talked in detail about what sort of food we wanted served and had a list of ideas and questions.
I definitely recommend walking into any menu consultation as prepared as possible. In addition to knowing what you want to eat (and spend), keep in mind your timeline the day. For example, do you really need appetizers? Or, because you’re disappearing for three hours to do photos, do you need a lot of appetizers? An issue for us is our photographer’s time. We only have him for six hours and because of that, we’re doing our first dance and then cutting the cake before we eat.
Also go in knowing roughly what kind of food your guests enjoy/expect; any cultural requests, allergy concerns, etc.
And don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. Yeah, you might sound a bit annoying, but I find that asking a ton of in-person questions is a lot less annoying than a ton of questions over email.
We’ve been having a bit of planner confusion with our venue. Shortly after we signed our contract last spring, we were assigned a planner named Kristin who turned out not to be the best at promptly answering emails.
Earlier this year, we got an email from her saying that we need to pick a date for our menu tasting. I was a bit confused because I thought we had a consultation meeting first but Kristin didn’t mention anything about that so we picked March 30 as our tasting day. Kristin and I then started emailing back and forth, kind of doing the consultation over email. Then she went quiet but since this had happened before, I didn’t think much of it.
A few days later we were invited to this wine-tasting thing at the Berkeley. We went, hoping to meet Kristin, but instead found out that Kristin was no longer with the Berkeley and that we’d be getting a new planner and that yes, we were to have a menu consultation.
I was then put in touch with Julie who was very helpful and told me that our new planner would be Kathy. She also booked a new date for our tasting since our original tasting meeting would need to become our menu consultation.
So you can understand why I walked into our meeting yesterday a bit concerned.
Thankfully Kathy seems to be much more organized and was ready to meet with us even though we were twenty minutes early. In addition to going over the food stuff, she asked how we saw the day unfolding and gave us a quick rundown on how liquor would work since we’re supplying that ourselves (more on that in another post). She was very helpful and had solid answers to all of the questions we had, whether it was about what vegetarian dish would be the best choice to how the uplighting worked.
I think it helped that we also came to the meeting very prepared. Because we thought that we weren’t going to get a menu consultation, Shawn and I had already talked in detail about what sort of food we wanted served and had a list of ideas and questions.
I definitely recommend walking into any menu consultation as prepared as possible. In addition to knowing what you want to eat (and spend), keep in mind your timeline the day. For example, do you really need appetizers? Or, because you’re disappearing for three hours to do photos, do you need a lot of appetizers? An issue for us is our photographer’s time. We only have him for six hours and because of that, we’re doing our first dance and then cutting the cake before we eat.
Also go in knowing roughly what kind of food your guests enjoy/expect; any cultural requests, allergy concerns, etc.
And don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. Yeah, you might sound a bit annoying, but I find that asking a ton of in-person questions is a lot less annoying than a ton of questions over email.
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