First Planning Meeting with the Caterer!!!

So, if you remember from my March Calendar, yesterday fi and I met with our caterer, Rania Harris, to do our menu selection.  Now, Rania isn't any ordinary caterer, she's what I'll call a caterer on steroids.  Because she also works directly with the rental company to plan basically everything with you.  So, when I say 'menu selection' I actually mean 'preliminary menu selection as well as deciding all of our rentals because she actually has examples of everything in her office' haha.

So, fi and I got there a little early, and she actually does "gourmet take-out" so she has a little diner like area and we got to hang out in there while we waited.

Cute little place, right?

The Fiance - he hates having his picture taken!

The happy couple!

Then, once she was ready for us, we got to go back to her office to start discussing details.  She is such a caterer on steroids that she basically has a showroom in her office:

Table Settings Anyone?

We started with linens.  Rania and I basically gabbed back and forth while Bryan looked slightly confused and we finally decided on having all the tables in the reception room will be eggplant (except for the cake table which will be lilac) with lilac napkins.  Then in the lobby (which is where cocktails will be held) the bar, escort table, and gift table will be cardinal, and all the "cocktail tables" will be eggplant.

Choosing place settings was actually a lot easier than deciding which linen will go where.  We decided on the following:

This silverware only with normal length handles

And all of our glasses will just be the least expensive option.  But it just so happened we could get fancy martini glasses for the same price as basic martini glasses, so our martini glasses will have a purple stem:

And then it was finally time to actually talk about food.  We went over all our different options and settled on the following:

Passed Hors D’oeuvers:

-Goat Cheese and Roasted Red Pepper Crostini

-Vegetarian Spring Roll Halves w/ Chinese plum sauce

-Sesame Beef in Fillo

-Tequila Shrimp skewers with texas red sauce wrapped in bacon

-Chorizo Pastry puffs

-Baby Bella Mushrooms stuffed with crab

First Course:

Mixed Greens with Seasonal Fruits #1

Salad with blackberries-strawberries-raspberries-red Bermuda onion-roasted walnuts-gorgonzola cheese with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing

Entrée Options:

-Grilled Filet Mignon with sauce Au Poivre

Filet served on a smashed potato cake with Boursin cheese and asparagus

-Grilled Lemon and Olive Oil Marinated Salmon Filet

Topped with fresh tomato, basil, red Bermuda onion, caper and organic olive oil relish served with roasted asparagus with lemon confit and sweet onion risotto cake

-Spinach and Asiago Ravioli

Finished with a light cream sauce infused with fresh spinach and roasted red peppers and freshly grated Parmigiano

-Kids 12&under

Mixed fruit bowl for first course.  Chicken fingers served with French fries and carrots with ranch dipping sauce.

Cake layers:

Yellow cake/fudge filling/chocolate cake/raspberry filling/yellow cake



We get to go back at the end of the month to try everything and decide if that is 100% what we want.  All I know is it sounds freakin' delicious!

She also works with a liquor distributor who (for whatever reason, I don't know why) is required by law to sell hard liquor and beer at cost, but can up charge for wine.  He'll purchase everything, deliver it, and we don't have to pay for it until afterwards because he'll take back any un-opened bottles.  Sounds amazing to me!

And our 2 and a half hour long meeting ended with her explaining a bunch of worksheets that she was going to send to me including:

The Meal Choice Seating List -
so waiters know where to bring which dish

A Vendor List - so she can hunt people down if they aren't
 doing what they should be doing the day of

Bridal Checklist - so she knows everything is being used
that should be the day of!

And we should be getting a CAD image of how the space will be set up sometime soon!

Basically, Rania is freaking awesome, and although it was a long meeting, it was also super productive!  And we're going back March 30th (have to update my March Calendar!!!) to do a tasting...yummmm!  Oh, and everything worked out right within our budget!!!  HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!?!?!?!  And that is under the assumption that most people will order the fillet and it is including all the servers!  Best wedding-related meeting ever.  If you're getting married in the Pittsburgh area, I 100% recommend using Rania, she's just so damn helpful!

How did your meetings with your caterer go?

Apart from the Personal Photos, images taken from All Occasions Party Rentals

Love At First Meeting

So, know how I ended up scheduling three meetings with different Day of Coordinators?  Turns out I only needed one!

On Saturday, fi and I met with Lea of Wedding Planning by Lea Dawn, and she was exactly what I was looking for.  I decided it probably would be a good idea to put all of my wedding stuff into a binder to bring along with me, so I got an adorable purple croc-skin binder and filled it with everything from my 13 month timeline, to my crazy planner bride centerpiece mock up, my budget, my color inspirations, and everything in between.  It was full of organizational stuff, inspiration, and vendor information.  That binder is impressive; it makes me look like a wedding planner, haha.

So basically I told her I was looking for someone who would be there to execute the plans that I've been coming up with since last June so that I don't have to worry about it on the day of.  And she was totally down with that.  She also has an assistant who will come and help her set up the day of, and she will be there at the rehearsal to get to know everyone and get an understanding of how the ceremony will happen.  She doesn't limit the number of meetings that we have leading up to the day, and although I don't think we'll need many because of my OCD about planning (let's face it, I'll probably create a binder with specific instructions for each aspect of the wedding for her with a timeline of how I would like the day to progress) it's nice to know that if we do need to meet a few times in order to be on the same page she isn't going to say no.

You could tell that she totally had her stuff together, and she was not intimidated by my plans, but I needed to make sure that she definitely could handle our wedding.  So I informed her of the fact that I have a crazy sister who may need to be escorted out of the reception, and on top of that my rehearsal dinner will be the first time in over 15 years that my parents have been in the same room outside of court, hahaha.  And Lea is so amazing, she didn't even shutter.  She was like "Okay, then we're going to have to come up with a way to make it as smooth as possible leading up to the ceremony and here are a bunch of ideas on how we can do that..." 

And if all that wasn't enough, she then handed me her business card which was purple and adorable and I was sold.  Of course I wasn't just going to write a check on the spot since I wanted to make sure fi was down with hiring her, but when she walked out of the coffee shop and I expressed my adoration for her fi's response was "I knew you would want to hire her as soon as she walked in because of her scarf" (she had a really cute purple scarf on). 

So, Sunday I emailed Carrie to tell her that I didn't want to waste her time meeting her since we already found someone, and I still need to email Theresa.  This morning I emailed Lea to let her know we would love to hire her, and if she would send me her address I'll mail the contract and the deposit to her right away.  And I couldn't be happier.  If she follows through with being half as amazing as I already think she is, then I know everything will be great.

Did you ever meet with a vendor and just know you wanted to work with them?