Memoirs

I AM A BELIEVER.
For some background: We hired Memoirs to cater our outdoor wedding at Kualoa Ranch. We started off with a very tight budget with a guest count of 250 (local wedding, this is like a norm right?) While good food was a priority for us at our wedding, we were honestly just thinking about ordering from our favorite bento place to keep things easy, affordable, and appeal to the masses. We are a no frills kind of couple anyway, we just want good food for a good price.
Then, our wedding planner recommended Memoirs. I had never heard of Memoirs prior to her recommendation. When I started looking them up, I saw they had a fancy website with fancy dishes and said to myself, "nah, this must be way out of our budget, and our local families probably wouldn't appreciate it even if we could afford it."
But out wedding planner highly recommended them, and we totally trusted her, so we went for it.

BEST DECISION EVER MADE.

TASTING: Totally customizable tasting menu. You e-mail them a list of preferences or menus you like from their website, and they will finalize a tasting menu with you that will fit your budget (key here, they will work with whatever budget you have.) We are self-proclaimed "foodies" (or I'm just picky as heck), so we worked through at least 3 different menus and had 3 or maybe 4 different tastings? before we finalized everything for the big day. Chef John was there at each tasting to get feedback and adjust the menu to exactly what we wanted. I think each tasting is like $25 per person, depending on your choices, but as we found out, this is an extremely good value because we left completely stuffed, and even took home boxes of leftovers from our tastings.


FOOD: Our final menu was a hybrid of few of there standard items, and a few custom items based on our preferences. The quality of food is honestly like high-end $$$$ restaurant, but for a way more affordable price. All our guests couldn't stop raving about the food at our wedding, and kept asking us where it was from. Our final menu:
- Spicy beet poke on crispy rice cake
- Torched beef nigiri, ponzu and green onion
- Chicken pate on crostini, poha berry, yuzu caviar
- Local farm greens with shaved vegetables and honey macadamia vinaigrette
- Seared ahi belly and yuzu scallop with black garlic, soy caviar, and bamboo rice
- Grilled Andrade Ribeye and Herb roasted chicken, charred scallion potato and ponzu cream
- Strawberry and lilikoi shortcake
- Dark chocolate crunch bar with sea salt and caramel
- Matcha panna cotta with honey and toasted sesame (Custom dessert)

Also, just to note, our venue was completely unplugged, meaning no electricity, bathroom, and just a water hose on site. These guys had to carry in their own oven, power, etc, to PREP THE FOOD ON-SITE. SO IT IS DAMN FRESH.

SERVICE: Impeccable. Throughout the planning process, Taylor (managed most communications) and Chef John were always professional yet down-to-earth, and receptive to our feedback along the way for any changes we requested. On the day of the wedding, the entire team looked real slick and clean, and super professional, very prompt with plating dishes and removing excess trash.

COMMUNICATION: Excellent. They do get busy around peak wedding season, which is understandable. I had many many questions along the way (we were also a COVID wedding, so lots of rescheduling along the way), so the fact that they kept up with me is an accomplishment.

VALUE: Absolutely a steal, diamond in the rough, gem beyond gems, I don't even know how else to emphasize this!!! I am SO grateful our planner recommended these guys. They deliver HIGH QUALITY food and professional service that will work with your budget! Note. we were a COVID wedding, so what started as 250 guest count (and initial deposit was paid for a dinner serving 250 guests), had to be scaled down to about 80 guests. They were totally understandable and basically adjusted our menu to fit the deposit we already paid, and we paid very little if anything more after that.

**BONUS: So of course on wedding night, we were too busy/excited to eat, so unfortunately we didn't get to even touch our dessert that night. Chef John heard about this, and personally delivered a box of our wedding desserts to our home a week later. This guy and this team is an absolute GEM. I cannot emphasize this enough. These are wonderful people running an excellent business, and I will definitely be hiring them again for all of my future catering needs!

The food from here will not disappoint, it was all amazing. The servers were exceptional. When hiring, be aware that they do charge extra for everything, including chaffing dishes, coolers, and for us we had to rent an additional tent and stove top for them to use on the day. It's a lot of work, but the food on the day was definitely worth it. A few hiccups in communication from their team, but we are not letting that spoil the amazing service they provided.

Love Note from the Bride:
Nick and I planned a destination wedding for 115 of our closest friends and family. While I was hoping for sunshine, planning for a possible light sprinkle… what I, our guests, and our vendors did not plan or expect.. was for— was a MONSOON on our wedding day! I don’t mean to say it just rained… I mean, it literally POURED. There were even flash flood warnings! Every single guest and vendor was drenched from head to toe. They say rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck, and ours started this day with our vendors.

To the ENTIRE MEMOIRS TEAM, we don’t even know where to start, except by saying THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

Your entire team kept a smile on their face and a positive attitude throughout the entire day! Every single person, staff, chef, bartender, not one single person’s hard work went unnoticed. Everyone was selfless in walking back and forth from our tent to the kitchen and making sure Nick, I, and our wedding guests were their top priority. Not only did they ensure the food stayed warm and dry, but it was DELICIOUS!!! We decided on family style and the memoirs team even let Nick and I help put out some of the first platters to the tables, as a nice surprise to our guests! They also let us surprise our guests and get behind the bar to bartend during happy hour!! Our guests LOVED that!!

From initial reach out and partnership with our wedding planner Carly, to food tasting, planning, prep, execution and even follow up after our wedding, our entire experience with Memoirs was INCREDIBLE. We are so blessed to have had them on our team for our special day. Not only are they passionate about their food and service, but you can tell just how much of a family they are, and how much they care about their clients! We are SO lucky to have had them help us celebrate our big, wet day!!!

Love Note from the Groom:
Memoirs brought their A game to our wedding and it RAINED at an out door venue. They literally could not have been more dedicated to us. They set up all day in the rain, they cooked in the rain, they served in the rain, they cleared in the rain and they did it with smiles on their faces the whole time. The food is all Hawaii local, and it was AMAZING. We did a family style service and the food came out beautiful and delicious! We could not have possibly imagined a better team to put together a hillside table service in the POURING RAIN! A special shout out to Taylor the bartender for saving the groom the last shot of his favorite tequila!