Should I be outraged by this catering tasting?

I 100% agree.... it really bothers me that so many caterers work this way.

The one I ended up booking wanted to meet and chat and surprised me with some stuff for us to try.

Now that we are booked. We are doing a full tasting with my dad and his wife to make final selections. His service is top notch.

Another caterer we looked at wants 40/person for a tasting....the food was awful. Best 80 bucks I ever spent to avoid them!

That's weird. Our venue's mock reception for booked couples is tomorrow and will be buffet & open bar. They only charge if the couple brings anyone (max 2) with them, but the couple is free. Maybe mention it to them that you want the fee waive because you already booked them.

That's weird.

We had a huge smattering of food (maybe 1/3 of it was stuff we were interested in) but they were safe choices for the catering company to strut their stuff.

But free booze- and free food- and a FUCK TON of it- we were STUFFED.

15 hor'Doeuvres

Salad/Pasta

2 Entree's

Giant piece of cake

and 3 desserts

I would not be okay with that. It sounds like they are expecting you to put a lot of faith in them which is hard to do especially if the food is that important to you. Have you tried talking to them to see if there is anything else you can do?

I wouldn't be happy :/ Our first tasting was free for bride and groom and included at least 3-4 entrees and 3-4 salad options and some sides and appetizers. Additional people were only $15. They also have a tasting only a couple times a year. $50 for one menu choice is ridiculous. Our caterer is with our venue also, but we're not required to use them.

I mean, if they have very good food reviews that's great, but I'd still want to try more than 1 menu option.

I don't understand putting a deposit down before a tasting. We saw two caterers who did this and we immediately said "no." I'm not paying someone a $2,000.00 deposit no matter how good their reviews are. (Not criticizing you, I'm criticizing the caterers!!! Seems like bad business practice.) I would bring it up and be like you told me X and see what they say.

Our tasting was free. It was for just the two of us. And we were able to try our ENTIRE menu. We had leftovers for days haha.

Maybe you can ask them to drop the costs considering you have already booked with them?

ETA - At our venue the tasting was free if you had already booked. We got to try three apps and three main courses as well as the wines.

It's weird; outrage worthy? Well, that depends....

Most (but not all) of our venues do tastings or 'mock weddings' (which is actually more helpful because you get to taste food that has been prepared the way it would be prepared for a group. That being said, most of the ones that I am familiar with have stellar food; a tasting is really not even necessary.

Where is your venue? Did you look at reviews first (I'm sorry if that sounds obvious, but you'd be shocked.....) Is it expensive? (Again, sorry if that sounds obvious, but it's not unlike picking a restaurant; often, not always, more is better once you get out of the 'quirky cheap and cool" zone....

In a way, it makes sense, even if it is annoying (and it is annoying if you were told one thing and another thing happened; not a good window into the whole process), if the quality of what you're tasting is great, the quality of everything should be on a par.

I guess I'm saying it's irritating but probably not a deal breaker unless it is. I'd be more wary of being told one thing and delivered another honestly.

Seems odd that you can't try all of the options.

We can bring 2 people in addition to ourselves to our tasting, at no cost.

Our tasting cost 50 pp as well, but if we booked, we could apply it to our bill. Since we'd already chosen our menu, they provided everything on it. But they were also helpful about changing it. For instance, we didn't like the original fish side, so we asked to try the wild rice and they whipped it right up.

Wow, that would piss me off for sure. I guess I don't know much about caterers though. Our venue has a chef onsite and they do their own food for their weddings. At our tasting, they'd reserved a private room for us, had a server just for us and we got to try everything on the menu. This was all included in our package price. So yeah, being told I have to pay $50 pp to try one or two items would be a slap in the face. I'm sorry.

Yeahhhhhh, I wouldn't be too happy about paying $50 if I had already booked. That's really strange to me, I've never heard of the couple having to pay for the tasting. I guess I just assumed that it comes with the contract.

Our tastings are also included in our package. It sounds like the mass tasting is for potential clients, not those who have already booked and committed to their services. Check your contract, and if it doesn't address the tastings I would ask for a waiver of the $50.

We also have to use our venue for the catering and they have an event once a year for couples to try the food. It was either $12 or $16 per person, I can't remember now, but we got to pretty much try everything which was great.

Ours was free, and we got to bring up to 4 additional people. We got to choose up to 6 entrees off of a list of 6 choices. We chose all 6. We didn't get full plates of each entrée but it came out family style with enough for 6 people to try each thing. They also gave us free drinks. It was really fun! We did this after booking, but I was ok with that because I had been to my venue for a retirement party before so I knew the food would be good.

Wow. Ours weren't free, but it was $10 per person and we went several times to try several dishes out. That's...expecting a lot of trust.

Yeah, that's bizarre. I tried the food before I booked. There was literally no way I was going to make a $15k+ investment without trying the food. Even then, the chef didn't charge us (we did leave a tip for the wait staff though). Then, our caterer had one of those mass wedding mock-ups after we booked. Once again, we weren't charged (and they had 4 different stations, dessert bar, passed desserts and an open bar).

I know you said that you read the reviews, but did you sort negative to positive? I've found that very helpful. WW's default is either newest or highest rating. If the vendors has a lot of reviews, you won't necessarily see the negative reviews. The reviews for my caterer consistently said that they go above and beyond. That carried a lot of weight with me.

We also booked a venue that required us to use their caterer. Our tasting was included free of charge once we booked the venue. We were able to choose two entrees and three sides for our tasting. If we wanted anyone besides us to attend the tasting it was $10/person. I was so glad for the tasting because we actually ended up changing what we thought one of our entrees was going to be after the tasting. We also really wanted to try the macaroni and cheese because there are so many different styles of mac and cheese and we wanted to make sure it was a kind that we would really like.

I agree that something seems strange about only being able to try one entree. As annoying as it is, I'd suggest that you and FH order different entrees so you at least get to taste two. I would contact them thought and remind them that you were informed that you would be able to try anything on the menu. Also like others said, check your contract and see if you can get the fee waived.

Yeah that would piss me off.

Me and my fiancé are going for a tasting next Saturday. It's kind of pointless because the wedding is so soon lol so even if the food isn't good we're staying with this place- everyone always complains about wedding food anyway- but so we are actually going during another couples wedding reception. We won't get to pick the food to taste it'll be what they have on their menu but it works because well get to see an idea of how they make things