When to do catering tasting?

Thanks, Val! I think I'll go ahead and schedule it then. I don't want to wait too long.

Our venue has specific dates for tastings, so we're doing ours in November (about 3 1/2 months before our wedding). We are doing a plated service though, so we'll pick our choices at the tasting, then give the final count for each dish about 1 month before the wedding.

We did ours in September. Our venue told us that we needed to decide on a menu within 3 months of the event. I don't think there is anything negative about doing a tasting a lot earlier. Probably the only down side would be if they added additional items later on that you may have wanted.

Otherwise, I think you would be good trying at any time. Honestly, that was my favorite part of this whole process.

We did ours right away! I don't like to wait too long to get things done...lol! But that's just me! It's just nice to get stuff off of your checklist...lol!

Whenever the caterer tells me to. I'm meeting her the 14th so I'll coordinate then. I have no idea otherwise!

We did ours pretty early (I think it was in November 2014 for our August 2015 wedding). I don't really see any reason to wait. We just wanted to get it out of the way!

I guess the only reason to wait is to see if they change their menu at all?

Our venue does tastings about three months out, so we plan to do ours in February. Our venue is a restaurant though, so we have had their food a few times before.

Thanks, everyone! Our caterer has been around a while, so I can't imagine they'll be changing their menu much. I'll go ahead and book a tasting. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something

I would say the sooner the better. We actually did two tastings before we got the menu right.

We are getting married in January and our tasting is this Wednesday. Sometimes the menu changes with the seasons too so that's something to consider.

We did ours before we booked, March 2015 for an October wedding. Since then our caterer has opened a restaurant and added more choices. He has told us we can try any of the new items and change if we want to.

Our venue does them between November-March. We're visiting in January to get it taken care of for our June wedding.

We did ours in August, about three months out.

We had our first tasting in February 2014 for our February 2016 wedding.. We had two follow-up tastings already and have one more that is left (which will be next week). We already decided on the menu for both the reception and rehearsal (our caterer is doing both). The one we have next week is for: sangria and appetizers (for the reception) and desserts (for the rehearsal).

So I think if your caterer is open to doing it now, you can go ahead and schedule it.

We did ours in August for our upcoming March wedding, because my parents were visiting from France and I wanted them at the tasting since they're helping us financially with the catering (and we're French so there's nothing we do best than eat together and talk about food!).

The only thing to consider with the timing of a tasting is seasonality of your dishes, if applicable. Our catering company does a lot of dishes with seasonal vegetables. For example, we wanted to try the heirloom tomato and burrata salad, but our caterer warned us that it was amazing in August but not in season in March. We ate it at the tasting anyway, fell in love with it, and we're going to watch the tomatoes in March to see if they're good enough to serve that salad (if not, we have a backup salad).

Our venue doesn't sign contracts until six months before the date (although they won't give our date away without our permission). I can't do a tasting until the contract is signed. It has to be done before we order invitations, as we need dinner selections printed. I'm hoping that the fact that we need a dinner choice will get people to RSVP better. Although that is not my primary reason for having a plated dinner (my mother's mobility issues are why I do not want a buffet).

We did our catering tasting and menu building before we even officially booked them--- So about a year in advance.

We just did ours last week. So Oct. 1st for January wedding. They said 3-4 months prior to set the menu. Im glad its so close, because things change and they could decide to not make that menu item anymore or whatever it may be.

The tasting was one of the first things we did. It was in late april, we got married in august. I dont think there is any reason to wait.