My husband and I first booked this place in 2010 (we like to plan early to get the best deal) and worked with Nancy. Since we decided to have our wedding ceremony and reception at Hurst Ranch, we automatically had to turn to Bashful Butler for all of our catering needs (as they are the sole caterer for Hurst Ranch). Nancy was very friendly and played that caring mother role quite well and made us feel welcomed when we first met her.
For our food tasting, it was like the back door food tasting, where we had to go to one of their catered events and pick up our food. Now this is not your typical fancy food tasting where you go to the caterer and they bring out a few dishes for you to sample, but actually better. Why you ask? Well when you pick up your sample plate from an actual event the caterer works, then you would know how the food would actually taste like during your own event. Often times people find that the food at their event does not taste nearly as good as when they had it the first time at their food tasting (thus this tasting style being better). Anyways, we did not like the food we tried and requested to try something else, so Ryan (the person we ended up working with since Nancy was on the path of retirement) set us up with another food tasting.
We ended up picking chicken Marsala, tri tip, garlic mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, garden salad and ambrosia salad for our lunch buffet. And on the day of our wedding (we both did not eat much because of our nerves) the food tasted delicious. We also loved the design the cake decorator did for us (I sent Ryan a nice design that I saw on line and wasn't sure if the decorator could recreate it, but he said that he could, so it was a wonderful surprise that our cake looked almost like the photo I sent him).
Bashful Butler was pretty flexible, in which I had to add 4 more guests to the guest count 10 days before the wedding (after I had already met with Ryan to finalize everything) and he had no problem adding them.
On the day of the wedding, we had a few hiccups, but luckily our banquet manager, Chris, was there to fix those problems quickly. She was so sweet and incredibly accommodating. Especially when my husband and I had a traditional Chinese tea ceremony prior to the wedding ceremony and Chris was able to bring out 30+ cups for us to serve the tea to our families. Chris also made sure that we had hot water and tea bags ready to go when we arrived to the venue 2 hours before our scheduled wedding ceremony time (if I could, I would give Chris 5 stars alone).
The pricing Bashful Butler charged was very affordable and Ryan and Nancy worked with our budget.
But I do have just a few complaints while working with them. One thing was that we were told that our food would be boxed up (guests are not allowed to have their food boxed up due to health code violation, according to the caterer) and that we could pick it up after the wedding was over. However, the 2nd banquet manager (Chris left an hour before our event was over, which we were told ahead of time and was assigned 2 banquet managers) said he did not see a to go box for us :( (and we were pretty hungry after the wedding too... make sure you eat a good meal before you attend your own wedding and after too). Another thing was that the restroom in the little yellow house (the bride can use the yellow house to get dressed) was not working (fortunately, I had a friend who was able to fix it and save the day for me). Another thing was that in the men's restroom (in reception hall), one of the stalls did not have toilet paper. Lastly, after we had thought we wrote our last check for the wedding, we were contacted by Ryan more than once to pay a 2nd and 3rd final check due to miscalculation.
But overall, I still had no big problems working with Bashful Butler and wouldn't mind working with them again. read more