Review from Craig and Mary Miller
We hired Celebrations Catering for our daughter's July 12, 2024 wedding. The food was very good, the bartenders were excellent and all the servers were great. We received many compliments after the wedding. Our only issue was with our contact person Megan Coblentz Stouffer. At our first meeting in Feb. 2023, Meg was very receptive to the type of reception we wanted, which was buffet style and did not include a traditional cocktail hour. Everything we had discussed or requested had been met with positivity until about 2 months prior to the wedding. At that point, it seemed that everything we had planned became problematic. We had one phone call meeting where Meg made several suggestions that conflicted or contradicted plans that had previously been discussed. Afterwards, we continued emailing which seemed to be her preferred method of communication. In hindsight, we wish we would've had more in person meetings or just asked for someone else. Three weeks before the wedding, she sent an email with several incorrect statements. After correcting her and restating what our daughter wanted, she seemed a bit defensive. Once our final information for billing purposes had been submitted, we did not hear from Meg again until she arrived for the wedding day. The week of the wedding, Meg communicated some issues through our venue coordinator. We had requested that our linens be dropped off at the venue earlier in the day in order to be set before the florist delivered centerpieces. As Celebrations had a reputation for being very flexible and helpful with vendor coordination, we did not expect this to be a problem. (Celebrations was originally scheduled to arrive only 30 minutes after the florist). Instead, Meg told our coordinator that the linens could not be delivered any earlier and if we wanted the linens, then we could pick them up early ourselves. Meg also communicated to our coordinator that they would not transfer the wedding cake from inside the air-conditioned house to the outdoor tent for the reception despite this being a common practice for the company. Meg claimed it was not part of their contract, though the contract references wedding cakes and states "we will do our best to transport them safely." Since Meg refused to have her or her staff aid in the cake transport, family members of the bride had to move it instead. Meg was quick to quote what the contract states when it served her purpose, but did not bother to be careful with details such as writing the correct name for the bride's Mother in her Final Event Worksheet that would be provided to staff. Other details, such as how food would be served, were changed without communication as well. Though the contract stated our shrimp appetizer would be served in a martini glass, it was served on a small white plate instead, which significantly altered the presentation we were expecting. Meg's last communication with us prior to the wedding was on June 24th. Other vendors were in constant communication even the week of the wedding for final check-ins or confirmations. Our biggest disappointment with Meg was removing the only seafood entrée option from our menu without communicating or highlighting to us that she was doing this. Our initial proposal included a shrimp pasta and we never asked for it to be removed. When signing off on the final bill, we did not catch that it was missing. When we saw the shrimp pasta was not on the buffet during the wedding, we approached Meg to ask what happened. Meg immediately pulled up our final invoice on her phone and stated "it is not on your invoice, you did not pay for it." As parents of the bride, that is not something you want to hear in the middle of the reception. Though we did not catch the error ourselves on the invoice, Meg clearly knew about the missing entrée and was prepared to prove us wrong. She was the only person involved with the wedding that caused us worry and stress as our daughter was concerned Meg would not follow through with our desired and clearly discussed plans. For the most expensive aspect of a wedding, you expect to also have great service from the leader of the catering team. Instead, we were made to feel like Meg had something against us and chose not to follow through with the same level of service we had heard about from other customers and reviews.
We highly recommend Celebrations Catering for any event, just make sure you don't have Meg as your coordinator. read more