3.5 Stars!
Plus side:
Jonathan, the Chef and owner of Lavishly Dunn is truly an exceptional chef and is the only reason we chose Lavishly Dunn to cater our fall wedding. He is personable, knowledgeable, and understands customer service. His food was made just the way we wanted and plated and served beautifully. All guests, with their multiple food allergies and dietary restrictions, were well taken care of by Jonathan and his staff at the venue location.
The staff at the venue provided extraordinary service and took care of all needs so we could just relax, visit, and enjoy our wedding reception. Everything was plated beautifully and they did a great job managing the venue location once they arrived. (There was some tableware that they could've cleared prior to departure, but that wasn't huge for us as we had many helping hands following the reception).
Downside:
This would be a five star review, yet we were extremely disappointed with Jen, Lavishly Dunn's Sales and Operation's Manager. From the moment we sent an inquiry to Lavishly Dunn regarding catering possibilities (started in February 2015 for an October 2015 wedding), Jen has been unresponsive, and when she did respond, she always provided us with an excuse as to why she failed to return an email, phone call, another email, another phone call, etc. If this was an isolated event, we would understand as life happens, however this continued all the way up until the day of our wedding. Had it not been for the great food and personable attention that Jonathan showed us at our tasting, we would have gone with another catering company hands down (and we almost did, but good food was our goal, regardless of service), as Jen's customer service made us anxious and worried as to the quality of food and service we would be receiving at our wedding.
Sadly, Jen failed to do many of the things she said she would do, such as a site visit to the venue location (this caused unnecessary anxiety as we were unsure what type of equipment they would need at location, as we went with another equipment rental company), and her presence at our actual event (which she told us multiple times that she would be there in addition to the wedding coordinator, however it did relieve our anxiety that Jen was NOT at the reception, so it all worked out). We had to play the silly game of CC'ing Jonathan on every email or just reaching out to him just to get Jen to acknowledge our existence and answer our inquiries. We did all of the venue preparation planning, reception timeline coordination, and pre-reception execution with absolutely no assistance from Jen or the Wedding Manager that we were paying for, so other than the proposal (which had to be corrected multiple times as Jen failed to accurately portray what we had requested, quantities, price, etc.) I'm not sure what they did in terms of planning for us.
Price was a bit outrageous for what they provided. Though the food was great, and the service at the venue was well provided, I'm not sure why we paid just as much money for approximately an 8-hour period for a chef, three servers, a bar tender, and kitchen technician as we did for 48 guest meals, a bar service (we provided our own alcohol) and three stationary appetizers. We kept asking Jen if we even needed all of that staff for such a small wedding and Jen insisted that we did, however I'm not sure why or where that money went to. We saved over $1,000 by going through a different equipment rental company than the one Lavishly Dunn uses, so I would recommend shopping around for equipment to not blow your wedding budget on marked up equipment.
Bottom line:
Jonathan is amazing and has amazing, healthy food, prepared the way you want it. However, if Jen is managing your event, ask to be managed by another staff member (Connie and Mackenzie are great!), this will save you time, anxiety, headaches, and most likely your money. read more