Live Oak catered my wedding. We originally chose this caterer because we felt that the food was…read moregood, the pricing was competitive, and the caterer was willing to be flexible both in terms of menu and venue. However, things did not go so well for us.
We had our wedding and reception on the beach. However, our cocktail hour was to be on a patio by the property that we had rented. The house and the beach were a short walk away from each other, but certainly presented a bit of a challenge in terms of getting things between the two. It was about a 5 minute walk. I know this is not the simplest set-up, but I assure you that I paid through the nose for this service and they charged us extra because of that 5 minute walk.
Originally the caterer asked if they could just do wine and beer during the cocktail hour. This made no sense to us because it's called "cocktail hour" and we bought all the alcohol necessary. So, we asked them to actually serve cocktails and gave them a recipe for a signature drink. When we got up to the patio, there was a HUGE line waiting for drinks. Instead of premixing some of the signature drink so they could hand things out quickly to the crowd, every single drink was being made to order and the line was ridiculous. For me, that was a strike against them. It's an open bar- there's no reason why someone should be in line for 20 minutes to get a drink! Have they not heard of making pitchers??
Next, it turns out that the caterer hadn't split the alcohol supply between the patio and the beach. They had everything up on the patio, including things that really didn't need to be there, like the bubbly and the wine- things not being served at cocktail hour. So, they had to carry everything down with them. That took them a very long time. This meant that no one got any alcohol at the actual reception until after everyone had already eaten dinner!! Not to mention that the bubbly was never served, nevermind that it wasn't available during the big toasts.
It gets better though. By the time they drag all the alcohol down, everyone's done eating and they are once again incapable of figuring out how to serve the crowd. Again a large queue forms. At this point I can't take this anymore and I just grab the bottles and start opening them and handing them out to various tables. Honestly, a wedding for which you bought all the alcohol and where you intended to have an open bar, is not so much fun when after all that it's pretty much a dry wedding! No one is feeling courageous enough to get on the dance floor.
Now to finish the bar story- on top of everything, they run out of glasses!! They're talking to me about this issue and I'm amazed that they run out of glasses. You would think this would be just one of the most basic things a caterer does and prepares for. To top it off- the staff suggests picking up people's dirty glasses and reusing them, dirty! I was appalled. My wedding coordinator had to go drive to a supermarket and pick up plastic cups.
Now on to the food. We had a buffet - with metal trays that were heated from the bottom. The food tasted good. However, after the last table was called to get their food, the caterer started taking food away. They made no announcement that they were taking away the food. When I asked him what he was doing he said that food couldn't be out for too long or it would go bad and then he'd be liable for making people sick. Folks, I'm a lawyer and here to say that if that were true, then you'd see waiters coming to take people's plates out from under them if they didn't eat fast enough. So, no one got to get seconds, even though people had taken little in the first round to make sure everyone got enough. And because the bar was so slow in opening up, now I have a bunch of guests who are drinking but no longer eating. That's a great recipe for alcohol poisoning. They hauled away tons of perfectly good that I paid good money for. I have never ever seen anyone do that before at any event. ADDITIONALLY the waitstaff went around to all the tables and took all the plates away for anyone who was dancing or not in their seat. So, without any indication that someone was actually done, they took their food away and they closed the buffet. We had a lot of hungry people!!
The food was good, but the service was absolutely abominable. I really wouldn't recommend this company to anyone trying to do an event that requires any serious planning or foresight. These people showed themselves really incapable of problem-solving and really did not care at all whether the guests were getting everything they needed. When they ran out of cups, instead of figuring something out, they just didn't serve people! They also did not give a damn about my protestations with regard to the food. To think- picking a fight with a bride on her wedding day! If I knew that's how they were going to do things, I would have never in a million years signed up for this caterer
