We hired Dani for the following: Catering, Bartending, and Wedding Coordinator…read more
The food was great at the tasting and tasted great on the wedding day.
However, we were extremely disappointed and feel lied to at parts the day of.
The food seemed rushed as it was served, some guests had tiny portions compared to others, but again, the food did taste great.
Several guests complained about the bartending, that Dani's husband was rude, though I didn't experience this myself so may have just been the guests being picky.
The things that went great:
*Set Up: Each table looked exactly as we wanted them to, decorations were on point and we loved how it all looked as we envisioned.
*Food: Food tasted amazing, would definitely hire again for catering, tasted exactly like the tastings and in some ways better on the day of.
The real issues:
Dani did not have a team of people as promised, nor did she communicate this until a few days prior to the wedding date but guaranteed at least 3 people. Instead, with no communication prior to, arrived with only herself and husband. This would not have been a problem if it was not as chaotic as it turned out to be the day of.
Don't get me wrong, I felt bad for Dani having to juggle so much, but if she couldn't handle all the workload then she should have told us her limits, and we could have taken something off the plate like either the bartending or coordinating.
issues:
*Coordinating:
Dani was MIA when it came to ushering people to the ceremony, our venue workers had to help with this.
The timing of the music was crucial to know when everyone went up, our DJ had to take this over, we didn't even know where Dani was during this time. Dani was also supposed to que the bride when to enter, again our venue staff had to help with this because Dani was still missing.
*Cake: **disclosure, Dani did not make the cake, we hired another vendor to make it**
Dani (as the coordinator) placed the cake outside along with the cupcakes that were meant to be for the guests. THEN WENT MIA AGAIN. So instead of everyone watching us cut the cake and then enjoying cupcakes, we were blindsided waiting for Dani to notify us of the time to go and that it was cake time, so guests went and just got cake for themselves since nobody announced or said what they were for. So we rushed over, and had to ask our photographers to help us with the cake cutting, getting us utensils, and setting up the scene since we we now had a 90% empty table since all cupcakes were gone because the guests had no clue they were meant to be part of the cake event. No announcements were made, and no guests present for the cake cutting.
*Reception Layout:
Months prior to the wedding day, we were asked and provided a picture of the layout of each table, along with each guest for those tables. We were asked for this again a week prior to the wedding, so that's two times we provided the reception layout by table and guest per table.
The day of, half the tables were right, half were wrong. The reason this was such a big issue is the bride's close family was placed at the back, instead of friends. So now all pictures and videos of the reception have none of her family members present next to us and she cannot get over this and has cried for days over this fact. This was the greatest issue that left us the most disappointed.
*Staffing: a few weeks prior to the wedding we were told Dani's staff had some reasons they may not be there. But guaranteed at least 3 people to handle the work, instead it was only Dani and her husband. Her husband manned the bar, and Dani everything else. So in the last 3 hours of the reception Dani had to rush to make desserts which left her MIA as mentioned earlier, and again, we do feel bad for the work she was putting in, we understand she was trying to get everything done, but this resulted in the best man acting as a 3rd worker instead of being able to enjoy the wedding. The best man and the groom had to run around the entire lead up to the ceremony. We wish we would have known this before booking the coordination, it was probably the one thing Dani could not handle that she could have told us in advance about.
Overall:
Would definitely hire for catering again, bartending also but didn't get to experience fist hand since people brought us drinks, but they did taste great just not as strong as maybe some people would like. Dani was very friendly, and leading up had us feeling confident, but staffing issues and an overwhelming workload left us feeling very disappointed afterward and the bride heartbroken at parts of the wedding. Dani seems like a great person, but hopefully in the future will let people know when there's too much on her plate.