Elevated Catering

Elevated is quite possibly the worst-managed business I have ever dealt with.We booked Elevated back in 2019 for our 6/20/20 wedding.They put on an excellent tasting. Shortly after we booked them and paid our deposit, things went downhill. I would never wish the amount of anxiety and stress they caused us on any couple.I feel like, working in the wedding industry, you have to understand that most couples are spending more money on this day then they have on anything else in their lives.They also spend so much time/effort planning the day,coordinating details,and dreaming about what the day will look like. It is supposed to be one of the happiest days of their lives, so as a worker in this industry,you should be doing your absolute best to deliver the day of their dreams and ensure a smooth planning process.Elevated Catering was undoubtedly the most stressful aspect of our 3 year (thanks Covid) engagement. Our biggest complaints are the following: •LACK OF RESPONSIVENESS- Planning a wedding is tough! There are so many moving parts and you have to coordinate so many details with many different vendors.For this reason, it is important to have a reliable point of contact.Elevated consistently took weeks and oftentimes MONTHS to respond to calls and emails.We constantly felt like we needed to hound them to get any sort of answers. •HORRIBLE SERVICE DAY OF WEDDING-They showed up with only 1 bartender, when we specifically asked for 2.Many of the staff members were completely deficient in alcohol-related knowledge. For instance, one did not know the difference between Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio.When I asked another server what kind of wine they had on a platter,they said “white”. They did not make sure my husband and I were served any appetizers. We also were not served drinks at our dinner table.We had to walk up to the bar each time, even though we specifically requested a server dedicated to the head table as well as one for the parents’ table.Every wedding I’ve been to, wine glasses have been on the table, so that servers can easily fill guests’ glasses.This did not happen. Well after we were seated, I looked at our head table only to see that not one person had a drink. Servers were using our cocktail tables (that we had set up for guests to use and mingle at) to hold dozens of glasses of wine. There were multiple crashes of dishes and glasses that were never properly picked up and guests got chards of glass in their feet. Stephen had a staff member’s 14-year-old child working our wedding because they were so short-handed.Aside from the fact that 14 years old seems extremely young to be working a wedding event, the child was NOT TRAINED whatsoever. When we asked Stephen about this, he said “Is this ageism showing?” •NO CLEAR LEADERSHIP- Stephen Tanner, the owner, has an excuse for literally everything. There is no clear point of contact. Occasionally he would give you the name and email of a new person but shortly after, they would leave the company and you would never be notified of the change. The website was never updated with current personnel, so you would continually reach out with no response. After our wedding day, we contacted Stephen to discuss our awful wedding day service. He told us he KNEW the head-table’s server was doing a terrible job, because she was dealing with altitude sickness. We then asked why he didn’t appoint someone else or come up to us and ask if we needed anything. He said there was never a “right time”.