Brandon and his crew cooked us up the most delicious tasting experience, so we knew we wanted to book him for our wedding, and we did! The food was just excellent. My husband and I wanted to make sure that we gave our guests the best possible f...ood we could afford, and I am truly happy with how it came out. If you are debating on having barbecue style food for your wedding, just go for it. So delicious and not pretentious. Our guests raved about it. Follow the Smoke provides amazing, high-quality, plentiful food for a wedding. There is not a doubt in my mind that Brandon was born to make good food for a crowd - he is truly skilled at that and is a very nice person.
That being said, I have to give them 3/5 stars, solely due to poor communication on their end. We booked them in March 2022 for our wedding in June 2023. In that 15 month timespan, I had initiated nearly every email/text conversation about the logistics of the day, and was hardly met with a response from him.
He uses a vendor-client portal called Honeybook where you can make your payments for the services you’re seeking. However, we have it in writing that he’d take 10% off for any cash/check payments. All of our payments were made via check and we never saw this discount.
There were a few occasions where, after booking FTS as our wedding caterer, we thought it would be nice to have my bridal shower and our rehearsal dinner catered by him too. Any time I inquired about an additional service, I was met with a response from him, but following up on details was made so difficult due to him not responding or taking a very long time (weeks, months) to do so. We ended up not needing him for those other services anyway, but looking back, I don’t know if I would have wanted to, simply because of how difficult it was to plan for anything.
A month and a half before our wedding, I had asked for clarification on our contract details. I wanted to double check that utensils and napkins and glasses and NA drinks were included in our package (the contract stated they were, but I just wanted to double check since the wording of the contract seemed ambiguous). Should I have checked sooner? Perhaps. However, it took multiple emails and follow-ups and texts in that time span to finally get his full answers. In the days leading up to my wedding, I didn’t want to have to be the one confirming details only to be met with no response. I think anyone would agree that the vendor should be initiating conversation for these details.
On the day before my wedding, I learned that Brandon never communicated with our venue about scheduling when to set up his belongings until the day before. He reached out to me that day, informing me that my venue wouldn’t let him set up. When I got this text, I happened to be with the planner of our venue and she informed me that he hadn’t even contacted her about these logistics and she was appalled that he was putting that on me to figure out and reassured me that she’d take care of it. And she did.
I’m fully aware that FTS is a business and has multiple clients. But proper communication with a client is not only professional, but essential. Especially in the wedding industry.
I really wanted to give Brandon 5 stars because his product was great. But I don’t know if the anxiety was worth it all.