Gracious Events - Catering and Event Design

Vesna and Bella helped plan and execute the perfect rehearsal dinner for 80 guests. They created a romantic setting for our family style dinner with an ivy backdrop and inviting table designs using vintage dinnerware and small flower arrangements down the length of the table runners. Service was spectacular. Our "foodie" guests were blown away! The hardest choice was whether to enjoy seconds of salmon and spare ribs or to save room for dessert. The evening ended with a debate between team "Drunken Apple Bread Pudding" and team "Dark Chocolate Pot de Creme" (participants having to sample both before voting) as to who enjoyed the meal most. Memorable dinner made easy with Gracious Events!

My husband and our parents are still receiving compliments from friends and family on the amazing menu, drinks and appetizers from our big day - SEVEN months later. We did a family style dinner and everyone loved their meals! I wanted to add that while everything this team had planned for was outstanding, they also stepped up for the unexpected with calm professionalism. The entire day and evening was seamless! Thank you so much for helping us throughout the planning and day of events and helping to make our wedding such a joyous and memorable day!!!

We hired Marija and Gracious Catering-Events for our daughter’s wedding and had a 5+ star experience. Marija’s assistance with meal selection, linens and place settings made the meal planning process effortless. Our tasting sessions were beautifully set at their facility and gave us glimpse of our guests’ experience. Marija’s assistance in day-of coordination was a blessing. She managed our rehearsal as well as wedding ceremony effortlessly, despite having a plan A and plan B dependent on the weather. The reception was managed flawlessly by Marija and her staff as well. Highly recommend Marija and Gracious Catering-Events!

We had Gracious Events cater our wedding two weeks ago and everything was amazing! Vesna was very kind and professional from day one and incorporated our wishes while giving great suggestions. She is very experienced and helped the day run smoothly. The staff was friendly and we received so many compliments on the food! We chose to do food stations, which were a huge hit and we loved that we could eat a little of everything. Would highly recommend for any catering needs!

We worked with Gracious Events as part of their work with the St. James 1868 ... and through three wedding dates with COVID-19. Bella Gordon served as our day-of coordinator, Gracious did our catering and we used the team for floral. They were very in tune with our budget, considerate of date changes and Bella was an awesome support day-of. Food was delicious and the venue floral was wonderful.

We had a wonderful experience with Vesna and her team. We booked gracious for catering, floral design, and coordination for our wedding at Villa Terrace. The food was great, the flowers were lovely and the coordination throughout the day was very smooth. They worked so well with our entire vendor team and really helped our vision for the wedding come to life. Thanks again!

Gracious Events is exceptional at what they do! Their staff is professional, experienced, and most importantly, fun to work with. At every point in our experience, we were confident and relaxed that everything, down to the smallest details, would be taken care of – it was absolutely perfect. The day of service allowed us to truly relax and enjoy the day, while everything was on time and coordinated. We would highly recommend Gracious Events to any couple looking for the best service in the Milwaukee area! We especially wanted to extend a special shoutout to Bella and Marija – We cannot thank you two enough for everything! 😊

We had the pleasure of working with Gracious as they are the current partners for St. James 1868 (check out their venue space - you will not be disappointed and we could not recommend this venue enough). Consider yourself extremely fortunate if you are able to land an event date with the St. James/Gracious duo! The food prepared by Gracious is truly spectacular and our guests could not stop raving about the entrees offered at our wedding! Outside of the amazing food and drinks, Marija was an excellent day of coordinator and her day of staff were amazing. Gracious offers beautiful linens and day of rentals. Marija and her team took our vision and far exceeded any of our expectations. The team was able to handle a massive flip of our indoor space from the ceremony to reception with ease. Hopefully this will not be of concern in the near future, but Marija was on top of any COVID-19 updates including city and state orders. We could not have been luckier to have this team running the show the day of our wedding! Our only compliant, and this is echoed in our review for St. James, was the transition process between the previous St. James event staff/caterer and Gracious. This really boiled down to a major disconnect in communication. We would send information or speak with Gracious and the subsequent proposal would be off on various details, particularly details that were important to us. That said, following an all hands-on deck meeting with Gracious and St. James, everything was smooth sailing. We would not expect this to be an ongoing issue going forward, rather just a bump in the road during their new partnership with the St. James venue. Anyone would be lucky to have this team assisting with their wedding or event. We hope that anyone who choose Gracious has as wonderful of an experience as we did!

We are so happy we chose to go with Vesna and the Gracious Events team for our wedding! The food for our wedding was one of our top priorities and Vesna was able to really customize a menu that represented exactly what we wanted. The restaurant quality of the food and Vesna's flexibility was amazing and truly incomparable to a standard catering service. We still have guests complimenting how delicious the meal was! We would definitely recommend Gracious Events for any wedding!

I was a guest at a wedding last night. That butterscotch pudding was the best thing I’ve tasted in my life.

Having Gracious Events cater our wedding was a no-brainer as soon as we tried their food for the first time at our tasting. It is restaurant quality food and we have received so many compliments that it was the best wedding food our guests have ever had. All of the staff were so kind and attentive. We would highly recommend to anyone!

I can't describe in words how fortunate I feel to have found Vesna for our wedding reception catering and event design. Her flexibility allowed us to incorporate the items we felt were most important in our reception that other caterers could not accommodate. As a bride who knew little about what I wanted, she steered me in the right direction while honoring my preferences every step of the way. The vision she created for our reception was absolutely perfect. Most importantly, the food was incredible. Four months after our wedding, guests continue to rave about it! Her staff was professional, prompt, and attentive throughout the event and the food was presented beautifully. Thank you so very much, Vesna!!!

I am so thankful that I found Gracious Catering and worked with them on my wedding day. Vesna's vision and service was amazing. I did not want the traditional "steak/mashed potatoes/sauteed vegetable" meal and Vesna helped bring my vision of a vibrant, elevated and delicious dinner menu to life! She is so creative and has a true passion for her work. We went with the 'feast' style option and our guests loved being able to pick and choose how much they wanted. This also really created a warm and interactive atmosphere at each table. We also choose appetizers and desserts that rounded out a beautifully crafted flavor profile for the whole evening! No one ever raves about wedding food, but our guests truly were! Even the pickiest of attendees made comments on the beautiful and delicious meal!

Hiring Gracious Events was by far the best decision we made in regards to our wedding. They handled the decor, flowers, catering, and coordination, and executed it all with perfection. Seriously - they do the most beautiful work. Vesna worked with us for over a year to make sure our wedding day was a dream come true. She was patient, attentive, and available - she went above and beyond at each step of the way and was such a joy to work with and be around. We received countless compliments about the food at our wedding and how smoothly everything went. I am so appreciative and grateful that we were able to be present and fully enjoy our wedding day, knowing that Vesna and her staff had everything handled. We cannot say enough good things about them and would wholeheartedly recommend.

Vesna was a major contributor to the overall quality of our wedding. We initially chose her business due to the high (restaurant) quality of her food, especially compared to other catering agencies in the city. We also found her to be excellent handling floral and other decorations, some of which she created for us (including building a new trellis). Her service is uniformly high quality, however be willing to expect her to not provide firm details ahead of time about how particular arrangements will look (spoiler: excellent.) We received several compliments about the food being the best our guests had had at any previous wedding. Vesna put together a trellis for us and brought in additional decor to make the room look stunning without having to strain our budget further. Her staff assisted in cleanup effectively at the end of the night and stored some of the decoration for a couple days until we could pick it up. If you want food that tastes amazing and will have all your guests talking, definitely reach out to Vesna at Gracious Events.

When my husband and I started planning our fall Milwaukee wedding, choosing seasonal and delicious food was at the top of our priority list. When we first met with Vesna, she really listened to what we were looking for and made that vision come to life. The food at our tasting was fantastic and knocked our socks off. The day of our wedding, it was just as incredible. The food was served timely, warm, and quickly to all of our guests. The service was just as amazing as the food. We are so impressed with every service that Gracious provided to help make our day run smoothly.

We had the pleasure of working with Vesna and Gracious Events in July for a "happily ever after" celebration for my daughter and son-in-law at an outdoor venue in Brookfield, WI. She understood what they were looking for in terms of the feel, the flow, the flowers and the food. She made it all comebeautifully and deliciously to life the evening of the event. Our guests are still raving about the food - it was truly amazing - delicious, beautifully presented and lots of it! Her staff was hard working, polite and unobtrusive. Over the six months we worked with her, she was responsive to emails, phone calls, suggestions, budget parameters and all of the last minute things that come up. We were absolutely delighted with our experience with Gracious Events!

I loved working with Vesna! She was a great help and, unlike most vendors, did not have issues I needed to work around; she worked around everything for me. My only complaint is that one of the servers walked up right after my sister started her speech and interrupted to ask if she would hold off on her speech so they could serve dinner. However this does not reflect on Gracious catering, all other employees were wonderful! The food is GREAT! And my centerpieces were one of my favorite parts of the venue which Vesna supplied. Over all a great experience!

Inspired, delicious and fresh! If you are a foodie or have foodies in your family....this is the caterer you must book. No warming trays, straight from the oven to your tables. Our timing with the Grand March was off a little so the meals weren't hot-hot, but that was our fault, not theirs. Some of the staff members seemed new, but most were responsive and accommodating. The hall owner said Vesna is the best caterer in the area!

All guests have said...."BEST FOOD EVER!" And it really was. You never walk away from a wedding remembering the food, but it has been 5 months and our guests are still talking about the delicious hor d'oeurves, amazing small plate dinners, and unique presentations with all of the food. Working with Vesna and her exceptional staff made planning for my wedding simple. They assist in any way they can (flowers, linens, decor) all within your budget. As the day came and went, I realized how perfect everything was and how happy our guests were made to feel because of Gracious Catering. I want to have multiple weddings just so I can work with them again!

We were lucky with pretty much all of our vendors and had a great wedding. So we had a lot of compliments about everything, but one thing that you do not hear often at a wedding (and even from my personal experience) is how great the food is. But one of the things we were complimented the absolute most on was our food!!! They know what they're doing and are really really good at it.