John Michael Weddings & Special Events

ery responsive to all our questions, had great tasting parties with a wide variety of linen colors. The staff was very professional, friendly, and made sure we had everything we needed. The food was very good, and they even provided a “goody” bag for us as we left the wedding. The guests were happy. John Michael Events did a great job for us.

t with and answered so many little questions throughout the process. Every single caterer we met through the tastings were kind. For those looking a year out it's really easy to make it to all of the tastings! They're quick and delicious, we took great notes and ranked all of the dishes so it was simple to determine our menu towards the end. Oh and they did an awesome job accommodating our guests allergies and dietary restrictions! The price was great, the ease was excellent, and the food was complimented on over and over again! Oh- and don't skip the corn casserole... it's the best!

m at JM for keeping us well fed!

ng process for us was also super easy thanks to the tasting events put together by this vendor. I would recommend going to these to anyone who is planning on catering with John Michael. And beyond that, the service was exceptional. Justin worked with us to set up the plan for our day and he made everything so easy to understand and follow. Thank you, Justin! Additionally, we also got our wedding day-of coordinator from the John Michael team: Giselle. Giselle, thank you so much for everything you did on our special day. The setup, event and cleanup was so smooth and flawless! As someone who is really hands-on, I was able to completely let go during my wedding and have fun. I want to give a special shoutout to Bonnie, who took cake of myself and my husband during our special day. She consistently checked up on us to make sure we both had everything we needed in terms of food and drink. Finally, the bartender working our event that night was amazing! I heard great compliments on the margaritas and my cocktails were also top notch. Overall, our experience was fantastic. I look forward to finding an excuse and cater again with you guys because your food is so good!

t tell you how incredibly helpful she was along the way. & The food! Oh my. Absolutely delicious - we have heard literally not one bad thing about any of it, the appetizers, main courses, the servers - all were literally fantastic. (I even had a few say it was some of the best wedding food they had ever had!). I appreciate everything that everyone did to make our day run as smoothly as it did, definitely a 10 out of 10! 😍🥰😁

ptional service and food that John Michael provided. Justin and his team went above and beyond to make our special day memorable for us and our guests. We still get compliments on our food and my mom won't stop talking about how amazing the staff was and it really is true. Our drinks were never empty and a bartender even kept bringing water out to me (the bride) on the dance floor. I can't thank them enough! Hire them for your wedding, you won't regret it!!!

me. Thank you to you and your team for dealing with our craziness! I am so thrilled to be working with you for our big day!

ll-service wedding through them including coordination services and their cake vendor! Their no nonsense and no hidden fees pricing is a refreshing relief to those who have priced out a few vendors only to be hit with thousands of surprise fees. The price they give you is what you get and its some of the best pricing and value for your money around! Delicious food, excellent service, Giselle was incredible and answered no small number of our questions. She did an amazing job giving us peace of mind and helped to make our wedding day so special!

HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

e bar tender was amazing!! We organized our wedding abroad and wasn't able to trial the food before the wedding so I was a bit nervous, but it was perfect. Justin made everything so easy to organize. He helped me get the timing right for cocktail hour/food/cake cutting. Would highly recommend John Michael!

ichael Events took care most of the work and made it so easy. Giselle was a pleasure to work with and did a great job at explaining what you would need and coordinating the vendors. They even have an event coordinator for the day of to manage all the vendors. Ours was Justin and he was so helpful throughout the day right down to even helping me fix my train before I walked down the aisle. The food was absolutely delicious, too! All my guests not only loved the food they provided, but also how it was presented. We did not spend a enormous amount of money on our wedding, but John Michael Events made it seem like we did! I would highly recommend them for your catering and wedding planning needs.

ait long for answers and never had an issue scheduling meetings and tastings. The food and was delicious and beautifully laid out. The bartending staff was super friendly and made sure I stayed hydrated while I was getting ready. Once the ceremony was done, Giselle repurposed my ceremony flowers in my reception area beautifully though she wasn't asked and it didn't even occur to me that they can be used that way . All of them went above and beyond to make sure everything went off without a hitch and I could not recommend them more

helped us make our wedding day perfect. JME had everything we needed and we used a couple of their services. They helped us with the wedding license, worked closely with our venue, and had a great group of vendors. Everything was communicated and handled perfectly. We had a few special requests that they were perfectly able to accommodate and helped us pull off. The food was fantastic! I was worried how a buffet style meal would come out, but it tasted great and was better than I expected! I highly recommend getting the Mac and cheese because it was out of this world. We our so happy with how our wedding turned out and so much of that has to do with the awesome work of Giselle and the staff at JME. We highly recommend using them!

ve throughout the entire process. We dealt with Giselle, she was very helpful and made the process easy. We even had a drastic drop in guest count (due to the pandemic) and she not only accommodated this change, she helped us find the most cost effective option. Giselle was able to help us set up the catering for our wedding entirely through email and phone calls. We live in Washington so it was paramount that they be able to organize the catering remotely. The food was excellent and included something for everyone to enjoy! We also worked with their cake vendor who made it simple and easy to plan and choose our cake. Everything was delicious and looked amazing. The staff overall was excellent. They were very good at anticipating our needs and the needs of our guests. At our wedding, the staff were very good about bringing us our food, any drinks we wanted, and our cake as well. At the end, they packed up everything for us in convenient containers. Everything was well organized and easy to transport. They were also able to set up and tear down all of their equipment and items quickly and quietly before and after the wedding. We would highly recommend John Michael Catering for your wedding!

Gisselle was such a pleasure to work with! She was flexible with my couple's needs and made the tasting experience so easy for myself and my couple!

swered all of my questions in detail. I felt very informed. There were no hidden fees: when going over the contract, they made sure we knew if something we wanted was going to cost. Day of: So the positives include the staff’s friendliness and the food. Everything looked great: we had a brunch morning wedding, and our guests loved the food...they still mention it to us! The servers were very kind and professional. They made accommodations for two guests with severe allergies who had to bring in separate meals (I was still charged full price for this...it would have been good guest service to have offered perhaps a reduced cost for this plate since they weren’t eating, but I didn’t push it). The issues came with our waffle bar. The caterer ran out of waffles, so 3 full tables (including the groom’s family) did not receive any. Waffles were the staple food item, not just an appetizer, so it was embarrassing to run out. The communication was poor from the kitchen staff: we had guests waiting for a long time until they finally announced there were none left. Our day-of-coordinator was told WE hadn’t paid for enough waffles, and that’s why this happened. I went back in our contract and saw it was clearly written we had paid for enough for our guests. When I emailed JM about this, I was given very condescending responses that didn’t line up with what my coordinator was told: “Our chef indeed admitted an error in calculations that day for waffle mix. Unfortunately in the moment, there wasn’t much we could do about it. I am happy that there was plenty of other food as your coordinator admitted.” Our coordinator did NOT say this, and it is also a bad point to make. “Sorry we didn’t give you the main course you paid for, but at least we didn’t run out of other food?” He also went on to continue placing blame our way: “It seems like it didn’t damper you too much until your coordinator had to point it out. I understand if you feel some compensation is due.” We obviously were not informed of this issue on the day of because our coordinator and our guests were professional and kind enough not to bother the newlyweds with issues they cannot fix or control. We did ask for compensation, and in return we were given a cost breakdown of each individual waffle, and again told “There was plenty of other food items for guests to eat.”. While I understand it’s possible we may have asked for too much in compensation, there are much better ways to respond. ALSO, at this point we deserve compensation for the mistake and rudeness, not just the actual cost of the waffles. What JM didn’t seem to understand was that THEY made a mistake and should try to fix it, NOT spend the whole time trying to blame others. The mistake is forgivable: we know everyone is human and things can go wrong. But the continued rudeness in the emails? Completely unprofessional. That has led me to write this review. I would not recommend JM to ANYONE. It is clear that if an issue occurs, they do not have the professionalism to solve it or to treat you with respect. I have made sure to inform as many bridal sites about my experience as possible, because I do not want any other brides made to feel like this.

ay in advance by the time the toast came around the champagne was room temperature and almost flat. Smh! That is not even the worst part, they gave my cake to the maid of honor in a plastic wrap bundled mess! I wish I could post pictures. The cake was all broken and it almost looked as if they had dropped the cake and just scooped it up and put into the plastic wrap smh. The food was also cold by the time it got to the sweetheart table. If you can help it, don’t use this company

answer any questions we had or make any changes we needed. John Michael Events had never catered at our venue so Giselle even drove all the way up to Sanford to attend a meeting with us at the venue to familiarize the company with the venue. The level of communication during planning was excellent every step of the way. Everyone at the wedding raved about the food and how delicious it was which says a lot coming from our guests! The staff the day of went above and beyond to make the day seamless. The bartenders were great and kept the drinks flowing all night long. We had a MOSTLY adults only wedding with one table of kids and the catering manager even brought plates of buffet food over to the kids so they wouldn't have to go through the buffet. That went above and beyond the scope of duty and was greatly appreciated. We are so glad we hired John Michael Events for our wedding and highly recommend them!

rfectly. They were very accommodating. They put our party favors out on the tables for us and transported our cake stand so it would be ready when our cake was delivered at the event. We did a buffet style dinner, and everything tasted great. We got so many compliments from our guests. They are so considerate of the bride and groom. We got served first and received a little bit of everything form the buffet. They even prepared to go boxes with food and cake specifically for us. They did a great job of cleaning everything up and consolidating all of our stuff at the end of the night, so it was easy for our parents to load the vehicles. Thank you so much for making our special day perfect.

s to coordinate among our many vendors leading up to our wedding was a huge help. We attended two tastings and the food was great. Giselle and Charlene were wonderful and pretty easy to keep in contact with regarding our menu choices. We were really excited about the food as we had read the many reviews on The Knot and from our experience at the two tastings. Unfortunately, an entire table at our reception was told that they had run out of beef. Instead, they were served chicken and several from that same table commented on how small the servings of chicken were. This leads me to believe that they did not plan properly for the amount of food needed and instead had to cut the chicken servings in half to feed all guests. A couple of guests commented that the chicken seemed under-cooked as well and this could have been because they were scrambling to feed everyone during this shortage. This is unacceptable, especially because we had nine guests that were no shows, half of which ordered the beef. I wonder how many of our guests would have not received their menu choice had there not been as many no shows. So to summarize, the planning process was great but unfortunately, the catering service during the reception did not live up to our expectations.

end them to anyone in the Orlando area looking for flawless organization and service!

e and beyond and made sure all our guest left our wedding full and happy.

he second we were halfway to the location when we called to let JM know we were stuck in traffic and would be late. We were then told by JM that the tasting had been cancelled. Understandable, things happen. However, it would have been nice to have been told. The communication continued to be mediocre throughout the planning phase. Originally we had decided to use them as our day of coordinator as well. But the communication was so poor that we changed our minds. Phone calls would go unanswered and deadlines would pass. We felt under pressure at then end due to this, and always felt like we were the ones initiating the conversations. Because of this, there was absolutely no trust to be had in them helping our day to run smoothly. They also wanted to charge us extra for every little thing we asked about. Some examples being, moving one table from outside to inside and setting up desserts that we were bringing in ourselves- some serious nickle and diming here. The food on the day was again mediocre. Our guests did comment that the hors d'oeuvre were very tasty. However, they were not in ample supply and not everyone got to have them. The salads were, to be kind, "simple". The entrees were hit and miss. The presentation left a lot to be desired. However, the chicken and salmon did taste better than they looked, and our guests said they were "fine" for the most part. The flank steak on the other hand was definitely more Arby's sandwich meat than steak. We also selected the beer and wine package, deluxe coffee station and champagne toast along with the food. The wines used were all good. JM was also good about feeding the other vendors and did make sure they packaged up the leftovers. The day of staff were very personable and professional. Many of our guests commented on the friendliness of the bartenders and servers. The supervisor also checked in with us regularly. This was in contrast to our experience with the office staff who were the complete opposite. Make no mistake JM are cheap in comparison to other available caterers. However, there is a difference between cheap and value for money. Value for money, they were not. If food quality is important to you, then look elsewhere. If you are willing to make the price/quality compromise, then at least you guests will be fed.

s about the quality and how delicious it was. The staff was also great. Charlene and Giselle were both great to work with and made planning a destination wedding easy for me. The catering manager on staff the day of the wedding was fantastic and made sure our needs were tended to. I believe here name was Johanna, but everything that day went by so quickly so I am not 100% sure. Either way, she made sure Denver and I had food, water, beverages, whatever we needed. Overall, this was a fantastic experience and I cannot speak highly enough of John Michael Catering. Thank you for making our day so wonderful!

fter the wedding.

ons were answered quickly and easily. So glad John Michael Catering was a part of my event! My guests are still complimenting the food a month later!!

rvice was great (I especially appreciated the servers that came in to bring me and my groom appetizers and drinks while we were doing family pics) and the supervisor, Joanna, made sure I was 100% happy. Pre-wedding, Charlene was amazing in answering my questions at the tastings, over the phone and through email. Giselle took over near the end and it was a flawless transition. She was also very friendly and patient with all my last minute requests. I highly recommend!

across John Michael catering, their reasonable prices attracted me. But then they invited us to their quarterly tasting and after the tasting, we knew they were the ones we would hire. I loved that we were able to taste the food before we committed to signing or paying for anything. Tasting the food was key for us and John Michael's food was amazing at the tasting and at our event. They have a set menu list that you can pick from, but anything else that you would like to make, they would be more than happy to make it for you. Michael and Charlene were awesome to work with. They responded quickly to our questions and sat down with us to plan our wedding when we needed their support, which made the planning process much easier for us. We went with a buffet style for 105 guests and it turned out great. All of our guests loved the food. Our favorites were the bourbon pork and corn casserole, but everything was absolutely delicious. We had a few decor items and they were more than happy to set them up for us. We supplied our own alcohol to be served and they did a wonderful job at the bar. The staff was very attentive, asked if we needed more food or drinks. We thank everyone at John Michael for providing such quality service! Again, they were professional, easy to work with, responsive, had great ideas, never pushed anything we didn't want on us, and had absolutely delicious food. We couldn't ask for any more. Would highly recommend John Michael!

her vendors in the package, JM provided the catering for our event. Prior to the wedding, we worked closely with Michael Thomas -- the owner and founder of JM. We are a lesbian couple and it was important for us to work with an LGBT-friendly company. When we found out that Michael is a married gay man, we were just elated! It was easy and fun working out the details with Michael. JM provided catering, linens, chairs, plates, silverware, and glassware. There was a great selection of colors and styles to choose from, and we worked with Michael in the showroom neighboring their main office, so we were able to see how everything would look set up. Katie was our day-of coordinator and she was very attentive and sweet, and we were amazed with her efficiency. She was always one step ahead, and always working very hard to make everything perfect. Our guests (and us!) absolutely loved the staff, especially Mary who was our bartender. She is so sweet and funny and she seemed to really be enjoying herself. Some of our guests were hoping to dance with her! Dinner service was super quick. The food was absolutely excellent, of course. Our guests loved all of the offerings and we got great comments across the board. JM has tastings (I believe twice a year) at no additional cost to clients, to help with choices. You can also do a paid tasting if you miss the event. Standout offerings include their flounder, corn casserole, stuffed mushroom caps, and the best Caesar salad ever. The one non-positive comment we have is Sasha, one of the waitstaff, seemed super uninterested and in a bad mood. It did not have an adverse effect on the event, but several people noticed, myself included. It was not enough to dock even half a point from this wonderful company, so I rated 5 stars across the board!

ice was top notch ! Our menu was a HIT , the venue was awesome and the service was even better! For what we paid for his services it was WAAAAY worth it and some! They definitely delivered --- WHAT AN AMAZING DAY! Thanks guys ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxSGZSO_fR8&t=2s

anning process was at best - OK with them. The food we got to try was in a very hot room at 4pm in July. When we asked for more ice water to try to cool down the servers made I feel like we were making them do extra work. The food was horrible, over cooked and dry that we got to try. When we went in later for our consultation the planner assured us that the food would be great for our wedding. I will say the only good thing with this vendor was the food at the wedding. However, we were promised to have large take out boxes of the food for us, the bride and groom. We were also told that any left over food would be boxed for the wedding party to enjoy. Well, my husband and I barely got a small serving of each item on our large menu and there were no extra boxes as promised for our wedding party. We paid extra to have real glasses, not plastic for all drinks to be served. About an hour into the reception they switch all glasses with smaller plastic glasses. We had given the exact measurements for our signature drink along with each alcohol that would be provided. The plan that we discussed with the event planner was to have the drinks pre mixed for our guest - to save on time and prevent over pouring. We were also told that they would have a frame sign describing our drink to have on the bar. We did not have the sign. The bartender did not premix, and was over pouring one alcohol so that the drink was not what we designed. Overall, the wedding service left us disappointed. I wrote a letter and filled out the survey to John Michael. My wedding was over a month ago - they never contacted us back.

oup tastings, which I preferred to a more traditional catering tasting (we got to try everything!). The food at our wedding was delicious, many of our guests honestly raved about it. The staff was very attentive to us and extremely professional. I wish I got the name of the woman who was the supervisor that night because she was exceptional. In the planning stages, everyone I dealt with was very flexible and willing to meet with me as many times as I needed to. I would not hesitate to use John Michael again for an event.

de everything so easy. I would recommend JM infinite times to anyone that I knew was getting married. They help you with everything thing and are so responsive. My only regret is that it's over because we had amazing support and became really close with the team that helped my husband and I put on the wedding of a lifetime.

through the process, and super professional. I know they have a lot of clients, but she made me felt like I was the only client they have. They have free food tasting once every quarter of the year. I felt that their pricing are very reasonable! We went with the Silver package with a lot of add ons like full liquor bar setups that included bartenders, real glassware, iced tea service, mixed match china, bar fronts, charger upgrade, soup course, chimichurri upgrade, and additional one hour of service. Charlene was very helpful with the changes through out the planing and provided us with very straightforward pricing. They allowed us to provide our own alcohol and that is absolutely amazing! Not only that we save money, but we also able to provided “quality” brand without breaking the bank! They were also very flexible with our guest count changes and event last minutes food options changes. Thank you John Michael! Thank you Charlene!

rdens in Winter Park - owned and gifted in part largely by John Michael Events. This gift was a generous act of kindness that my husband and I will never forget. We could not have imagined the perfection in catering we were about to receive by John Michael Exquisite Weddings and Catering. John Michael and his team provided us with highly professional guidance and support during our planning stage. When you have so many decisions to make from vegetarians to meat eaters to linens and layout of their gorgeous outdoor venue (Celebration Gardens), things can get stressful. I was amazed at the response time when I had questions or concerns - not to mention gently being put at ease - . I honestly never felt so well cared for by any type of business. John Michael and team have an approach with customers that leaves you feeling like your wedding is the most important event in the world - that is how we felt. As catering goes, our hope was for everyone to simply eat well but instead we were all RAVING about the Food! At our wedding the food was even more delicious then we already thought it was during the 2 taste testing events we were invited to stunning Leu Gardens. My husband, 9 year old daughter and I couldn't have been happier when our meals were served. Yes, we actually ate at our own wedding! We did not want to miss out on that! Fiesta Chicken, Carved Flank Steak, and fresh Seasonal Vegetables (we requested)...and much much more! A diverse menu to design your wedding (or any event for that matter) from and every item we chose was scrumptious! Our guests showered the catering with compliments during and after our wedding. I cannot tell you how many guests commented that this was the most fun they had at a wedding in a long time! This is what we hoped for. We wanted everyone to have a great time and we all did! No disappointment whatsoever - just incredible! As for the service during our wedding, the staff were nothing but smiles! They were organized, upbeat, fully engaged with us and our guests, friendly and accommodating - this holds true for the wait staff and the bartender! All very hard working and well experienced from our point of view. A very smooth operation without any glitches and the best service ever! I love all of the staff at John Michael's. They are all extremely fine people and professionals. We had a gorgeous, sweet, romantic, amazing wedding made possible by this generous gift! Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts to John Michael for his generosity and giving to Dale and Gary...a couple whom the Winter Park community chose to gift this surprise wedding to. To all of the Celebration Garden partners, Power Entertainment and Art Faulkner Photography a heartfelt thank you for all that you did for us. Go to Gary Lambert Salon, Winter Park Florist and Cakes By Design for more reviews on our gifted wedding in the upcoming days. My husband and I Highly Recommend - John Michael Exquisite Weddings and Catering - to anyone planning an event. We had a wedding to remember and pictures to prove it. We plan on sharing those pics with John Michael and Celebration Gardens and allowing them to post any of their choosing to showcase their venue. Best Wishes Everyone, Dale and Gary

families. We are very thankful for working out a tent last minute, since the wedding was outdoors and we had to set it up due to rain. Charlene was there for the vendors to set up and left someone responsible after she left. The staff was super friendly and our family felt very comfortable with them even when some of my family members don't speak English very well. We are happy to recommend John Michael!!!

eally felt like she went out of her way to help and accommodate us. The salad was very good however the blue cheese was supposed to be served on the side because we had several guests with diary allergies. My food was cold and this seemed to be the overall feedback that I received. The beef was awesome, the salmon was good and the pork was very dry. I have talked to 6 guests that had the pork and they all told me it was dry to a point where it was hard to eat and served cold. The grooms mom said she could not eat the pork at all. The owner stated the following when I told him about the pork. "It is a tricky protein to work with, but it sounds like our kitchen staff overcooked it a bit, thus causing it too dry out. We will work with the staff on proper cook times." I would have thought they would have offered me a refund and would know how to cook meat !!

" gladiator", the make it happen professional. He employs a superb staff to make your wedding happen. The food was outstanding with so many choices to fit every palette. Our guests raved about the beef and blue as well as the stuffed mushrooms! There aren't enough words to express our happiness and appreciation for John Michael Events being our daughter's wedding planner.

setting up our stuff. The decorations they brought, as per our contract, were beautiful. They brought us hors d'oeuvres during our photo hour which I thought was wonderful, otherwise we wouldnt have been able to get out to get any. We had a buffet set up for our guests but the servers brought us plates first. By the time we were ready to leave they had the leftovers and cake all packaged up and ready for us to take. These guys are amazing and their food is top notch!