I would love for this to be a 5 star review, but I wanted to write a fair review taking into account everything that happened.
Starting with the positives. The food was amazing! Top notch. We got tons of compliments. The decorations were very n...ice and complimented the wedding. The prices were also good.
At our August wedding of 70 people, we hired the Patriotic Pig for appetizers and dinner. We were told to bring all of our own plates and cups and napkins and utensils, so we did. As the staff was setting up, my mom brought the box of all these items to the staff. She opened the box, showing all the plates and napkins and cups to one of the Patriotic Pig staff members, explained which plates and cups were for appetizers and which were for dinner (we bought separate sets for each). My mom asked the staff member if he understood and he nodded, so my mom left the box with him.
When guests started coming in for appetizers, the Patriotic Pig workers said there were no plates for appetizers (while standing next to the box with the plates) and the guests used their chargers for appetizers. Not only did this make the wedding seem messy and uncoordinated, this made dinner be 15 minutes late as guests sat and waited for the chargers to be washed and dried and brought back out.
We were also told the we could have some friends come and help out at the food line but the Patriotic Pig staff members would do all the work. We had some friends come in to help serve the wedding, but they ended up doing a lot of the work, including adding ice in the drink dispensers because they were warm.
When we told our venue coordinator about the charger situation, she said “that’s what happens when you go with outside catering” and sent one of the venue catering staff to help bring everything under control free of charge.
The Patriotic Pig staff was hardworking, but it seemed they may have been tired or overworked to have this mistake occur. On the bright side, we are grateful to the Patriotic Pig staff for waiting beyond their agreed on time for us to bring in some last minute to go containers to take home extra food.
Overall, the food was great, but having guests eat out of chargers instead of the plates we had prepared and shown the staff left a bad first impression on an otherwise smooth wedding day.