The Chef and I Catering by A Grand Affair

Food was great, hot and ready for our guests. Heard great things about the cocktail hour service.

The Chef & I was a wonderful caterer for our wedding. Everyone from Nikki to the chef to the wait staff was fantastic. The Chef & I is a preferred caterer for Soldiers & Sailors, which is the venue at which we were married. We chose the Chef & I because of their flexible menu options, favorable pricing, and positive reviews. They lived up to each of these standards. One of the best things about the overall experience was the breadth of services included in the package. The Chef & I included table linens, napkins, dishes, cocktail hour appetizers & passed hors d'oeuvres, cookie table setup, and a coffee & tea station. All of this was included at a reasonable price (for a wedding in 2025, we paid around $66/person). Our entrees included romano chicken, sliced sirloin, and angel hair pasta. We had a salad and a roll to start as well as green beans and garlic potatoes as sides. We also had several guests with Celiac, and the Chef & I was very helpful in terms of gluten free options (for example, the sliced sirloin & romano chicken entrees were gluten free). We booked the Chef & I about 14 months before our wedding, and we had a tasting about 1 year before the wedding. The tasting is where we picked the menu, and it was a lovely tasting. We also really enjoyed having our menu set so far in advance. On the day of the wedding, the service staff was wonderful. There were no mistakes that we noticed, and all of our guests felt taken care of. The food was delicious as well. All in all, the Chef & I was a wonderful caterer for our wedding, and we would highly recommend them!

The Chef and I was exactly what we were looking for in a wedding caterer. We worked with Nikki who was very organized and quick to answer our emails and phone calls. Everything at the wedding was perfect; the staff was so friendly and we got so many compliments on how delicious the food was. The Chef and I was also much more affordable than anywhere else we looked into, but you wouldn't be able to tell based on the quality. We definitely recommend them!

Our tasting was a great experience, and the food on our big day was awesome. Our guests were very impressed. However, the communication was very all over. I thought I was very detailed & asked a lot of questions to make sure I was educated on what they needed from me & vice versa. I was told during the tasting that I could pick up my linens the Thursday before my wedding, so I planned to do so. The Wednesday before I was told (after asking at least twice via email and text) they would be delivered the Friday before - cool, but I planned my whole Thursday around that. It wasn’t until the DAY of my wedding I was told (after trying to enjoy my wedding day and not be stressed out) that I would need to return all of the linens myself the day after my wedding (Three huge tote bags). I had my honeymoon scheduled the day after my wedding, and all of my family was going back home hours away. This was infuriating because I worked so hard to understand this process and if I knew that sooner I would have worked around it. My husband and I had to rush back from our honeymoon 5 hours away, and then take them back an hour and a half away. We were exhausted and this was a very expensive service to make us do this leg work. If it was due to the centerpieces on the tables, and if I knew in advance, I would have planned to have help with taking down the centerpieces so that they could take them back the same day. The on-site staff was very friendly and amazing, but the woman on site had incorrect notes about the table set up and a few other things (like that we were having a head table but I was very clear that we were doing a sweetheart table). Again, just frustrating because I was very clear I thought. I wish I could want to work with this vendor again because the food and presentation was great, but I did not feel comfortable at all planning/communicating with them.