Tie the Knot Catering

SHAME ON ME for not doing a taste test prior to our wedding rehearsal dinner. Due to living out of town and caving to the post-COVID “hurry up and book something!” frenzy, I booked the first caterer who called me back. First-and most of follow-up conversations were great. He enthusiastically over-promised and under-satisfied. He said he was 100% Italian, so I changed up my rehearsal dinner menu to honor my daughter-in-law’s Italian family to “only Italian”, which should have been several dollars per plate less expensive based on his online quoted prices. As it turned out, because I made a change of menu, I had to pay more for increase in cost of ground beef (for lasagna), and breast of chicken. Based in Jacksonville; promised me 2 servers (plus the chef). Got one server. He and the woman arrived looking exhausted and unkempt, with wild hair. He had Sterno burners-didn’t turn them on-or they didn’t work. All the food was cold. He said he had worked at the venue location I selected several times, so I don’t understand his lack of preparedness. Lasagna was inedible. Watched my son try to covertly throw his and bride-to-be’s in the trash. I ate at end of buffet line to make sure everything was going smoothly. I got scraps, but after checking found everyone’s looked like chopped up baby food and was awful. People were taking bets his potatoes au gratin were from a box, as the day before he had warned me he couldn’t find all the “ingredients” for them…hm… I feel like I conceded to him on several items to make his job easier: I caved on china package and used acrylic because he said he would have to pay his “staff” to drive back to Jacksonville and wash-only to find they didn’t even bus the tables-we had to throw our own away. Guests had to constantly ask for more plates and more food to get through the buffet line one time. (We both knew the count because he also told me when I said I had my final number of 60, he couldn’t do it for less than 75. So, I paid for 75, and told him I had 75 to feed, which we did. I had to chase him down in the kitchen as he was packing up to leave, after several tables of people had already gotten up to ask if he was going to serve dessert. “Oh, yeah…” They quickly dumped two sloppy trays of unappetizing, small desserts (with exception to the few cannolis people loved). Majority of two trays were burned cake with some white, red, green greasy icing on top. Before I arrived, he argued with my husband’s family about carrying an appetizer out to the garden area where we had agreed from day one we would do a welcome drink (which I provided). He never wanted to deal with taking two appetizers outside, and ultimately, due to rain, got his way with that as well. But not until after he argued with my husband’s family over my wishes. So embarrassed and disappointed that the most expensive item (catering) of our son’s destination wedding rehearsal dinner was an epic failure.