Are you recently Engaged?

Millennium Catering, along with Cityscape Event Center, has experience with weddings. Unlike most of our clients, who only experience wedding planning once in their lives, our professionals service dozens of weddings each year. Why not trust your event to someone that works to make every detail perfect, AND stays true to your vision?

Consider these tips from Millennium as you begin your wedding planning…

Determine Your Timeline
Before meeting with a caterer or banquet facilities manager, you’ll want to have thought about the events of the entire reception. The timeline will be especially important for the caterer in determining the number of staff to have on hand. You’ll want to take into account travel time from the ceremony site to the reception location, photographs, and the like. If you plan to be separated from your guests during photographs, what will they be doing during that time?

You’ll want to determine:
Start and end time for the ceremony
Travel Time
Cocktail “hour”
Toasts
First Dance
Cake Cutting
Other speeches, if applicable
Timing and Service of the Meal

Thinking through your entire timeline before meeting with a caterer offers that person a more accurate picture of your expectations, as well as his or her role at the reception. It will also help you to stay organized! The more you know walking in, the better. Once you have determined and agreed to a timeline with your caterer, you'll want to be careful to adhere to it as much as possible the day of your reception. The caterer will prepare food for service based on the timeline and variances in timing can cause food quality to diminish. With good communication, the caterer should be able to react appropriately should tioming go awry. Your caterer provides invaluable experience to this process! Take advantage and be open to his or her ideas about the flow and setup of your event.

Buffet or Plated?
Many newly engaged couples know just what they’d like for service at their wedding reception. They may feel very strongly that they’d like their guests to be in control of their own portions (as in a buffet), or that the more formal appearance of individual served plates is more appealing for them. But most often, couples planning their wedding ask, “What’s the difference in price?”

Surprising but true, the answer is: not much. With plated service, there is little or no waste. The caterer knows how many to expect, and because the portion will be the same on each plate, he or she can plan ahead. In the event of a buffet, there is considerably greater waste. This is exacerbated by increasing the number of selections. When preparing a buffet, the catering professional will have enough food for the first person in line to have the same selections as the last person. This means, more food is prepared than is needed, resulting in a greater amount of the budget being allocated to food.

As you begin these planning decisions, determine if a particular style is right for you. Next, decide if certain types of food (Steak? Chicken? Vegetarian? ) are your preference. Communicate these preferences to your caterer, along with your desired expenditure per person for food. This will narrow your choices accordingly, and the caterer can provide you with a quote that is according to your specifications, on the first try.

How much am I going to have to spend on rentals?
As with most banquet facilities, tables and chairs, plates, silverware, and glassware are included in the room rental fees. This is because the facility owns these items, and you are simply paying for the use and cleaning of these items. However, if you choose a reception site that is away from a banquet facility, like under a tent or pool side at a cottage, rentals will be something for which you’ll need to budget. When using a caterer off-site, rentals can be a significant part of your budget, sometimes rivaling the figure for food and beverages. Keeping the budget for rentals to a minimum may mean changing the format. As in wandering receptions, where food is limited to hors d’eouvres and wine, champagne or punch, not everyone will need a seat. Perhaps standing at ‘high-top’ tables is an option. Limiting beverages can help with glassware expense, as fewer types of glassware mean fewer rentals. When determining your rental needs, it’s best to speak with your catering professional about what your party might require.

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