Tag Archives: caterer
Yesterday we started sorting out our cranes and putting together table “packs” so make our wonderful caterer‘s life as easy as possible.
Iris wanted to play too.
To wrap up the cranes in safe little containers, we resorted to an old favourite – beer cans. The top cut off, the cans cleaned and dried, we decorated them by wrappin them in blue paper, making cardboard lids secured with ribbon and sellotape, and attaching labels, just because.
These were put into plastic bags with the menus, place names and other table bits.
Leave a comment | tags: 100 cranes, beer cans, bwrightons, caterer, catering, cranes, food, sellotape, wrightons | posted in DIY, Food and Drink
As of today – the last hour or so, we have now paid for more than half of our wedding (the biggest expense, caterers, isn’t due until May 1st). I’m very excited about it! Never been so excited before about paying money – the Fiance and I danced around the living room!
Earlier on, we wanted to pay for things in full as they came up, but suppliers don’t like you doing this. I can see their point when small changes incur huge faffs rearranging what is essentially small change on the scale of the total cost – and I have changed our flowers a few times, although they didn’t even want a deposit from us!
So we paid deposits, like good children. But then today we received a call from the registrars saying that they wanted payment 12 weeks before the wedding day, and we were overdue! It is now 29 days… We’d never known the payment date (or had an invoice for the amount!) so we looked up the fee on their website and paid it electronically, presuming we’d got the right amounts.
Everything in the garden was lovely. The Fiance updated our budget spreadsheet and made a list of everything else we’d paid in parts – flowers, transport, food and drink… And thus began the furious invoice hunting.
I located two – the cars and the flowers. Christopher cars were out at a wedding when I called them, but are going to ring me back to let me pay. Their payment was due on the 18th – two days ago (oops – but at least we realised and I contacted him!).
The flowers, as I mentioned, didn’t even have a deposit on them. I trawled through the email conversation I’d had with Jemma from Austin Flowers hoping to find out when they wanted our money. When I eventually found it, it wasn’t very specific either – payment was due before the week of the wedding – around the same time as the catering.
Well, I decided I didn’t want to do this again in two weeks time, and it’s a Friday afternoon, so they should be open. I called up Austin Flowers and explained my business to be greeted with a very cheerful, “Oh! I’ll just look up your invoice!” In fact she sounded delighted that she wouldn’t have to chase me at some later date; I suppose if you’re as relaxed about payment as they seemed initially, it does fall to them to do all the chasing.
Payment over the phone was quick and painless. Another expense sorted: hurrah!
Meanwhile, the Fiance was investigating other suppliers. The Town Hall didn’t pick up the phone, so he left a message with them, and they replied by email shortly afterwards telling us that we didn’t need to pay them anything until the 5th of May – two weeks prior to the ceremony.
He also emailed Oxon Carts – the rickshaw company. They hadn’t given a date for remaining payment either. A few minutes later he got a response: the balance was due tomorrow: they were going to email him then, but he’d beaten them to it. Excellent. So I transferred the rest across online, and the Fiance gave them our payee reference code and explained what we’d done.
Sorted!
The only thing left is the Somerville drinks reception, which the Fiance’s parents are in charge of. The Fiance is emailing them everything they need.
Leave a comment | tags: amount, bank transfer, budget, budget calculator, budget spreadsheet, call, car, cars, caterer, caterers, ceremony, change, changes, Christopher cars, date, days, deposit, drink, drinks reception, drophead, due, email, fiance, florist, flower, flowers, food, food and drink, good children, in full, invoice, jaguar, Jemma, Joe Austin, May 1st, message, month, online, oxford, oxon carts, pay, pay in full, payee, payment, phone, photographs, prior, reception, reference, registrars, registry, rickshaws, royale, Somerville, Somerville College, suppliers, town hall, transfer, transport, travel, venue, wedding, wedding day, week, weeks | posted in Budget, Ceremony, Flowers, Food and Drink, Travel
Today we posted off our deposit to Wrighton’s for the catering. So that’s the last “big thing” officially booked. Now just down to the fiddly details!
Mmmmmmmm, cake.
No! No more fantastising about cake!
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Leave a comment | tags: budget, cake, cake naughtiness, caterer, caterers, catering, catering company, chocolate cake, deposit, food, happy, lemon cake, pay, Wrighton, wrightons, wwrighton, yummy | posted in Budget, Food and Drink
We’ve just received our finalised menu from our wonderful caterer, Cathy from Wrightons and are about to pay the 20% deposit on our wedding breakfast meal.
Here is menu with random associated images found on google. What do you think?
Starter
Apple and Wensleydale Pate with melba points, accompanied by mixed leaves, walnut oil and red onion marmalade.
Palette Cleanser
Blackcurrant and Creme de Cassis Sorbet
Main Meal
Confit of Duck or A Troop of Mushrooms and Walnut Wellingtons
complimented by a Sauce of Port, Redcurrant and Oranges
Baby Potatoes with Butter and Fragrant Rosemary
Garden Peas and Assorted Caramelised Root Vegetables
Dessert
Wedding Cake
Coffee and Tea with after dinner mints
I’m more than happy with this menu – and also with Wrightons. We seem to be getting an awful lot for our money, whilst other caterers couldn’t manage half so much for the same price – not after the word “wedding” at least!
Wrightons is a family butcher in Oxfordshire who do catering events, run by the amazing Cathy. Unlike all other caterers we spoke to (!) Cathy is enthusiastic about food, and has lots of ideas.
She is very enthusiastic about food, and has lots of ideas. When we told other caterers our starter and sorbet ideas they didn’t seem keen. When I explained that we wanted the main meat and vegetarian dishes thematically similar, they responded dubiously and tried to explain that what we’re imagining isn’t a very good idea and that we’ve misunderstood the catering business. Cathy, however, was not only happy to take this on board – she got excited! And started coming up with menu plan and sound advice!
We had a call with her last week to discuss our menu, and she also explained how we should get everything ready for the tables and give her a clear plan so that she could arrange everything to be set up for us – declaring it was her job to make sure everything went smoothly for us on the day. Just… wow! Not having a hotel or a package deal or wedding planner or anything, I really felt we had to do everything ourselves, and designate ushers to move every detail of decorations about, et cetera, and now, one phone call later, everything is so, so much easier…
From the Wrightons website:
We are pleased to be able to offer you a wide selection of menus for your function,
For more details please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Every menu is personalised to your requirements and we carry out the preparation with as much care as you would yourself for a special occasion.
We are fully HACCP aware and have food hygiene certificates in abundance
Cathy spent two years at catering college and, although that was some time ago, now the phrase “quality ingredients prepared with care and attention will produce quality dishes” has never been forgotten.
We do not stint on quality or quantity but we do believe in value for money.
Why not give us a call?
Leave a comment | tags: after dinner mints, apple, apple and cheese pate, apple and Wensleydale pate, assorted leaves, assorted vegetables, baby potatoes, blackcurrant, blackcurrant cassis sorbet, blackcurrant sorbet, butter, cake, caramalised onion, caramalised vegetables, cassis, cassis sorbet, caterer, caterers, catering, cheese pate, chocolate, chutney, coffee, coffee and tea, confit of duck, cranberry and orange sauce, cranberry sauce, creme de cassis, dinner mints, duck, duck and orange, duck and port, duck confit, family butcher, food, garden peas, good caterers, google, iced, icing, leaves, lemon, marmalade, melba, melba points, mints, mleba toast, mushroom wellington, oil, onion, onion chutney, onion marmalade, orange sauce, pate, peas, port and cranberry sauce, port sauce, potatoes, reception meal, red onion, red onion chutney, red onion marmalade, root vegetables, rosemary, slice, slice of cake, sorbet, tea, vegetables, vegetarian dishes, walnut oil, wedding breakfast, wedding cake, wellington, wensleydale, wensleydale pate, Wrighton, wrightons | posted in Food and Drink
We’ve been working with Lamb. They are friendly, compromising and their food looks great. But maybe not that comprmising. We asked them to try and find ways to reduce the price (e.g. by cutting some service, et cetera)… and it crept UP.
Since it’s now nearly twice what we wanted to pay, we decided to have another look for Oxford caterers from scratch. We’d been tipped off that smaller caterers will have lower prices (though they are harder to find out about), so we started hunting through lists to find more obscure ones.
In the end 4 caterers got back to us, but only two were really interested in helping us and giving us a low price, and sent us menus tp peruse. We asked for quotes. One of them was even higher than Lamb!
However, the other was lower than the Lamb quote, and, unlike the others, was INC VAT!
We have a WINNER.
We haven’t booked them yet, so I won’t link you to them, but here is a little taster…
I have given some thought to your main course requirements and have listed a few suggestions that you may like to consider or that may spark some ideas with you.
Butternut squash and sweet potato Tagine with dried fruits, honey and Moroccan spices
Lamb strips or Chicken Fillet Tagine with similar fruits and spices.
Served with a timbale of tomato scented cous-cous and a selection of steamed vegetables.
Slow cooked British Beef Steak in Red Wine with a hint of horseradish
Or a Pastiche of baby Roots braised in Burgundy
Both served under a herb scone
With a selection of potatoes and seasonal vegetables
Turkey Cranberry and Brie Wellington
Or Portobello mushroom cranberry and Brie wellington
Both served on a bed of wilted spinach
With minted new potatoes and steamed garden vegetables
Old Town Smokie
Salmon, smoked haddock and tiger prawns cooked in a creamy cheese sauce
topped with golden sliced potato
Or broccoli, courgette and almond bake topped with golden sliced potato
Served with ratatouille stuffed tomatoes and glazed chantenay carrots
This list is by no means exhaustive or exclusive if you are happy with the price and would like to go ahead and decide on your choices a little closer to the date please let me know and we can put the booking into the diary.
I do hope that we can share your special day with you and look forward to hearing from you.
Leave a comment | tags: ate, baby roots, beef, brie, burgundy, butternut squash, cassis sorbet, caterer, caterers, catering, cheese sauce, chicken, cook, cooks, cranberry, cream cheese, delicious, dried fruits, duck, eat, eating, eats, events catering, exciting, food, garden vegetables, good food, herb, herb scone, honey, horseradish, lamb, mmm, Moroccan spives, mushroom, nom, onion, pastiche, portobello mushroom, potato, red wine, scone, sorbet, spices, spinach, squash, steak, steamed vegetables, suppliers, sweet potato, tagine, tiger prawns, tomato, turkey, vegetables, wellington, white wine, winner, wrightons, yummy | posted in Budget, Food and Drink
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