When you start shopping for caterers for weddings, you may quickly find yourself overwhelmed with choices.
In Salt Lake City and throughout northern Utah, hundreds of catering companies offer their services for weddings and receptions. So how do you possibly narrow down your options to ensure you make the right choice?
Before You Decide Which Utah Wedding Caterers to Interview
Before searching for caterers for your wedding, you must make a few critical decisions about what you want – otherwise you can’t accurately identify which caterers are a good fit. The most important choices you need to make are as follows.
- Budget – Your budget will drive literally every other decision about your wedding catering, including headcount, menu and format
- Headcount – You don’t need to know exactly how many guests you’ll have in attendance but you’ll need a range that’s accurate within 10 percent or so +/-
- Format – Consider whether you want buffet-style food, passed appetizers, a plated dinner or some combination of these
Once you identify this information, you can start identifying those caterers for weddings that can handle your event.
Creating a Shortlist of Utah Caterers for Weddings
As you identify caterers who are qualified to handle your event, look for companies that meet a minimum level of qualification, including the following factors.
- Availability – If the company isn’t available on the date of your event, cross them off as an option and move on
- Direct experience – Don’t even consider talking to companies that aren’t doing weddings and receptions regularly – even if it’s a friend or referral
- Legitimacy – Is the company a legitimate (licensed, insured) business or is someone running it from their home kitchen?
- Taste Test – Can you schedule a tasting and demo, either by attending another of the company’s events or in a private setting?
You can quickly eliminate many caterers based on these four basic standards. And that means you can start the interview process.
If your list is still too long, delve into each company’s customer reviews and testimonials. That will help you eliminate a few more names, if necessary.
What to Ask Potential Wedding Catering Companies
Set up appointments to interview the companies on your shortlist but be sure you prepare a list of standard questions or topics to cover with each one – otherwise, you might not be comparing them on an accurate basis.
You can ask whether the company has experience working with the type of food you’re interested in serving, and how they might approach setup and service for your event. But, most important, ask what is included in their pricing. Get specific answers because what appears to be budget-friendly pricing might not be, if the company will be tacking on a variety of extra charges.
In the Salt Lake City area and throughout northern Utah, Brown Brothers Catering specializes in catering for weddings and receptions. We have served clients in Provo and the surrounding communities for almost a decade and we cater hundreds of weddings every year. We are a full-service catering company with affordable and transparent pricing – no unpleasant surprises. Contact us today to see why we are northern Utah’s premier caterer for weddings and receptions.
