Review: Catering

My caterer was Mutiara Catering. I always heard good reviews on them from their previous clients and thought I made the right choice by hiring them as my caterer. But boy... I was quite disappointed with them during my wedding day. Maybe I was just the unfortunate ones. How unlucky we were. Hehe.

Our previous meeting went well with Kimin. He jotted down every details that I requested. In between months to the wedding, I made some adjustments here and there and dealt with his wife, Amy. Eveything went well and every e-mails were replied promptly and very accurate and informative.

We took the custom package. Glass setting, custom-design cake from MAC, covers in our theme colors, alterations in menu, practically they prepared everything. The night before the wedding, we went to the hall to monitor them setting up the table according to the plan. Everything was perfect. I couldn't complained much.

And during the actual event, we have a flood of guests coming most probably during the same time at peak hours. They kinda short of staffs maybe, and halfway during the event, maybe around 2pm, I heard that we ran out of food. Horror! Our relatives rushed to the nearest mamak to buy extra food and later I learnt that they didn't fry the chickens until it was too late, took very long time to clear the tables and very slow to refill food at the buffet station. I know we have extra guests at that time but they should at least prepare the food, monitor the buffet station and don't wait until the queue becomes long. It was quite frustrating because we have paid full amount the morning of the event. Up until now, I still feel bad for our guests who didn't have proper food on my wedding day. I was too tired to complain to them afterwards so I just let it pass.

What I learnt from this incident are:

• please appoint someone who you can trust to deal with the caterer during your wedding day
• do have back-ups just in case your food is running out
• make sure the tables are cleared as soon as possible to give way to other guests
• ask the caterer how many staff will they allocate at your wedding and estimate whether it's enough or not
• monitor the buffet station and food/drinks/utensils are replenished appropriately

I think, that's the only mishap during my wedding day. Many guests told me the food and table setting were excellent but the downside was the service. I couldn't agree more. I always know they have this good reputation, that's why I hired them. But as I said, maybe I was just unlucky. That's all. I still think Mutiara Catering is not too bad. :)