Weddings

WEDDINGS

YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED! CONGRATULATIONS!

You've made one of life's most exciting decisions, and now there are so many more to make: WHEN, WHERE, and HOW? And the FOOD !! So important! You're choosing the Mendocino Coast because of its outstanding beauty and romance, and because of the quality of services you can expect to find, to make your wedding day the wonderful event you dream of.

GOOD THYME CATERING has been helping to create wedding memories for over twenty years, and we bring our expertise to all areas of menu and food service planning. Look under FOOD to create a menu from what we've done in the past, or consult with us to create something entirely new to fit your vision.

PLANNING: WHERE TO START?

Planning a successful wedding takes some energy and focus. To help with the process, turn to professionals who can make it smooth and stress-free.

Before contacting us for a menu consultation, here are important first steps to take:

Locate your site.
Find a wedding coordinator, or ask us about recommending one.
Choose a rental company and begin considering what will be needed: tent, dishes, linens, tables, chairs, sound system, dance floors, etc.
Consider Flowers.
Consider what type of food you want, and what style of service (sit-down, buffet, or family-style) Some menus are more suitable for one style of service than another.
And not least, given the above expenses, determine your budget FOR FOOD per person, and inform us clearly. We realize you may not know exactly, and that you are gathering information, but a budget range is essential to focus our attention on creating a menu proposal to suit your needs.

Our VENDORS section contains links and recommendations for the above services.

WEDDING COORDINATOR

We strongly suggest hiring a wedding coordinator, especially if there are more than 50 guests.

Responsibilities of the coordinator include, but are not limited to, ordering and checking in all rentals, overseeing the flow of events, being a liaison between kitchen, bar, and service, and many other tasks before, during, and after the event. If you don't have a coordinator, be sure someone will be in charge of the above, and that this person be in touch with us closely in the weeks leading up to and during the event. The catering crew is responsible for the food and food service.

ABOUT TASTINGS

It has become customary to request a tasting when considering a caterer. While this may give a feeling of knowing how the food will taste for a future date, it is largely an illusion, and here is why:

The food for your event will depend on the quality of the ingredients available at that time, and our skill in acquiring and preparing them at that moment.

We are a small rural company; we create every menu from scratch for your event, with seasonal ingredients. What you taste months before your wedding may have been frozen, or prepared with non-seasonal ingredients.

We are known for our outstanding flavors, presentation and quality. To realize this level of food, we improvise, and no dish is ever exactly the same.

We understand your desire to know our approach to food, but we cannot pretend that a final result will resemble a tasting. It will undoubtedly be much better!

For these reasons we may not be able to accommodate your request for a tasting, or we may change a fee for the tasting. A caterer's reputation for consistent quality is your best assurance of what you will receive.

ABOUT COSTS

Here are some things to consider:

A caterer has to create a restaurant at the scene of your event, bringing in everything to the last grain of salt. In a normal restaurant, with everything in place, the food and service is part of an already-working whole.

A restaurant buys great amounts of food, but a small catering company orders specially for you, in small quantities, without the certainty of how much will be eaten, nor the possibility to channel extra food into tomorrow's food base, which restaurants always do. Thus food costs are much higher.

Staff: Caterers pay premium rates for staff since it is seasonal work, stressful and in ever-changing situations. And everything takes longer in unfamiliar settings.

Preparing a proposal or competitive bid, meeting with you to plan your event, the many phone calls and refinements, following up, payroll and office hours are all time costs built into the price.

A request for "Something simple" is often a request for something inexpensive. With labor the major cost factor, it costs as much to grill and serve hot dogs as prawns. Likewise, "just hors d'oeuvres" can require more work than a full dinner, and is often more expensive.

If you are planning a catered event, think of it as taking your guests to a fine restaurant. That's how we think of our food.