Selecting a Caterer – Interview with Christine Bib

Chantale Pitts: I’d like to welcome Christine Bib of Christine Bib Catering to our show today. Welcome, Christine.

Christine Bib: Thank you. Hi, how are you today?

Chantale: Good, and yourself?

Christine: Good, thanks.

Chantale: Great. Our topic is ‘Selecting a Caterer.’ The meal at a wedding is a reflection of the bride and groom. So, you want to ensure that you choose a caterer wisely. Christine has been a successful caterer for 22 years, running her business, Christine Bib Catering, and she’s going to offer some tips on how to select a caterer.

Christine, when do you suggest that couples start looking for a caterer for their wedding? Is this something that takes months to plan, or just a few weeks?

Christine: Well, although once we did a wedding with one week’s notice, when the first caterer had to cancel. There was a sudden death, and it was a little tight. So, usually, three to six months is enough time to meet with the bride and groom, prepare a quote, revise it if it needs to be revised, do a site visit, and then fine-tune all the details.

But, there’s exceptions to that three to six month time period. For example, if the caterer is going to be helping to find an actual venue if the bride and groom don’t have a place to get married yet, or if we need to arrange accommodations for lots of out-of-town guests, you have to allow more time – probably a year in those situations, especially if your wedding is in cottage country, because there really are only 10 or 12 weekends that are suitable for weddings, and they get booked up pretty fast.

Chantale: OK. Great. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with caterers in your city, where would you begin your search for a caterer?

Christine: Ideally, ask your friends, your family, and business associates for personal recommendations. I think that is, by far, the best way to find a caterer. And if you don’t know anyone who has catered before, you can also go to the venues, to florists, photographers, and rental companies, and they will all have really solid recommendations of caterers that they’ve worked with. And if you combine those recommendations with Internet searches, eventually you’ll find you’re coming to a short list of caterers that you’re attracted to.

Chantale: OK.

Christine: And that is the point when you can start calling around and asking for proposals, references. And usually, I find, anyway is… brides that I’ve catered to in the past are happy to speak to brides-to-be about how their wedding day went.

Chantale: Oh, that’s a good idea. Now, what are key characteristics that a bride should look for in a caterer?

Christine: I think, first of all, you want someone who’s professional and someone who’s willing to spend time with you. The reason I say that they need to spend time with you is, because weddings have a lot of little, but really important, details. So, ideally, you want to be working with one of the senior, more experienced coordinators of the company who has catered many weddings, as opposed to someone who specializes in corporate. Weddings are quite special.

So, you’ll be able to tell early on if they have wedding experience, because they’ll be guiding your conversations to get the information that they need from you, and they’ll be able to answer most, if not all, of your questions confidently, and you’ll get a sense that, “Yes, they have catered many weddings. They know what they’re doing here.”

Chantale: OK.

Christine: And you also want to find someone that you feel comfortable with. You’re going to be spending a lot of time, whether on the phone or email, with this person, and you don’t want to work with someone who’s kind of bugging you in one way or another.

[laughter]

Chantale: Right. [laughs] Some people just clash. That’s true.

Christine: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Chantale: Right.

Christine: And your caterer needs to be a good listener.

Chantale: Right.

Christine: If you notice, initially, if you have a conversation with them and you’ve said, for example, “I really hate the color blue, and so I want no blue in my wedding,” and they say, “We have these beautiful blue napkins. You must have these beautiful blue napkins,” you know they’re not listening to you, and you’re not going to get what you want in the end.

Chantale: That’s right. Good idea. Now, do most caterers offer the bride the chance to taste-test the menu, and would you recommend that?

Christine: I definitely do recommend it, and I think, most caterers for weddings do offer tastings, especially for items that you may not have had before, like hors d’oeuvres. That’s a perfect example, because there’s all kinds of things that we, as chefs and caterers, are coming up with that you may have never seen before in your life. And they’re actually delicious, but you can’t picture it in your head or you can’t imagine it.

So, those are definitely the things to taste for a test. And we usually sample all the entrees as well, just so there’s no surprises on the wedding day.

Chantale: That’s a good idea.

Christine: And then you have to be flexible, too, with your caterer, because you’re – probably, not always – probably getting married in the summer, and you’re probably doing your tasting like this time of year, in January and February. So, there’s no need to taste the tomato salad, because it’s going to taste awful now, when you know, in the summer, it’s going to be what summer tomatoes are.

Chantale: Exactly. Now, what information should a bride have organized before meeting her potential caterer?

Christine: OK. Ideally, of course, the number of guests and the location. The location’s very important if it’s going to be outdoors. We need to know things like the terrain, and do we have to climb up a big, huge hill to get to the cottage or walk over a muddy area, these sorts of things. If there are kitchen facilities available. If they’re not, it makes a difference in a quote because a caterer needs to rent ovens and barbecues, etc. The timing, if you know it, at that point.

Chantale: Right.

Christine: The type of meal, whether you’re looking at a plated or a buffet or food stations. And if you want to do add-ons, like start with some hors d’oeuvres. Do you want to have a dessert in addition to your wedding cake, or do you even want a wedding cake? If you’re going to want to do a late snack.

We’re not seeing very many people do the big sweet tables as much anymore, but we’re doing a lot of fun things, like barbecue pizza, this kind of thing.

Chantale: Oh.

Christine: Just something a little different for, especially younger groups, where they’ve maybe had a few drinks… [laughs]

Chantale: Right.

Christine: Around 11 or 12 o’clock, they need a little something in their stomach.

Chantale: Yeah. Now, what about numbers? What do you want to know about numbers?

Christine: Well, there’s usually a general idea right from the beginning. They’ve brought a guest list of, let’s say, 200. We know, from our experience, you’re probably going to get between 160 and 180 people coming, if it’s a local wedding. And I guess, we usually meet our final number about two weeks prior. It’s just so that the chef can put the food orders in and the staff in place.

Chantale: OK. Now, you touched on location a little bit there.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

Chantale: At what point, as a caterer, do you like to go visit the location?

Christine: If I sense that there are going to be some highly unusual logistics, which can happen in outdoor events, like they have things are on an island, or anything just that’s a little bit out of the ordinary, I prefer to do the site visit before I even start working on a proposal…

Chantale: OK.

Christine: Because the cost can really fluctuate, if we need to have staff going the day before to set up, this sort of thing.

For the indoor venues and the local venues in town, we’ve catered at so many of them, we don’t necessarily need to do a site visit initially. But then, I think, as we pull all the details together, and the bride and groom are happy, and we feel that this is all concrete, what we’re going to do, it is nice just to go for a quick visit, the three of us; so we can just make sure there’s no surprises. We all have the same idea of how the day’s going to go.

Chantale: OK. Now, as the owner of Christine Bib Catering, I’m sure that you’ve dealt with many couples planning their wedding now. What key advice would you offer couples, when working with their caterer?

Christine: One thing that’s quite important is that you need to be willing to listen to people who have a lot of experience.

For example, there was once a wedding that we were doing on an island, and, for various reasons, we couldn’t do a site visit. So, I asked them if we could go and do our setup the day before, just so I could handle any little glitches and just be comfortable, so the wedding day would go smoothly. And it was extra money. They didn’t want to pay that. They said, “No, no. Everything will be fine.”

And then, on the wedding day, the barge broke down. We finally got to the island, and it was on the top of 70 steps. And it was stressful for everyone, and it didn’t need to be. If they had just let me go the day before, a lot of that could have been avoided.

Chantale: Right.

Christine: So, listen to advice, basically.

Chantale: Right, right.

Christine: And then, also, the caterer needs to be able to listen, too. So, if you can find a caterer who you feel is listening to you, and then if you can be as clear as possible about what you really want, it’s a total winning combination.

Chantale: Great. Well, thank you, Christine. Your experience running Christine Bib Catering has given you a great insight into weddings and ensuring couples have a successful event. Thank you for joining us.

Christine: It’s been my pleasure.

Chantale: OK. Thank you. Bye-bye, now.

Christine: Bye-bye.

Source: This interview was conducted by MyDreamWedding.ca, The host for this interview about “Wedding Catering” was Chantale Pitts. Their guest was Cristine Bib of Christine Bib Catering”. A special thanks goes out to My Style Wedding 3D wedding planning software for sponsoring this wonderful event. MyDreamWedding.ca is Canada’s premier wedding blog specializing in wedding cake toppers and wedding favours.