When Eating Became A Chore

Come across any playground and you'll see two different scenarios.

One...boys running up and down the slide, hanging on monkey bars, planting other kids' faces in the mud and telling them "EAT IT!!!".

The second...girls on the swings, picking flowers and playing with their hair. I gotta imagine some of them are picturing their wedding day. How they'll look, how happy they are, make sure not to walk too fast down the aisle, etc.

When I was a kid, I was fat. Not "chubby", "beefy", "rotund", out and out "FAT". So much so that friends wanted me to say the word "brownie" and when I couldn't pronounce my "r's" and would come out "bwownie", they would laugh. And I liked bwownie's so it made sense.

So, on the playground as a FAT kid, I would think about food. How much did my mom pack for me? Was it the SpiderMan or Hulk thermos? Did I have any trade-able items where I could get some Oreo's back? If there was a fantasy draft of food in those years, Oreo's would always be a Top 3 pick, year in and year out.

Back then, I would have thought it heaven...a situation where I could eat a ton of food for free. You get great service, they ask you what you want to eat. What could be better than that?

That is what it's like going after a caterer for a wedding, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

When we decided to start wedding planning, I wanted caterers to be one of the first things we did. I wanted to walk into the catereres with shirts I made up, that said, "FEED ME!!!" And boy, did that first caterer do just that.

They brought out 23 different items for us to eat. I ate, and ate, and ate, and ate and ate and ate and ate. And I loved it. But, you have to try at least a couple different caterers so you know what you're playing with.

Second caterer gave us eight items to eat, but their food, rocked. Sauces, good. Cheese fondue, good. Meat, good. I wanted to sign my life away at that point and go with them.

But, then you get into the long, drawn out process of catering. The negotiations of the pricing.

What industry has items that you could purchase, but with no outright purchase price? Wedding catering. Go on any catering website, and you won't see any prices on their menus. If the original implication was that it's free, they'll laugh at you.

We told them our budget, and our favorite four word phrase for the following two months..."Out The Door Price", and it's almost as if they're quasi-listening. I know, I do it all the time.

Our OTDP was immediately jacked up $300 over, after you include bar setup, station attended carver, service charge, tax, parking, concession, ticket charge, dog wash, and charge for hand sanitizers.

We would get back to them, "Our OTDP is $...", and they'd get it closer, but not really. They start cutting things out. Now, here's my problem, they're cutting out my "Bwownie's". What?!?! Now, you're taking out food. We told you our OTDP originally, you told us we could have all these things, now my "Bwownie's" are walking out the door...bring them back.

Now, we've opened it up to more caterers. The next four caterers had the following issues...

Bad taste in decorating

Bad taste in food

Too expensive

Too little to taste at the tasting

Too far apart on negotiations

We'd call up caterers and one of the first things we'd tell them, "Our OTDP is $...", and some wouldn't even talk to us. We weren't enough for them.

I was getting very down. How could eating be a detriment at this point? At least three nights out of the week, we were either going to a tasting, or looking up other caterers. I felt we were getting farther and farther away from our goal of a quality caterer that doesn't break our bank (considering catering is the most expensive item on wedding day).

Finally, after two months of searching, we found our caterer. Love them. Creations by Chef Aaron. Won Best Catering 2009 for Central Florida in The Knot. Great crab fondue, great meat, great pasta station. I think everyone will be pleased. Feel free to check out their website.

www.orlandocateringbychefaaron.com

Aaron is super nice, and I'm very comfortable it will be a great eating experience. Because in the end, isn't that what most guys remember when attending someone else's wedding.

Also, instead of an original wedding cake, we're going to have different varieties and flavors of cupcakes. We're tasting those next. That will be fun! And your nominees are...

www.sweetbyholly.com

www.cupcakecrazyorlando.com

And a third that I can't remember, because I was told about it after being up for 20 straight hours.

So, we're done with our big vendors. Thank God. Now, onto little things that I have no idea about like...

Flowers

Color Theme

Wedding songs

165 days to go.

But who's counting...