We dont know where to start so we decided to just start typing and see whats comes out!
So, it wouldn't feel right if we didn't start by saying, Alyson Green from Hearty Boys..THANK YOU!!! You took care of so many things for us and made our wedding day and experience so much better than we had thought or imagined it could be.
We did NOT use a wedding planner and didn't have too much help locally for our wedding. The majority of our 80/90 guests came from out of town so we had to cater(no pun intended) to them more than they could help us as far as the wedding went. Alyson took EVERY concern of ours, wrote it down and never forgot about them or under estimated how important they were to us. These concerns ranged from Ceremony/Reception Itinerary, to how guests have more/less refined pallets and trying to please everyone too coordinating arrival and setup times of other services we were using. It allowed us to do 1 thing on our wedding day...Get Married!
We had tastings with other caterers, which Hearty Boys was all for, but kept coming back to Hearty Boys for very specific reasons. We mulled over a few decisions as we love food and wanted every food from every place which we know was impossible (given our budget) but sometimes deciding between something as simple as (2) sauces will have you up at night staring at the ceiling. So what we did was, put our menus together from various places in an attempt to see if items would cancel each other out, but for what we wanted and liked Hearty Boys Menu just kept hitting the bulls eye.
A couple of factors that really tipped the scale for us were:
1. My Bride/Wife's gut feeling! Maybe it was Alyson, maybe it was the Food, maybe it was the presentation, maybe, maybe, maybe. It was something we couldn't overlook and that 'IT' factor just gave a sense of comfort and calmness that is very needed and appreciated during these times.
2. Dan the Man! We never felt rushed or as if we couldn't have a favorite food. He was patient and more than wiling to listen to what we thought, what we were looking for and offered ideas on how to bring it all together to get exactly what we wanted. There was no need to do any tweaking to the food itself but like i said before, (2) sauces will keep you awake at night (i.e. some people like blue cheese & some like ranch...I'm just sayin'). His food was delicious, he was able to talk about it like it was his passion and we knew that he was going to get it right.
3. The one stop shop! We know that different caterers' can provide different services beside food. I already mentioned how Alyson took care of other things for us (unexpectedly) which absolutely helped. Hearty Boys also took care of tables, chairs, plates, silverware, table clothes, setup, layout, etc... When we got into planning our wedding we never really thought about half the stuff we would need or have to do to bring it all together. Trying to arrange pick up and drop off times for different vendors and paying various fees to multiple vendors seemed like it would add some stress to an occasion that already had stress associated with it but at the end of the day suppose to be one of the best days of our lives. Being able to depend on Hearty Boys to provide so many things was so great. If your reading this and going through it (wedding plans), make sure you check into pickup and delivery costs for different items and dates from any vendor you use. For us, it was better to use a single caterer for our needs. That way we had (1) contact person, (1) person with our payment info, (1) person for liability, (1) person to voice concerns or appreciation too, (1) person to follow up with when it was all over, (1) person to say, "I want to tell you Thank You, before i start drinking", too.
4. Professionalism! They are NOT rookies, they have definitely been around the block before and usually know what your thinking and how your feeling before you do. I cant tell you how many times leading up to the big day we asked each other (Bride/Groom), "hey, who's gonna handle 'X,Y,Z'". Then remind each other, Alyson or Hearty Boys does that. Alyson, I apologize if we are building you up to be this bigger than life Event Planner but that's what you were for us. You guys handled everything the right way and never showed us anything other than your true professional compassionate selves and it meant/means a lot to us and our families. I dont want to give away the secrets to what you do but the non probing yet VERY important questions you found a way to think about, consider, ask and implement, did not go unnoticed. Well Done.
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