Caterer and Menu tabs
Find the caterer your guests will still be talking about
Compare your finalists from the tasting notes to the total bill, and make the call with confidence.
Food is what your guests remember most.
You've done the tastings. The first caterer had the most incredible passed appetizers. The second had the plated dinner your future mother-in-law declared "absolutely perfect." The third was the most affordable but something about the service style felt off. Now you have to pick one, and "they were all delicious" is not a useful decision-making framework.
Your Caterer tab lets you put your finalists side by side and score them on what matters: price per person, service style, how they handled dietary questions, how responsive they were after the tasting, and whatever else made you take notes. You set the criteria and the weights, so the result reflects your actual priorities. Your planner can surface a suggested pick once the scoring is done.
Things worth knowing before you book your caterer
- The per-person price is rarely the full number. Ask about staffing fees, cake-cutting fees, overtime charges, and bartender rates. The total often looks quite different from the headline quote.
- Bring up dietary needs early. Your guests will have restrictions your caterer needs to know about well before the event. Make sure they have handled similar situations before.
- Tastings are fun but try to evaluate like a guest. You are about to be very busy on your wedding day. Ask yourself whether the food can hold up on a buffet line or through a plated service for 120 people, not just how it tasted in a quiet tasting room.
Caterer questions
Comparing and deciding
- What is the difference between the Caterer tab and the Menu tab?
- Caterer is for the big-picture decision: service style, responsiveness, total cost, and how each option scores against your own criteria. Menu is for comparing specific food items and prices when you want to get into the details of what each dish actually costs per person.
- What if we're self-catering or using a food truck?
- You can turn the Caterer section off in Setup so it does not clutter your planner. Track food costs in Budget instead. If you want to compare food truck options, the comparison tool works for that decision too.
- What if we change our minds after we pick?
- Update your choice and your planner updates with it. The new selection replaces the linked budget lines so your Budget tracker always reflects who you currently plan to book.