project: catering !

food happens to be our wedding "hot topic." brodie and i have been vegan for over three years, and we were both veggies for many years before that. there was absolutely no question that our wedding would be a 100% vegan affair.

i have read SO MANY comments on this situation, how it is selfish to have only vegetarian food, how a vegan wouldn't want to be somewhere where only meat is served, that guests will go hungry and that the point of a wedding is to make our guests feel comfortable. all of these statements are (in my humble opinion) absolutely ridiculous. why should we throw away our values just because not everyone has the same diet? can our friends and family not handle eating a vegan meal once in a while? i really think if you serve ample amounts of good food, guests will be happy. you will be happy. there is no need to ditch your morals to please other people.

looking for a caterer to do a family style vegan meal in los angeles isn't a huge challenge. finding a caterer who makes great vegan food at a reasonable price (and is used to working in a show kitchen like at marvimon!) is. i originally e-mailed and called about twelve different companies. at least eight of those were off of our venue's preferred vendor list, and i had no idea if they could do vegan. about half responded that they could, but prices started at $100 per person, not including rentals, or taxes, or gratuity, and oh you want it family style? that's 20% extra.

we easily narrowed it down to three really promising catering businesses, and ended up doing tastings at two of the three.

tastings are slightly awkward. you have someone trying to impress you, watching you take every bite, asking questions while you are eating. my tips:

-don't go when you are starving. everything tastes good when you are that hungry!
-don't eat all of the food at once. take a few bites and take the rest home. try the food again when you aren't excited/nervous/being watched by the chef!
-don't be afraid to tell them you don't like something. have an opinion and speak up!

after our second (simply perfect) tasting, we really didn't want to do another. we knew as soon as we tasted the food and met Meg (the owner), that we would be going with Large Marge Sustainables.

we will be serving a semi-buffet (more on that later) mediterranean/italian meal. we are still working on the menu (more on this later, too) and will probably have a few more tastings until everything is just right.

in other wonderful news, our engagement pictures were posted today and i can't wait to share them!