LND Loves...
Dom's Kitchen
In the first of this series within the LND Lounge, I met with one of my favourite caterers Dom’s Kitchen.
Based in Malton and servicing the North Yorkshire area, Dom and Emma (husband and wife duo) have over 15 years of experience in hospitality both back and front of house so that you enjoy not only delicious food but fantastic customer service too.
What I love about working with Dom’s (aside from the fact they look after suppliers incredibly well) is that they purposefully don’t over extend their offerings to clients so when you buy into working with them you actually get them…but with that means if you’re not quick, you will miss out as I have sadly discovered a few times!
photo taken and owned by Happy Otter photography
A few years ago, I had an idea for a podcast but being on camera (as they so often are nowadays) is not my forte and I wouldn’t even know where to begin on editing such medium, so I have finally got round to turning this into a written series.
As a planner, I am in a unique position compared to many other roles in the industry, in that I deal with all suppliers involved in the day when some don’t get to meet each other or even see how the day pans out.
Also, as part of my role, I enjoy being part of a few wedding based forums but when they are for suppliers only, I’m not going to lie, they can get quite heated with opinions on how things should be done without anyone actually stopping to find out why it isn’t.
I’m always keen to learn how to better myself in my role and quite frankly I’m inherently nosey, so I am on a mission to find out more about the hot topics covered and resolve to communicate how we can take on board each other’s preferences to make a brilliant wedding day for all involved behind the scenes as well as the obvious obligation to our booked couples.
photo taken and owned by Lucy Bedford photography
Ellen: Hi Emma thanks for being the first person involved in my LND Loves series. I suppose the most obvious conversation I see discussed between suppliers and by that, I’m going to blunt here and say photographers, is around them being fed at weddings. I want to also start this chat by saying the key point here is that it’s important not to generalise all categories as the same, so it’s not all photographers saying this but I think one of the reasons why I wanted to even touch on this series is because in the heat of the moment I do see categories of suppliers being blasted publicly as if we do all behave in the same way.
So I was really ignorant to this until the lockdown era when there was a big Facebook group set up by the owner of wedding blog ‘Love My Dress’, for suppliers which turned into a bit of an advice forum and I reputedly saw photographers mentioning how they hated it when planners told couples to split speeches between food because it meant they couldn’t get their food break properly which led me to wonder why do a lot of caterers insist on feeding suppliers only after all the guests have been fed? It can make it a real rush for said suppliers, to eat and get back to their job, especially if guests are already finishing just as we’re starting as we’re then needed again.
I used this advice to have the discussion with couples when we talk about speeches but ultimately if they want more than four speech givers, it’s also not good to have people talk in one big succession so what do you do?
Emma: We have started feeding suppliers at the same time as the top table as we appreciate that they also do work in their ‘breaks’ to get ready for the evening.
Ellen: Ooh so then it will be interesting for me to see if that appeases photographers about split speeches, especially if other caterers would also follow the same method. I mean ultimately, we’re all getting paid by the couple so we need to do what they want but especially my role, is to guide them on what really does and doesn’t work and I think sometimes the frustration comes not from what the couple have decided but from other suppliers not treating each other in the best way.
Do you know why, to do date caterers have preferred to leave suppliers till last? I understand we can’t have mains when you’re on starters.
Emma: Yes, its space, we can’t cover a main when we’re prepping starters for mass numbers but also because we have started doing it at the same time as the top table, it does take a member of staff (or more) away from the main guest room so perhaps other companies can’t do that, especially as those staff can spend time actually tracking down where the suppliers are if it’s not obvious.
Ellen: Is there anything you’ve felt, and I suppose this is a difficult question because every venue is different with layouts and some staff/planners are more helpful than others, but is there anything you’ve found on a practical level that would really help you if done a certain way. For example, an obvious one for me is when venues or individuals fixate on room layouts like on CAD but they never account for people pulling out chairs and I’ll walk into a dining room and think, how are the waiting staff going to get round this place?
Emma: Yes, that happens a lot in Tipi based weddings, on trestle style tables with bench style seating where you can see guests heads almost touching the canvas due to the areas that lean in and then we have to feed plates and boards down the table via other guests which isn’t great.
Another one for us which would help so much is when we have sharing boards, to make sure bar teams keep on top of removing empty glassware as they take up so much space and also speaking of space, making sure the centrepieces have been thought out in line with the type of food we’re serving such as sharing boards as they’re hard to manoeuvre around lots of things already on the table.
Ellen: I think that’s a discussion that’s definitely more thought out now with florists but of course a lot of couple’s do their own flowers or centrepieces and perhaps haven’t thought about that.
Ellen: I’m always striving for feedback on how I could improve my services and I think it’s a really awkward topic sometimes but is there anything you’ve seen a planner do that you thought ‘wow that was amazing I wish more planners would do that’ or anything to avoid that makes your work harder that we didn’t realise would be the case?
Emma: We had an experience where a planner was very used to having to step in to assist the service of food to the table as they often work with street food companies who don’t supply as many staff as we do but actually it confused things for us on the day as it wasn’t exactly how we would run the room.
Ellen: Do you think it would be helpful for a planner to join in your team briefing that you have before the wedding begins? I often used to try and join in them but some caterers seemed unwelcoming to that idea. For me I liked it because I don’t want to get involved in your role but I might have knowledge of last-minute changes such as guest drop outs on the day that affect service, or perhaps something I could do with help on like quick room turn arounds where I would really appreciate staff help with that. I of course can just tell the event manager for the day but I prefer it when I know, everyone knows!
Emma: Yes, that could help and to run through timings of the day because often we can find they vary.
Ellen: Which mystifies me when a planner/coordinator is involved because we write the timeline. I’m not sure how other planners operate but I offer to write the timeline as soon as they’ve booked with me as I find it harder to unpick work that a couple have attempted to do themselves from advice articles or forums. I’ve also come unstuck when I’ve got involved later in the process and they’ve sent invites to evening guests with arrival times that don’t really work so the control freak in me just likes to start as I mean to go on.
Emma: Advice forums can be really tricky because they often forget the little things like how long guests take to find their seats.
Ellen: Yes, and then you’ll seat them and the guest then decides they want to go to the toilet and you’re trying to get the couple announced into the room. Actually, on a similar point, I’ve worked with some caterers who won’t bring food out until all guests are seated but sometimes – and we use this phrase a lot on a wedding day, it’s like herding cats because you ask them to take their seats again and they say ‘I’ll wait till my food comes’ and I’m saying ‘well it’s not coming till you sit down’ and we get to a standoff situation where I do not want to be rude to guests. What do you do?
Emma: We work on the bride and groom (or variation of that) being at the table. We did have a difficult situation last year where the bride went to the toilets straight after speeches and 15 minutes later, she was still not back because she was chatting with her friends, touching up her make up and so forth so we ended up having to ask the groom what he’d prefer and he said to just start service so we did and then we returned to the top table when she reappeared so her food was still hot.
Ellen: So that’s a great point for couples to take from this chat, and for me to talk to them about that, but also it goes back to great communication across all suppliers on the day because I’ve seen photographers take couple’s out at meal time, for some photos. Now the more experienced will do that after all courses, before guests have finished because the couple get fed first, but I know when there have been time constraints, that its whatever they can get as they have a job to do too, but they might not know that caterers would then delay all service until their return – if there’s not someone in a coordination role, making sure these messages are being passed back and forth.
This chat has led me to think of something else which is that one of the venue’s I partner with wanted me to have conversations with a lot of the key suppliers namely the caterers and the photographers as soon as I have done the initial timeline with the couple, to talk about the timings of the day. Now when I coordinate, I tell couple’s that the timeline is theirs to share with all the suppliers and I think I was looking at this with quite a closed mind initially because in my experience of dealing with suppliers in peak wedding season is that when I contact them simply to find out their arrival time, they often tell me they can’t think about that until around a week before the wedding which is extremely time pressured for me and my team to account for as I need time to send the final copies to people and check everything is ready and handed over to my team, so I certainly felt like trying to talk to them months away would be a waste of time but now I wonder if there is value in touching base once we know who we’re working with and explaining why I’ve done timings a certain way and see if there’s anything they want to correct or give input on because over the last few years I’ve given a lot more thought into things such as sunset changes or get ready time but I’m not an expert in that.
Emma: I think that’s a really good idea and then if they don’t want to think about it till nearer the time, they can’t really complain if they feel their work hasn’t been taken into account.
Ellen: I think all of these conversations will keep circling back to being good at communicating with each other but you’ve definitely given me points to pass onwards and find out what other suppliers think about them too so thank you so much for your time today.
photo taken and owned by Dom’s Kitchen