FAQ's Here are a few questions we continually get from brides. We hope you find them helpful! Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this page for "Tips on Setting Up a Reception". Got a question? Email us via our "Contact Us" page and we'll be happy to help answer your question! You haven't heard ANYTHING yet! Not until you visit the Etiquette Hell website and read these stories of Bridezillas etal! WARNING: I found this site and was so shocked at what I was reading that I read it until 5:30 in the morning! So don't start reading until you have plenty of time to devote to it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For some great ideas on information you need to know regarding ordering a wedding cake, we recommend you visit http://earlenescakes.com/thingsbrdshldknow.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My reception facility requires the caterer/cake person to provide proof of liability insurance and a copy of the health dept license. Can you provide that to them? Yes, we can. We are a health dept inspected, approved and licensed facilty, and we also carry sufficient liability insurance to meet the requirements of most facilities in the area. It's standard practice for us to ask your facility if they require this information in their files. All we need from you is the contact person's name and phone number at the facility and we'll take care of it for you. I'm in the military and stationed out of state but will be getting married in Indiana. Can we plan a wedding with you "long distance"? Absolutely! As a matter of fact, Christine (Debi's daughter) was in the Army and stationed in Washington D.C. when we planned her wedding in Indianapolis. Christine's brother is also military (currently a U.S. Marine), and since we are located about 3 minutes outside of Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, we work with a number of military couples. So we are intimately familiar with the challenges of planning a long distance wedding and the special needs and schedules of those in the military. We can be your on-site contact with many of your vendors, helping you coordinate information for your special day! (Our longest-distance bride was a military couple stationed in Japan. We planned her event via email between us, the bride, her sister in Wisconsin and her mom in Chicago!) Do you do samplings/tastings and how much are they? Yes, we do samplings and we do not charge for them. You may bring up to a total of 4 people (bride, groom and 2 guests) to the sampling. Samplings are by appointment only and you should allow 60-90 minutes. During this time, you will sample some of our foods and cake and we will spend some time discussing your wedding and what you are looking for. Since this appointment can be lengthy, we recommend that children be left at home or with gramma as they tend to get bored, and a catering facility is not a very entertaining place for them to try to sit quietly while mom/dad conduct a business meeting. As you begin your comparison shopping, be sure to differentiate between a consultation and a sampling. We saw one website that offered a free "consultation", but if you wanted to sample their food, there was a $75 charge. Some offer a free sampling for the bride and groom, but will charge a fee for any add'l guests. Be sure to ask! What's the best age for a flower girl and ring bearer? We have found that between 6 and 8 are good ages. Younger than 6 tend to get stage fright and 4 and younger are definitely potential problems! We know your 3-year old niece would look SO cute going down the aisle and she may do very well practicing in your living room. But when push comes to shove.....well, that's usually what it takes to get them down the aisle in front of all of those people. How long does a cake stay "in style" and how do you keep up with the current cake trends?" I don't keep up with current trends. Why? Because they are merely promotional tactics by the wedding industry to try to sell a bride whatever gizmo they are promoting at that time. What's "in style"? Whatever kind of cake the bride wants to have! Don't listen to industry "experts" who are trying to tell you what you SHOULD want ... go with your own preferences and get what you DO want. I had a cake decorator tell me that I should remove my square cakes from the website because "....square cakes are not "in", especially the baskeweave design, and brides are not ordering those." I didn't have the heart to tell her that I counted up and out of 19 consecutive wedding cakes, 15 were square and about half of those were basketweaves! These are REAL cakes ordered by my brides. So much for "expert" opinions! I have a very tight budget. Do I have to have food at my reception? Absolutely not. Your reception can be elegant as a simple cake and punch event. We would recommend that the reception be at about 2:00 or 2:30. This gives your guests plenty of time to have lunch prior to the wedding and it's not too close to their dinner time, either. Presentation is everything, and with Cater It Simple, we can make the simplest reception look positively elegant for you! We do recommend that if you are planning a simple cake and punch reception, that the overall reception needs to be "simple". What we've seen are brides who didn't have the budget for a food buffet of any kind, but they had a DJ. Most DJ's charge for a minimum of 2 to 4 hours, so these brides were expecting their guests to stay for 2-4 hours, dance up a storm, work up a thirst and get a little hungry....but she wasn't going to feed them? Be true to your budget but always always be considerate of your guests. Because they ARE your "guests". I keep seeing lots about mini cakes on each guest table instead of one big wedding cake. How much can I expect to save doing this? Actually, you will pay more for these cakes than you would a big wedding cake. LOTS more. I get very frustrated when articles in the magazines and websites, written by people who have never baked a wedding cake in their life, mislead brides with these kinds of suggestions. Making a lot of little cakes is much more labor intensive (read “higher cost”) than making one big cake … increased baking time, takes longer to decorate all of those smaller cakes than it does one big cake (read “Labor intensive” read “higher cost”), add’l supplies (20 cakes boxes instead of 3, more icing, more icing flowers for decor), transportation issues, etc. You also end up buying more cake than you need. Wedding cake is sold “per serving” (like paint is sold per gallon and carpet is sold per yard). Let’s assume the bride wants a “simple” 8” two-layer cake on each table for her 160 guests. Normally you can sit 8 guests to a table, so there will be 20 tables, ergo 20 cakes. An 8” cake yields 24 wedding size servings. 20 cakes x 24 servings each = 480 cake servings Let’s just use $3.00 per serving for easy math. The individual cakes would cost $1440 (480 servings x $3 per serving). The standard regular wedding cake would cost $480 (160 servings x $3). You are not saving money with the mini’s ….. you are spending THREE TIMES the money by buying THREE TIMES the cake. And when you start getting into mini tiered cakes per table, the cost is even greater because of the extra equipment needed to create a tiered cake, the extra labor to set up 20 little wedding cakes instead of one big one, plus the extra-extra cake you’d be buying. Even if your venue is charging you a $1 per person cake-cutting-fee (which, by the way, Cater It Simple does NOT charge when you purchase the cake package from us!), you are still ahead by getting the larger, traditional cake. Which reminds me ….. if you have 20 cakes on 20 tables, be sure you buy 20 cake cutting knives – one per table – so the guests can have something to cut the cake. And how much do those run? $10-$12 each? More? Times 20? Now that I’ve finished my lecture, let me concede one thing: If you buy your “simple, mini cake” from a place that has a freezer full of a hundred small cakes where they can just pull them out and slap some icing on it, you MIGHT be able to get them cheaper. But we don’t operate that way. We don’t make your wedding cake a year or a month a head of time. At Cater It Simple, your cake is created just for you, right before your wedding. It is custom-baked, custom designed and custom decorated. Your guests will enjoy a freshly baked cake, not one that has been in a warehouse freezer for a year. How much cheaper is it to rent a dummy cake and then get sheet cakes, as suggested by many wedding magazines? This is another rumor put out by non-cake-makers that is very misleading to brides. First, there are businesses out there who make up styrofoam cakes and rent them out over and over. I hate to think about what that cake looks like the 2nd or 3rd time that it's used. There are also dummy cakes that have a wedge cut out and a real piece of cake is inserted for the cake-cutting photo. I'm not aware of how to sanitize a styrofoam cake that's going to be rented out over and over again, and I personally would be very nervous about feeding my new spouse some cake that was shoved into a slot that's had heaven-knows-what in there, used by how-many-people and not properly sanitized. The magazines, news shows and websites lead a bride to believe styrofoam cakes are practically free. Here's the truth: ---I still have to buy the styrofoam. ---It takes the same amount of icing to ice a fake cake as it does a real cake. ---It takes the same amount of time to ice a fake cake as it does a real cake. ---Fake cakes take up the same amount of space in the delivery van as a real cake does. ---Fake cakes take the same amount of gas in that van to deliver it as a real cake does. Because my costs are not diminished by that much, I (as many decorators do) charge 80% of the standard price for the fake cake. ASSUMING sheet cakes are cheaper (which is not always true because it's the same cake, same icing, same delivery costs, etc.), you are most likely to spend MORE on a small fake cake with sheets, than you would on a grand and glamorous wedding cake. Here are the numbers: Fake cake for 100: $3/serving x 100 = $300 x 80% = $240. Sheet cakes for 100: $2/serving x 100 = $200 Total cost for fake + sheets: $240+$200 = $440 Cost for real wedding cake for 100: $3/serving x 100 = $300 Since the guests serve themselves, how do you know how much food to bring? We've been doing this a long time and have a very good idea the quantity of foods to bring for your expected number of guests. However ..... our Terms of Agreement stipulate that our food portions (as are most caterers) are based on "average consumption and normal serving sizes". If your family tends to eat like Jethro Bodine, then you should plan for that by talking with us and ordering additional food quantities (for example, perhaps ordering food for 125 when you are expecting 100 guests). Our pricing is based on "average and normal" servings ... not Jethro servings! (We find this to be a very rare situation.) What kind of buffet is it .... do you serve the guests like in a cafeteria, or do the guests serve themselves? Our pricing is based on a self-serve buffet where guests can make their own food selections and serve themselves. When possible, we try to run the buffet line down both sides of the table for faster serving. By setting up a self-serve buffet, this reduces the number of staff we have to bring to service your event, which saves you a considerable amount of money. For very large events, we like to set up two buffet tables so we can run four lines. We had one large wedding where we served 250 guests in under 20 minutes with this set-up. We are providing the alcohol for our wedding ourselves instead of hiring a caterer with a liquor license, but that seems to restrict us from finding Wedding Day Insurance for any alcohol-related liability. Any suggestions? We found a website that offers Wedding Day insurance and we contacted them to confirm coverage for that very situation. Check them out at www.wedsafe.com. I've been involved in a number of weddings and the rehearsal is always a nightmare! How can I avoid the turmoil? Truer words were never spoken! We've observed that rehearsals are the most disrespected part of the wedding event. Those involved in the rehearsal never seem to show up on time and when they do finally arrive, it is with cell phone to their ear as they handle other business "first". We've observed some brides being the cause of their own disorganization by taking the time to check out this or that while their bridal party is standing around waiting to get the rehearsal started. Or you have most folks who are courteous enough to show up on time, who are then forced to wait for the latecomers! (1) We suggest telling everyone the starting time is 1/2 hour earlier. Tell them 6:30 for a 7:00 p.m. rehearsal. (2) Start on time....regardless! If a groomsman or a bridesmaid is late, have someone stand in for them. Most bridal couples like to run thru the rehearsal 2 or 3 times and the latecomer will be able to "catch-up" once they arrive. (3) And we have to give some of our brides credit for this next one: If you are having the rehearsal dinner at the wedding site (i.e. in the church basement), then have the dinner first! We've done a number of weddings in which the bride planned the rehearsal this way and it worked wonderful for them! It seems that no one shows up late for free food so everyone managed to arrive on time. Those who do show up late, only miss the dinner and they are not inconveniencing everyone else by making everyone else wait. Your caterer can clean up while the bridal party is doing the rehearsal, which may reduce your costs of the catered rehearsal dinner since the caterer will be able to send their folks home sooner. I'm having a simple hors d'oeuvres buffet for my reception. What's the best way to let my guests know that while I'm providing food for them, I'm not providing dinner? That's very simple. Indicate on your invitation as a footnote "Hors d'oeuvre Reception to Follow" or if you are using a reception enclosure card, use the same wording. This should easily let your guests know that while there will be refreshments for them at the reception, it's not going to be a full meal. My church is letting us use their dinnerware. Will you deduct the cost of your plates and forks if we don't need them? Many times, this does not save us (and therefore you) money. If you are getting a hot buffet, we use glass plates. Unless the kitchen has a commercial dishwasher that we can use, it is cheaper for me (labor costs) to use my plates, return to my kitchen and wash the dishes there. I can wash 100 plates in under 10 minutes compared to washing them by hand which takes more than 2 hours. (Please note....an under the counter dishwasher that looks like the one you have in your home is NOT the same as a commercial dishwasher.) Since we buy our supplies in volume, the cost for the disposable dinnerware we provide (for salad bar, appetizer and cake pacakges) amounts to pennies. Again it is also a labor cost factor.... paying my crew to wash and put away your church's dishes is more costly than the disposables that I can get at a great volume price. Our menus are priced based on this cost savings, so when it costs me more in payroll, it costs you more for your reception. How many printed napkins do I need to order for a reception for 125 guests? Order the minimum. Then go to Wal-Mart or Party City or anyplace that sells colored napkins and pick up about 150 plain napkins in your wedding colors. Most guests won't keep a printed napkin as a souvenir and you don't want to spend money on expensive printed napkins just to have them used to clean up spilled punch. So....get the minimum printed ones for effect; get the cheap plain ones for function! Do I need to count children in my headcount for the caterer? They don't really eat that much. You're right, they don't. But they still use a plate, fork, cup, etc., and your caterer needs to know that. In the 20 years we've been doing this business, we've found that a large number of children (we regard children as "under 10 years old") at the reception increases the amount of food and punch/drinks needed. Children are not shy about having that second piece of cake and they drink punch like a sponge. The most interesting thing we've observed, however, is that parents are not shy about having that second piece of cake either.....if they can send the kid up to get it for them! So while children themselves may "...not eat that much", they do have an impact on how much cake and food is needed. If your guest lists includes a large number of children, ask us about our Special Child Menu Pricing. We can create a special buffet just for those younger guests with foods they just love! We recommend you inquire about this option if your guest list is 10% children (10 children under 10 years old out of 100 guests. Do you offer fondant icing and how much is it? We do not do fondant icing simply because we just don't want to have to charge anyone that much for a cake. Fondant is very labor intensive and very expensive. We've seen the cost of fondant as high as $2.50 per slice ON TOP OF the regular cost of the wedding cake. To paraphrase one baker who has been around a number of years, fondant looks very pretty in the pictures, but when it's cut, it's very brittle and guests are never sure if they are suppose to eat it or sweep it up. We've had a few people tell us they are not comfortable with having to "chew" wedding cake icing. Although we ARE working on some fondant accents for some of our cake designs! Most fondant designs can be duplicated in the traditional wedding cake icing. If we can't do it, we'll be the first to tell you. If you really want to spend that much for your wedding cake, we will be happy to help you find a decorator who does excellent work in that area. We just prefer to keep it simple....and elegant. Can I use fresh flowers on my cake? Fresh flowers are used frequently on wedding cakes. However, you need to be aware that some flowers are poisonous and should not be placed in contact with food. Here is a link to a list of flowers that are considered safe .... List of Non-Toxic Flowers for garnishing the cake Check with your florist and tell him/her the flowers are to be used on a cake so they can be sure to obtain safe flowers and flowers that have not been treated with pesticides. Even if the florals are organically grown, a florist work bench is not a food-safe environment ... it's covered with dirt, has been in contact with pesticides, etc. For these reasons, we STRONGLY recommend silk florals for your cake. (Look at it this way .... if there is a vase of organically grown flowers sitting on a table, are you still willing to drink the water that's in the vase? If the answer is no, then you may want to go with silk florals.) What do I need to know about the cake when I pick out my topper? You need to know the size of the top tier of cake. A decorator tells me the story of a couple who picked out an 8" antique car style of topper to put on a 6" cake. Most importantly, you need to tell your cake designer what kind of topper you are planning. Just because a piece is made to go on a cake, doesn't mean that it's MADE to go on a CAKE. Many toppers require some specific engineering structuring to be able to hold a heavy or not-evenly-balanced topper. Many a bride has been forced to place her topper on the table in front of the cake instead of on top of the cake because the decorator was not informed of the style and the cake was not engineered properly to hold the heavy ornament. Most of your pricing is for 100 guests or for 100 pieces. I'm having a small reception (or a reception for 125 or 250). Do I have to buy in quantities of 100? This is a VERY common question! Most caterers list their pricing based on 100 guests simply because that is the common denominator for weddings and large events (100 guests, 200 guests, etc.). Unless it is specifically stated that a minimum purchase is required ... and this should be stated on the menu or price lists ... (i.e. 150 pieces of Tiger Shrimp minimum), then all you do is divide the total cost by number of guests/pieces for the per person or per piece price. For example, if you are given a price of $1500 per 100 guests. This is $15.00 per person. If you are planning 50 guests, just multiply $15.00 x 50, or 125 or 250 (the number of expected guests). Be aware there may be some circumstances where an additional charge may be applied for orders under the stated amount and this is to cover the base costs that are incurred regardless of the headcount (a tablecloth rental cost is still the same whether the food table holds food for 100 or for 50. The servers are still getting paid the same hourly rate whether they are serving 50 or 100 guests). Again, this should also be stated up front for you. How soon should we book our date with you (or any wedding professional?) "As soon as you know the date" is the ideal answer, but that's not what you're looking for, is it? Honestly, it is very difficult to set a "3 months in advance" or 1 year in advance" response because the correct answer is "It depends on how organized the OTHER brides are!" For example, July 7th, 2007 (7-7-07) was been booked solid with me over a year in advance. 6-7-08 was booked over a year in advance, but I had no bookings for 6-14-08. Valentines Day weekend is always in high demand. So if you are competing with other brides for the same popular date, the most organized bride, the bride who makes a decision quickly, is the bride who will get the photographer, caterer, florist, etc., for her date. One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Abraham Lincoln and it seems to apply here: "Good things come to those who wait .... but only the things left by those who hustle." Why are deposits non-refundable with so many vendors? A very fair question! Photographers and reception sites can logically only book one wedding per day. Cake creators, caterers and many florists can only book a certain number of weddings per day, and some of these limit it to one per day. When a bride books that date, the vendor closes that date to any other bride/booking. This means we may turn down business from future inquiries for that date. (I personally turned down over 15 brides for the date of 7/7/07 because it was booked, and I turned down over 25 brides for the popular 6-7-08 date.) Should something happen and you change your mind, move your date, or want to use another vendor, and you cancel your booking, especially close to the date, it creates a financial hardship for the vendor. As you know, not too many brides book their caterer, photographer, etc., 3 or 4 weeks before the event. This means the vendor has no opportunity to re-book that date. The vendor has already turned down business that could have been booked except for the fact that he/she closed that date just for you. We still have to pay the rent. The non-refundable deposit covers the lost opportunities and the costs incurred by the vendor based on your commitment. When should we cut the wedding cake? This question should be asked more often. Let us share some of our observations. The time-line we frequently see is not the one we'd recommend because we find it inconsiderate of your guests. The bridal couple tends to serve the meal to the guests, have the toasts, the first dance, the "this", the "that" and FINALLY they will remember they have a pretty ornate cake they need to cut and allow it to be served to their guests. But what has happened is many of their guests have already left. The couple ends up with a lot of cake left over, and some guests who left disappointed because they didn't have the opportunity to share in the couple's wedding cake celebration. Let us also point out that your wedding cake is the only thing at your reception that is designated "wedding". To many guests, the cake IS the reception. Your DJ's music isn't "wedding" music (you had that at the church), your food isn't "wedding chicken" or "wedding salad". But your cake is "wedding cake"and the only place to get it is at a wedding. To time it so that many of your guests are required to leave before they share in the cake cutting ceremony (and it IS a ceremony...as much a part of your celebration as the Best Man's Toast, the First Dance, etc.), is very inconsiderate to your guests. Not to mention that you paid for 200 servings but ended up only using 75 (yes, we've seen it happen!) What we recommend: Shortly after you arrive and before the meal is served, do the official cake cutting with your photographer. Since the cake cutting ceremony is traditionally the first "meal" shared by man and wife, it is logical that they share this special bite of cake before they open their buffet. The cake-cutting event is taken care of and out of the way. Your caterer will cut the wedding cake after the meal, when he/she sees that your guests are ready for dessert. This can save you money in photographer time, also. If your photographer charges you for flat time (i.e. 4 hours), then you want to eliminate any reason to keep him for "overtime". How do we properly store the First Anniversary cake? Here is a link from the Wilton website with directions on how to safely wrap and store your top tier if you are saving it for your first anniversary: Click here to go to the Wilton website on how to store a cake However, many bakers (including Cater It Simple!) are now offering brides a choice between saving the top tier for a year .... OR ..... getting a coupon good for a free, fresh first anniversary cake on your first anniversary! What's a "Sand" Ceremony? Couples are starting to replace the Unity Candle part of the cermony with a Sand Ceremony. A tall glass vase-like container sits where the Unity Candle normally sits. The bride and groom each pour a different colored sand into the vase. Some couples pour it in horizontal layers; others pour it so that (for example) the blue sand is on the left and the yellow sand is on the right. The minister pours white sand on top, representing God looking over the couple. The container has a stopper that is put in place and the couple now have a permanent symbol of two lives coming together as one. This item usually fits in better with most home decors than a wedding candle (and it won't melt away over the years). This is also a great alternative when places won't permit open flame in the facility (see our "Other Misc. Info" page for an example of a place that prohibits open flame.) What is your #1 suggestion for saving money? DON'T buy RSVP cards. They are a waste of money. Why? Bluntly, because people today tend to be very rude and won't return them on time. Or they don't return them at all and show up anyway. Or they return them saying "We'll be there" and then they don't show up. We sell them. We'd actually make money on each sale. But we will try our hardest to talk you out of them. You have the added cost of the purchase of the RSVP itself. You have to buy extra postage to put on each and every RSVP return envelope (that may or may not even get returned!). Sometimes, adding the RSVP to your invitation mailing will increase the cost of the invitations postage. And when it all boils down, most brides end up guessing how many will actually show up. At Cater It Simple, we can help you determine how many guests will actually show up. We have a formula we've used that has only had 2 exceptions in 20 years. So save that RSVP money and spend it on something you really want! True story: Mother of the bride called me to increase the number of guests by 9, as she had received some last minute RSVP's, putting her guest grand total at 149. That's 149 confirmed RSVP's; 149 people who said "Yes, I WILL be there". There were 92 people at the reception. 57 people who said, "Yes, I WILL be there" didn't showup. (And our formula predicted it!). RECEIVING LINES……To Have or Not to Have and if you do, when and where do you have them? Meant to give the guests and the newly married couple the chance to greet each other, receiving lines have turned into a headache for the couple, the parents, the attendents and the guests. It seems everyone is uncomfortable standing in them and going through them yet tradition keeps us suffering through them. Here are a few stories and observations about receiving lines that we've seen over the years..... Who Stands in the Receiving Line? Bluntly, whoever the couple wants to stand in the line. To be honest, your attendents would love you if you let them slip away while you greet your guests (your guests came to see YOU get married, not to see your best friend perform as Maid of Honor). The simplest receiving line would include the couple and both sets of parents. Perhaps you might want your Best Man and Maid of Honor to stand with you. If you want your attendents to be in the receiving line, we recommend letting your flower girl and ring bearer skip out. The younger they are, the shorter their attention span is going to be and you want to save that energy for any pictures that are yet to be taken! Do we form the receving line at the church after the wedding or at the hall before the reception? The answer to that is the ever popular "it depends". Unless you are exiting out of the church and directly into the car to go to the reception hall, it is difficult to "greet" your guests at the reception when they are already there ahead of you. We've seen the majority of couples form the line outside the church immediately after the ceremony, when their guests are exiting. We've seen couples replace the ushers and release each pew themselves and greet their guests at that point. We've seen couples "hide out" in a room in the church until all of the guests have exited. The couple then exits for the traditional rice/bird seed throw and into their car to get to the reception. Don't let your receiving line ruin your reception! The worst thing we've ever seen was when a receiving line totally disrupted the wedding reception. Both families were very well known in the community and had almost 300 guests show up at their wedding. The bride had friends do the catering and they did a wonderful decorative job. The bride wanted all of the guests to see how beautiful their work was, so she instructed them not to open the buffet line until the receiving line was complete. The problem was that the receiving line took almost 2 hours! The guests were getting bored and hungry, small children were becoming disruptive, and the guests started to leave. Eventually, the buffet was opened up, but the bride then waited until everyone was done eating before doing the cake cutting ceremony. My cake was designed to serve 300 people, but so many people had left the reception by then, that even though I was cutting the cake the size of bricks, the bride still had 75% of her cake left over. While the bride had good intentions with wanting everyone to see and appreciate the hard work her friends had done on the buffet, the bride failed to take her guests into consideration. A 2-hour receiving line caused her guests to leave early, resulting in wasted money spent on food and cake that wasn't needed. The receiving line is the place for a quick "thanks for coming" and "everything looked so nice!" type of comments. Long conversations should take place during the reception....not in the receiving line. Don't let your receiving line overrule the fun you want your guests to have at your reception. Tips on Setting up a Reception • Most Important one of all!! Do NOT permit DJ or band speakers to be near the cake or pointing toward the cake! The vibrations from the loud music can cause the ever so slightest vibration and your cake can collapse! I belong to a cake decorators community website and hear many, many stories of this happening. Most professional DJ's are aware of this effect, but be sure to cover this topic when talking with them. • Watch the backgrounds when setting up your cake table. Don’t let the memories of your wedding cake photos be forever documented with a door in the background that has a sign saying “MEN” on it! (Yep! I've seen it!) • Food tables should be as close to the kitchen area as possible, not on the opposite side of the room or across the dance floor area. You don’t want us carrying hot pans of food, hot water, and trays of food thru a crowd of guests for safety reasons. • DJ’s should be located far from the food tables. Again for safety reasons, carrying heavy equipment and hot pans of food over and around an area with lots of power cords, wires and equipment is not a good idea. • Be aware of any electrical access the caterer and DJ will require, such as for chocolate and punch fountains, coffee pots, carving stations, etc., and be sure the tables are close to outlets. If this is not possible, be sure to alert your vendor of the need for extension cords. Be aware: Some equipment comes with a warning NOT to use extension cords, such as punch fountains. But ... Running big orange extension cords across the floor is not safe and not attractive. • Coat racks should be available for guests to hang their coats, but do not place it right inside the door. This causes the doorway to be blocked as people stop to hang their coats, preventing others from entering and leaving. About Us Contact Us! FAQ's True Stories! ALWAYS Ask This! Comments from our brides Save Money This Way! Favorite Wedding Links Take our Survey!