The Tasting

The tasting was scheduled for November 15, 2017 at Fields Kitchen & Bar by ViVA in Wyomissing, PA, one of our caterer’s local restaurants.

I was given four tickets to the tasting and could bring whoever I desired. Not that I would’ve had much choice, but I selected my fiancé and my parents to join me for the big night. We were all excited to try out the different food options we would have for our special day. Every other detail of planning hadn’t gone well yet, so the idea of getting such an important item off my checklist was huge.

When we arrived at the tasting there were a few other couples, along with their families, who were also getting married at our venue over the next six months. When we were all seated, our wedding planner Kelsey, gave an introduction and break-down of how things were going to work that night. We were also provided a nice folder with a various helpful documents. It included a planning timeline with important deadlines, the different wedding packages we could select from, and a packet to help us keep track of what food we liked and didn’t like throughout the night.

We were instructed to go over to the lay-out of hors d’oeuvres, entrees, sides, and dessert shooters to start our tasting. This is where things really seemed to just go downhill. Between the four of us, we were all trying different things and having a difficult time (despite our handy dandy packet) keeping track of what we did and did not like. We couldn’t even remember what we were eating let alone notate our favorites.

Things were scattered and disorganized overall- definitely a weird vibe. Kelsey rotated around the room, working with each couple individually. She had very limited time to balance her huddles and with her running the event alone, things were moving slowly. When Kelsey finally reached my crew, I remember listening to her and my mom speak and just feeling like I was going to either explode or sprint out of the room. I was internally wigging out from misery. Everything was so overwhelming and a mess.

As I was looking through the papers we were provided, I noticed that our first half of the deposit was due ten days ago. When I turned to father to confirm that was taken care of, he was totally caught by surprise- he had no idea. We immediately brought this up to Kelsey and she did a double take at the paperwork before nonchalantly addressing the oversight. She informed us not to worry- just get the check to her by tomorrow and we’d be fine. Crisis averted, but we were both trying to figure out how something like that could have been missed from the venue’s standpoint.

When things were finally wrapped up, the one general consensus the four of us had- the food was not good. I repeat, the food was not good. OMG. I am from a giant Italian family that loves to eat. More importantly, I live and breath for good food. Food and alcohol were at the top of my list for critical wedding details and the food that I was so heavily relying on being delicious (while the rest of the sh** hit the fan) was not good.

All of us were borderline having a small panic attack. At this point, we convinced ourselves that we had eaten ViVA’s food plenty of times before and it was good; obviously it was just a bad night for the chef.