When it comes to the modern Indian wedding—outfits, themes, jewellery and backdrops may play a role, but truth be told, it is the bonhomie built around the food and banquet that whips up the real fun. This is where folks let down their guard to indulge in that amuse-bouche after a long diet-fuelled abstinence, where emotions on the thought of leaving home are comforted by indulgence and where interactive culinary stations like taco bars and grazing tables get couples and their loved ones to break the ice and tuck into specially-customised fare.
It’s no surprises then, that wedding catering has shifted into the luxe category with every effort made to woo the wedding party using creative, high-end menus and specialised staff that dish out knowledge about the cuisine with as much flair as they dish up the food. But so much goes into the nitty-gritties of getting things right, from the smallest canapé to the final dessert.
In fact, the sessions with your wedding caterer carry as much relevance as perhaps as trip to the wedding dress designer for a fitting. The conversations go way deeper than just list of dishes, too:
■ Should you ask about sourcing, customisation and service?
■ Are there dietary requirements that play a crucial role?
■ Can the menu match the scale and style of your celebration?
All of these matter.
To give you a perfect reckoner, Manifest speaks to Chef Harsh Shodhan, Founder of The Gourmet Kitchen & Studio, who has been at the helm of a number of celebrity weddings. He's the one person India’s elite turn to from the Ambani family and Adani family as well as Neha Dhupia, Karishma Tanna and Sunny Leone, and he is someone with over 14 years of culinary mastery, having orchestrated some of the world’s most iconic events, from a 500-guest wedding in Mombasa, Kenya, to a 1200-person dessert extravaganza in Phuket, Thailand!
Chef Harsh Shodhan believes: “Every plate is a canvas, every event a story. My job is to make every moment resonate, whether it’s an intimate dinner or a thousand-guest celebration. Food is memory, culture, and connection. I don’t just cater; I create moments that linger long after the last bite.”
The brochures of all catering companies promise you multi-cuisine catering. Go beyond that question. Find out what are five dishes that the catering company would bet their reputation on, and in what cuisine the head chef was trained in. The cuisines cooked by chefs working in the framework of the Awadhi cuisine are different from the cuisines cooked according to recipes. If you need a Chettinad counter, a sushi station or Thai green curry, make sure that these cuisines are cooked in-house and not given to some specialist who appears on the very day of the event. Everyone who thinks that he is brilliant in all cuisines is brilliant in none.
Is it a chef or a salesperson who is charmingly selling you the Package C? Find out who creates the menu, approves it and this is the crucial part whether that person will be personally present at your wedding. Check how flexible the creative process is.
The number you should take into consideration is not the number of employees the company has. It is the number of people that will attend your wedding and the proportion between the catering company’s employees and the seasonal hires they employ. The process of scaling during the peak season is normal, but this ratio is what you should check. Ask for the number of people in writing—approximately one server per fifteen guests at the buffet, closer to one-to-one ratio at the sit-down or passed starters menu. Ask how many people operate each counter, how many captains are present on the floor, and who is your only point of contact at 11o'clock when the paneer tikka suddenly disappears from the counter.
Ask where the tasting is organised. If it's in the company’s kitchen or in the borrowed banquet hall. Ask who prepares it and whether the same chef will work on the day of the wedding. Find out how many people can participate in the tasting because you want the guests from both sides in the same room. Ask whether the tasting is free or will be charged in your bill and whether you can have the second tasting after you give your feedback.
Then ask the question that most of the couples forget to ask: Can we drop by one of your events that you serve this month? Cooking beautifully for eight people is not the same skill as keeping six hundred dishes warm at the same time.
The minimum guarantee is the number of plates that you should pay for regardless of whether the guests turn up or not. Indian weddings, of course, are famous for not respecting the headcount. The real number will reveal itself unexpectedly in front of you on the wedding day.
There is always the time limit that the catering company doesn’t mention until the trays stop circulating. Ask how long the cocktail hour lasts, how many times the guests will be served with each type of starters and whether they will still be served with starters when the main buffet will open. Find out what will happen with the extending of the cocktail hour, how many bartenders you will get and whether the dry snacks on the table will be unlimited or carefully portioned.
Every package includes a certain period of service which varies from five to six hours from the start of service. But weddings run according to muhurat time which has never been punctual once. Find out the overtime price per hour per one staff member or per team. Also ask about the shift: if you want to have a chaat counter open after the phere ceremony, someone will have to stay awake for it.
Four to six hours is the norm for setting up the buffet and considerably more for setting up elaborate live counters, tandoors or other equipment requiring temporary construction of the kitchen. Ask when the team will arrive, when the first pot will be put on the fire and who will coordinate the access to electricity, water, gas and the equipment of the kitchen. If you are having a wedding at the farmhouse or a destination venue, find out how far the team will travel and where exactly the kitchen will be located.
Ask whether the crockery is their own and how the upgrade will cost. Ask whether live counters will be decorated in accordance with the style of your decoration or will be presented in their branding, which is a surprise nobody wants in his wedding photos. Ask for the pictures of their setups at the real events, not the mood boards. Better of all, get the catering company and the decorator in one call. Let them divide the tasks between themselves while you listen.
Ask this question even if you don’t want any extra desserts. A good caterer will ask what kind of dessert you want. If you want a live jalebi counter, a paan station, mithai and will return to you with the price per plate. A great caterer will point out that you already have three desserts in the menu and suggest replacing one of them rather than adding. Also, sort out what is included in the free replacement and what is not and lock the deadline for the menu changes.