I have just zapped out to the venue where we are catering a large wedding tomorrow. Sometimes its nice where possible, to have a look at the layout of things a day or so in advance, just so that when I'm lying awake at 3am in the morning fretting about all the possible scenarios that can possibly go wrong on a catering job, at least the images of the marquee, that I'm conjuring up relate to what we'll actually encounter.
The bride, her mother and friends were covering all the chairs, and tying organza ribbons, and it all has that nice sense of anticipation that builds prior to big events. But no drama. And that is possibly becos the quality of the marquee and all the fitout would have to be the most outstanding that I have ever seen. It looks utterly gorgeous - and theres nothing like knowing that something is looking special, to calm nerves.
Anna Robertson from Silver Bubbles will be out there tomorrow morning, when I go out with Hannah to set up the tables, and I have no doubt that she will take the whole ambience up yet another notch, if that is possible. She has a way of working complete magic, that woman.
Our kitchen marquee is attached to the back of the big marquee, and I swear that Rick is going to cry when he sees the set out. We simply aren't used to getting something that well thought out, or that much room! ( He's out on a ride at the moment, so thats why I'm writing, becos I need to get this very large 'wow' out of my system, and since he wasn't around to share it with...)
Everything in the hireage has come up from Wellington, and in our meetings last year, I got the distinct impression that Colin, who owns the hireage company, and is a long term friend of the family, was vastly experienced in these mattters.
My hunch has more than been proven correct. Its not only the size of the marquee, which is bigger, higher and more spacious than most marquees I've seen, not to mention, being in immaculate condition ( and made by Baytex , which is owned by good customers of ours, Spencer and Wendy Tankard), but its all the small details that have been taken care off, and which can make such an appreciable difference.
My 3am thought last nite was whether there would be any lighting in the kitchen - it has been a point overlooked on previous jobs, where much attention has been given to creating the right ambience in the main marquee, and the thought that we might need artificial light after about 9pm wasn't even considered. And we were as guilty of that as the client. Mind you, you only get caught out once on something like that, so once I'd chatted to the bride and headed to the kitchen marquee to have a look today, the first thing I checked was the lighting. Not only do we have more than enough lighting but we also have an electric insect zapper box!
And the tressle tables in the kitchen have extensions on their legs. Tressle tables are universally too short to work at - and that is becos hireage companies hire them out for multipe uses, sometimes as tables that guests sit at, and sometimes as work benches for kitchens or bars, or to present buffet food on. The ones in this kitchen have extensions fastened to the legs, so they stand at commercial bench height. Matt is going to be so pleased - no sore back from bending over...
All the plates and glassware have been put in the appropriate places, by the men working for the hire company. That is ridiculously significant becos one of the first jobs I usually have to do at a function is lug crockery and glassware around to be where I need it, becos more often than not it gets dumped in one mass dropoff. Not in this instance. Oh no. The predinner glassware, is over by the pool, where the guests will be at that stage; the stuff for the table set up in the marquee, was left alongside them; and what we need for the entrees and mains is in the kitchen, where those dishes will be plated. Such organisation.
The quality of the crockery and glassware is beautiful - I've never seen so many coffee plungers in one place before, so I'll put my ones back away becos we are definitely not going to need them. May take a teapot though, cos I didn't see one of those.
Early last year we went to an extraodinary party catered by Simon Gault and his top chefs on a high station down in the South Island. Miles from civilisation, the setup was unlike anything we'd seen, and the kitchen marquee alone, was bigger than the floor layout of all of Somerset. No expense had been spared, and we marvelled at the banks of ovens and equipment that had been hired, and kind of pondered how it is that we do what we do on catering jobs with a couple of mein host ovens, that blow out in the wind, and never get as hot as you want them too, and try and plate food for 150 people in a tight time frame. Yes - I confess to a degree of envy, and I'm not someone who ordinarily does envy.
But tomorrow, Rick has more oven capacity than he does in the kitchen at Somerset - as I say, he is going to cry!!
So. The setting is exquisite, the flowers will be outstanding - and the bench mark for us to measure up to is very high.
No pressure then!! ( And probably no sleep tonite!)
