Charging for wedding tastings

I have a question I would like to pose to the forum.
Many of you know me and what I do for a living. I have done several weddings during my hotel and country club days of my career and occasionally, I will personally do a few on the side. However, every bridal magazine and website out there recommends that brides get a tasting from prospective caterers.
Having worked with several brides and having done tastings in the past, I can assure you that they can sometimes be quite a pain to do when everyone is usually going to go with the cheapest caterer they can find anyway. I have had prospective bride and grooms, that I knew full well that were not going to book their wedding with us, try to use a free tasting as a kind of "date night ".

On the other hand, I do understand that if people are going to be spending several thousands of dollars to use my services, prospective clients want to be sure they will be getting what they pay for.

My question is, Do you think that it would be fair to charge a nominal, non-refundable fee for a tasting and then deduct that amount from the deposit if the bride elected to use my services?
I'm just trying to re-coup some of my cost of the food from the tasting. Myself, as a small caterer that will only do just a few events a year on the side of my day gig, I don't feel this is an unreasonable request considering the cost of doing tastings out of my own pocket can really add up after doing just a few.
What are your thoughts?

I did that, Dan, when I was doing wedding cakes all the time. I'd have couples call and want to do a tasting of sometimes up to 7 flavors! They wouldn't just want to bring the bride or groom either. Sometimes it would be the parents of both sets along with the bridesmaids. I actually had one couple request 5 flavors being 6" cakes each. Ummm....no. I charged a $30 tasting fee for up to 3 flavors. Additonal flavors were $10 a piece. This was 4 cupcakes of each. The fee was deducted from their cost IF they booked with me. If they didn't, it was to recoup my costs.
It cut down on the number of people just trying to get free cake and free advice on their cake.

Does the competition charge a fee?

Does the competition charge a fee?

I don't really worry about that as I'm not trying to make a living doing this, as I already do this for a living if you understand what I mean about that. I'm just trying to make an extra buck or two on the side.
I get all of my referrals from word of mouth. I could do alot more of them if I wanted, but I'm pretty selective about whom I work for.

It sounds like a reasonable fee to charge, especially if people are abusing the privilege and expecting a lot of free food. Since you would refund it if they use you for their wedding, it seems fair.

Like you said, the cheap people are going to go with the cheapest option, so charging a fee will productively cut you from consideration.

Those who are willing to spend on their wedding will pay the fee without thinking about it.

I'm oversimplifying, but it would seem that charging the fee will cut your interested customer base to those who are really interested in your services. Seems plenty of people have money to throw around for weddings, so that fee isn't going to stop them from talking to you if they are interested.

For those who would complain about the fee, you would have to think they would be complainers in general, so you wouldn't want to work with them anyway.

In this town on the cake side of catering it is unusual to charge for cake tastings. I've been doing this 11 years and I know of only one cake vendor who charges for tastings. However, what most of us do is limit the flavors that can be chosen - I have a Tasting Menu of the flavors I know that I will be making week in and week out. I have painfully learned to limit the tasting to no more than 4 people.

Dan - Glad to see word of mouth is bringing people to you for business. Speaks for your skill set brother. I will add that, although I think you have the correct system (charge but credit final bill if and when) I think a helpful way of weeding out the people "shopping" you would be to construct your menu as to speak to what you want to be known for. Look at the bait you are fishing with and determine if what you are catching is indeed what you're fishing for. I travel to do and to consult to high end events all year. And I continue to be in this arena, because like you, word of mouth is the best marketing tool. You have to build upon past accomplishments and make sure you tell people about it. I consulted with a gentleman year’s back who bestowed the single best piece of professional advice I’ve ever encountered: no one will know how successful you are until you tell them.

I’ve been pulling people in to Louisville for corporate events and I’m glad to know you are willing to take on some side work. Let’s get together soon; I have some things that you may want to take out of my hands. Unfortunately, as amazing as the experience we feel confident in delivering; we are attached to the worst infrastructure of event and building space in the city. I’d love to farm out some of my guests events to you if you’re interested.

Louisville is a very lucky to have such a cache of talent...

IMHO, word of mouth is worth so much more than a pretty ad in a magazine. Even though it's not the norm in this town, since you are getting your customers solely by word of mouth you probably would be able to get away with a small fee. They've already had someone tell them it's worth trying, so may be a bit more likely to agree to the fee, especially if it's credited back to them.

Other service professionals charge for estimates and they dont typically cost them materials as tastings would. I wouldn't have a problem paying you a fee for a tasting if it was deducted from the deposit if we decided to use you. I think that is completely fair.

Dan - Glad to see word of mouth is bringing people to you for business. Speaks for your skill set brother. I will add that, although I think you have the correct system (charge but credit final bill if and when) I think a helpful way of weeding out the people "shopping" you would be to construct your menu as to speak to what you want to be known for. Look at the bait you are fishing with and determine if what you are catching is indeed what you're fishing for. I travel to do and to consult to high end events all year. And I continue to be in this arena, because like you, word of mouth is the best marketing tool. You have to build upon past accomplishments and make sure you tell people about it. I consulted with a gentleman year’s back who bestowed the single best piece of professional advice I’ve ever encountered: no one will know how successful you are until you tell them.

I’ve been pulling people in to Louisville for corporate events and I’m glad to know you are willing to take on some side work. Let’s get together soon; I have some things that you may want to take out of my hands. Unfortunately, as amazing as the experience we feel confident in delivering; we are attached to the worst infrastructure of event and building space in the city. I’d love to farm out some of my guests events to you if you’re interested.

Louisville is a very lucky to have such a cache of talent...

Thanks Jayson. That's very flattering coming from a chef whose restaurant and food I really like and admire.
I'll try to stop by before service sometime when your not so crazy busy.
Unfortunately, I can't take on anything else until the end of next month as I have an after-school program I'm involved with and it is quite the time suck.

Dan,

I wasn't looking for the cheapest, but really good food ( at a reasonable price). That said, we had Patron cater our small wedding. I know we paid a nominal fee for the tasting ( maybe $10-15 per person?- I don't remember exactly) for the three of us to taste. Don't think it was credited to order....April did a very nice job with it- we still remember what a special night it was.

I agree - a nominal fee and credit toward services is a great approach- limits the moochers and self-selects the kind of serious customers you are interested in working with.

Deb

Dan,

I can say that I wouldn't mind paying for a tasting. I'm in the middle of looking for a reception location for my wedding -- and a lot of the locations we are considering have exclusive caterers and in that case, we haven't tried their food a lot of time. You can be sure we are going to get a tasting before committing to someone, paid or unpaid.

-Scott

PS - Thanks for the tip on Sawyer Hayes, it is rented for my date, but I think it would have been really nice!

I often wish that it was more acceptable for cake vendors in this town to charge for wedding cake tastings.

That said, I don't mind doing them for free, because having the cafe, I only give couples samples of what we have on hand on any given day. (I will give up to six samples.) Couples only get to make advance requests if they have a special requirement, such as vegan or gluten free. We also rarely do evening appointments, and whether couples show up alone or with 8 people in tow (yes, this has happened), they still get the same amount of cake. Sometimes we have couple try to come back for a second tasting and then I charge per sample.

I have been wanting to start charging a consultation/tasting fee for specialty cakes that are not wedding cakes though. Something small, like $10, that could then be applied to the total cost of the cake, and only 2 samples just to weed out the shoppers. I have had people schedule appointment, take up an hour of my time, and then never place an order, for a cake that might have only been $65 in the first place.

That being said, if you are doing samples for the entire catered affair, it seems reasonable to me to charge for it. Or offer a very basic limited tasting, and charge for any additional samples.

We used Beha Catering which included our wedding cake made by Cakes by Dana. Our wedding was perfect and one of the things that we've been complimented on most was our catering. Anyhow, Beha Catering does their tastings a little differently. They had an open house and invited everyone that had booked them or was interested in possibly booking them. They didn't have everything prepared, but had their most popular items including several different flavors of the wedding cake. We tasted everything to get an idea of their cooking style and chose from there. I met with the Dana separately and discussed our cake after I had chosen the flavor from the open house.