Featured in People Magazine, this wedding was a beautiful celebration of love as well as a marriage of three different cultures. The menu brought together the best of the groom’s Samoan background and the bride’s Navajo and Mexican heritage. From the roasting pig to the chili-spiked Mexican cookies and petite fry bread hors d’oeuvres, the food was a delicious fusion of flavors, cultures, and cuisines.
Different cultures party in different ways, and for Polynesians, guest lists and seating charts are mere suggestions. So when the guest count suddenly jumped from 100 to 350, we were ready!
This unique wedding was featured in People Magazine. It also won the ACE Award for Best Catered Wedding of the Year, one of the top honors in the international catering industry.
The ACE (Association of Catering Excellence) Awards are judged by a panel of global catering leaders and industry experts. Winning an ACE award is not simply a local accolade; it represents peer recognition on an international stage. Events are evaluated for creativity, execution, design integration, culinary innovation, and overall guest experience.
Utah has a booming destination wedding industry, and Culinary Crafts has established itself as the go-to premier full-service caterer for destination weddings anywhere along the Wasatch Front and beyond. Catering the Best Wedding of the Year is confirmation of what our clients already know, that the level of luxury and hospitality we provide at Culinary Crafts is world-class.
In 2015, Culinary Crafts was the only caterer in the world to win multiple ACE awards. In addition to “Best Catered Wedding of the Year,” we also won “Best Catered Event of the Year” for an extravagant social event we catered at Salt Lake City’s McCune Mansion.
Over the last forty years, Culinary Crafts made an art out of off-premises catering in Utah. We’ve won the Best of State catering award 27 times, garnered ten CATIEs (U.S. hospitality’s equivalent of an Oscar), and landed a few international prizes. We’re now preparing to cater the winter Olympic games for the second time. We’ve staged high-end events for U.S. presidents and corporate CEOs, Hollywood stars, and celebrities of every ilk, including this wedding for an NFL player and a Utah Jazz dancer. However, it’s not the prizes or high-profile events we’re most proud of; it’s our amazing team of chefs, bakers, planners, and event staff, and the level of excellence they bring to every event.
Sure, it’s gratifying to see our team’s work featured in publications and winning awards, but the more important feedback is the repeat business we get from delighted clients and the excitement of guests like this bride who told us, “It really was the perfect day!”
It isn’t often that we get to roast a whole suckling pig on a spit onsite, so creating the food for this unique wedding was an absolute pleasure! From the cocktail hour hors d’oeuvres to the late-night snack of Polynesian pork sliders, every part of the menu highlighted the cuisines of the couple’s Navajo, Mexican, and Samoan cultures.
One of the most unique and memorable elements of this wedding was the music and dancing. The timeline featured ten different cultural dances performed by various members of the wedding party, relatives, and friends. The groom (an NFL player) and his groomsmen performed the Samoan war dance known as the Siva Tau, and the bride did a beautiful rendition of the Taualuga dance. A mariachi band played throughout the cocktail hour, and the evening program kicked off with a traditional Navajo song and prayer by the bride’s grandfather.
Another of our favorite aspect of the event was the beverages. We had four separate bars serving local beers, wines, and cocktails. The couple requested two specialty cocktails, an espresso martini and a red sangria with fresh fruit. During dinner, our bartenders offered tableside wine service. With such a big crowd dancing and partying hard, the booze was certainly flowing!
Five days before this wedding, we learned that the guest list had jumped from 100 to 350. While we are accustomed to making last-minute adjustments, this one created several challenges.
For one thing, it meant that the festivities would have to be moved outside into the July heat that hovered above 100 degrees for most of the day. Luckily, the couple had chosen against any wedding cake that might have been in danger of melting, opting instead for a dessert table brimming with Samoan and Mexican goodies. With plenty of umbrellas and tents to provide shade, plus four open bars and lots of carafes and water stations, guests were well-prepared to handle the heat. Besides, the outdoors setting gave guests a gorgeous view of the towering Utah Wasatch Mountains nearby.
Another complication arose when the planner was unable to find enough matching plateware on such short notice. We adjusted the plan by making sure that all the plateware used at each individual table matched, However, this became more complicated when guests ignored the seating chart and sat wherever they wanted. Our Front of House team had to keep track of where each individual guest sat in order to know which style of plates their meal needed to be served on to match the table.
A third result of the sudden change in guest list arose from the fact that the outdoors service area would need to be nearly 100 yards from the kitchen. That meant a lot of extra steps for our butlers and bussers. However, they had faced similar challenges before. They kept themselves hydrated and handled the challenge with grace.
Knowing that the concepts of “guest count” and “seating chart” are more fluid in some cultures, we avoided potential problems by setting three extra tables for surprise guests. Sure enough, all three extra tables filled to capacity.
Finally, the fact that many guests ignored the seating chart created challenges when it came to service. Instead of the traditional plated dinner style of service we had planned, we adjusted on the fly to a modified restaurant-style service. Our waiters determined what meal each individual guest needed as well as what plates to serve it on to match the guest’s chosen table.
27x winner Utah’s Best of State
24x Best of State Caterer
3x Best of the Best / Hospitality
1x Entrepreneur of the Year