You just got engaged! Congratulations! Now what? Oh, the wedding planning phase.
We get it. The wedding planning process can be intense, defeating and overwhelming. All at once, you are experiencing one of the happiest times in your life and one of the most confusing and exhausting. Often, we hear this from brides, grooms, and family members.
The 67 Biltmore catering team wants to help put clarity and, possibly even fun back into this process!
Read below to find helpful information and tips about planning your destination Wedding or Event in Asheville.
Book Your Asheville Destination Wedding Space Early
Western North Carolina has become a leading wedding and event destination, so it is very important to book your event space and work on booking vendors as soon as you know your date. Generally, we would suggest trying to book a year in advance, especially if you want to get married in the peak wedding season. Typically, peak wedding season would be late April and May and then again in September-November. With the Asheville area becoming so popular, we now see that the wedding season has extended into the summer months. You may get lucky and find a venue and vendors who have some availability if you’re doing last-minute planning, but we suggest booking as close to a year out if you can! If you know that you definitely want to work with 67 Biltmore on your wedding catering, you can book your date without having a set menu and estimate. To book a date, we require a $200 general deposit.
Traveling to Asheville for the Planning or Wedding
If you’re coming to Asheville before your destination wedding or tasting or to meet with us or your venue and event planner, you should know how to get here. The Asheville Regional Airport now offers direct flights from Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit, and other destinations. Check the Airport website here for more information about which airlines fly here direct or how you may have to fly through Charlotte and take a ground shuttle to Asheville for you your destination wedding or event.
Available Ground Shuttle from Charlotte to Asheville:
Asheville also has an active Uber and Lift community, but if you and your guests love taxis and limos, we have them too
Taxis
AVL Taxi
Limos
Tastings Are a Great Way to Sample Dishes and Desserts for Your Destination Wedding or Event.
If you’re planning your event from outside of the area, it may be difficult for you to travel to Asheville on short-notice for a tasting. Typically, you should do your tasting before you send out your RSVP’s so that you can share the final menu options with your guests on the RSVP.
67 Biltmore is in downtown Asheville, so we are conveniently located if staying in the downtown area. We do have a small parking lot. You can park in the spots alongside our building or if those are taken, you may park in the ALOFT parking garage located under the ALOFT hotel, 2 businesses down from us. Asheville has a busy lunch hour and most restaurants that offer catering a busy working the lunch crowd. We like to schedule our tastings for the morning or afternoon between 10-11:30 and from 2-4pm. It’s best to arrive in Asheville the night before a tasting, especially if you’re coming in from Charlotte, as it’s a 2-hour drive and there may be traffic.
If you have booked with us before your tasting, we offer a complimentary tasting for two people. If you haven’t booked with us before your tasting but decide to book with us eventually, we will take the cost of the tasting (for two) off of the final event bill. If you have more than two people interested in joining for the tasting, that’s fine, but outside of the two meals, the others will be charged.
Full-Service Catering
For weddings, most folks want full-service catering (events with service staff). For full-service catering, we offer a variety of styles. We offer plated and served, buffet-style, family-style, and stationed events. We also offer passed or stationary hors d’ouevres for cocktail hour and can do a mix of these styles if you are interested. Outside of full-service events, we offer deliveries to venues and homes, and even offer to have food available for pickup at our Eatery.
Have Your Food Delivered
If you are having your wedding food delivered, please know that our delivery staff person will bring the food to set up on aluminum or on recyclable plastic containers. If you would like your delivery displayed a bit nicer, we can present the meal on our ceramic and glass dishes for an additional fee. We call this a “delivery setup.”
How Your Destination Wedding or Event is Staffed
67 Biltmore’s estimate includes estimated staffing hours. Our staffing hours begin when the staff member arrives here at our kitchen to gather all of the materials, the food, and do any reheating that the event might need. The hours continue to include: travel time to the location, the setup time, the actual event hours, clean up time, travel back to our shop, and the time it takes to put everything away. The final bill after the event shows the actual hours worked because we don’t want to bill you for hours that aren’t.
Choosing Your Wedding or Event Catering From Customizable Menus
Because our catering services and menus are customizable, it’s always good to start the catering conversation with a general idea of what you are looking for at your event. It’s helpful to know if there’s something you specifically want to see on your menu or specifically do not want to see on the menu. If your event follows a theme, let us know! We can create the menu with your theme in mind.
How You Should Plan Your Asheville Destination Wedding or Event Menu
For menu planning, we often suggest 2-4 appetizers for cocktail hour, a salad and bread course, then dinner with 1-3 entrees (including a vegetarian entrée if need be), 2-3 sides and a dessert/coffee course. This is entirely customizable, but this is a general outline.
How to Think About Your Destination Wedding or Event Budget
If you’re a bride/groom on a budget, let us know! If you are working with a specific budget in mind, we will work to try to meet that target. We have some ways to save money on your catering budget. An example would be to use buffet service instead of a plated event because, many times, it takes less staffing. Other helpful tips: chicken and pork are more affordable than beef and seafood; stationary hors d’oeuvres are often more affordable than passed hors d’oeuvres; etc. When wedding planning, we do have to be realistic about what events with staffing will cost – so if you are on a strict budget, and are open to delivery or pickup, that could be an avenue to get you the food you want for the cost you need.
How Catering and Event Planning Work Together
If you are working with an event planner, please let us know who it is. We’ll be in contact with them on the details so you can work and worry less.
What You Might Need to Rent for Your Destination Wedding or Event
If your event requires rental, we’d love to take care of this for you or work with you or your event planner on what your event will require. Outside of a tent, tables, chairs, and linens – many outdoors/rural events require a catering tent with walls, lights, and tables (because of the lack of a back of house or catering kitchen).
Your event may need buffet tables and bar tables. Most events need dishware, glassware, silverware, and napkins. It’s a lot to keep track of, so if you’d like us to handle this or offer the amounts we’d rent, please let us know. One perk of having 67 Biltmore take care of your rental is that if on the night of, something doesn’t get delivered, we can track it down instead of you or your family having to stress about it. We do not offer to do the rental for deliveries or pickup events but we can suggest the quantities and items that you should rent.
How You Can Plan for Dietary Restrictions for Your Destination Wedding or Event
If you have members in your party who have dietary restrictions, let us know! We can create custom plates just for them.
Other Meals While You’re In Town
Besides your event meal, we also offer catering for Rehearsal Dinners, After Wedding Brunches and “day-of, getting ready” meals for the bridal parties. Let us know if you’re interested in additional meals.
Where to Stay While in Town / Guest Lodging
There are many hotels in the downtown Asheville area as well as Airbnb’s and other VRBO’s. Please see here to learn more about lodging while in Asheville.
What Fees You Can Expect Working with an Asheville Caterer for your Destination Wedding or Event
When booking catering for your destination Wedding or event, remember that some caterers will charge fees for additional work performed. For example, depending on the Caterer and the level of service they believe they provide, a corkage fee might be charged. A “corkage fee” is a charge for when you bring your own bottle(s) of wine or champagne and they have to go table to table to uncork them. Or, they might charge for cake cutting, as well, since it can take some time to dissect a spectacular wedding cake into bite-sized pieces. We do not charge a corkage fee or a cake-cutting fee.
Some Caterers in Asheville require a minimum gratuity. Catering staffs work hard to make your event special, so while we don’t require a minimum gratuity, our service staff greatly appreciate it. If you would like to add gratuity to your event, you can either give cash to the staff members at your event or ask your catering planning contact to add a percentage or an amount to the final bill and the Catering organize will disseminate the gratuity to the staff.
We hope we’ve answered a few initial questions for you here. If you would like to learn more about our catering services or read through our FAQ’s please visit https://67biltmore.com/catering/ and scroll to the bottom of the page for FAQ’s. If you would like to speak with someone in the catering department about catering, please email hello@67biltmore.com and we will get back to you in a timely manner. Please keep in mind that if you are contacting us during the peak wedding season, it may take a few days for us to respond as we may be at events.
Click on the images below to view what your event might look like here in Asheville!
Also, do leave a comment and let us know if this post was helpful, or if you have a question!
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