Anyone do a tasting before booking a venue (All Inclusive place or catering in house)

I was wondering the same thing when I was venue hunting - most places would not let me try the food until AFTER I booked. Still does not make the most sense to me because there was no clause in the contract that said I could take back my deposit if the food was horrible.

I ended up booking with a place that offered me a tasting before booking. I told them that food quality was a huge factor in our decision and the venue offered a tasting right away. Luckily, the food was delicious! I would try and tell the venues that you really need to taste the food in order to decide and try to negotiate with them on that.

My venue did a free tasting after you booked but gave the option to pay for a tasting beforehand. I looked at all the reviews and decided it as most likely great and decided to pay for the tasting knowing that I as almost 100% positive we were going with that place. It cost $40/person and would have been taken off the full cost once we signed the contract.

That can get pricey if you end up trying multiple places, but if you are pretty sure you want to go with one place, find out if that is an option.

IME, venues only offered tastings after booking. I just based the food quality on online reviews. We were well into it before we had the tasting, just a few weeks before the wedding. Fortunately the food was fantastic!

Almost none of my venues do tastings before booking though a few of the upscale ones do invite only open houses that they run (as opposed to expos).

I had gone to my venue before and had their food, so I knew it was great. But both of the all inclusive venues we looked at required us to book before doing a tasting. You might be able to request one before though- I would see if you could negotiate that with them!

So the reason I was so concerned was of course the venue that had the not good enough food, had tons of reviews saying the food was good. But I think the issue is that I am a foodie, and maybe my standards are a bit higher.

The next venue we got a quote from, we are paying for a tasting so we can be sure before we book.

Places that wouldnt allow a tasting, even when we offered to pay for it, were immediately out of the running. The food is so important, and I wasn't willing to gamble

None of our venues provided a tasting before booking but three of the ones we looked at also had restaurants so we just had lunch there after our appointments

Mine had a ton of reviews online that all said the food was really good and not typical wedding food so I booked before tasting. Fingers crossed I like the food!

I absolutely did and wouldn't consider a place that wouldn't. Good food was a make or break deal for me. They allowed us to taste our menu from start to finish, wine included.

Approximately 6 months later, we were invited to their biannual formal tasting provided for everyone that has signed a contract.

We did not get a free tasting before booking, but our venue is a hotel, so we paid for lunch in the restaurant before we booked just to make sure we liked the food.

That was something we were worried about when we booked our venue. They only do 2 tastings a year, one fall and one spring. I read reviews and reached out to other brides that had their weddings at the venue to make sure the food was good before we booked. We had our tasting last week and the food was good. FH even liked all of the veggies and he's not that big on vegetables.

Most venues around me do not offer tastings before you book. I agree that its really odd bc they expect you to blindly choose them without awarding you an opportunity to test their food. Certainly, one would want to taste what they are spending thousands of dollars on. But, I only recall one venue that offered a tasting pre -booking at no cost. It was one of the non-luxurious venues so it seems they used that and prices to attract customers.

We went with our venue assuming that bc they are Italian most of our guest would enjoy the food since its most similar to Latin food. We just took a leap of faith and booked based on that an amazing reviews. If its a deal breaker for you, request a tasting and if they are unwilling to do it for free, offer to pay for the tasting.

FH and I already agreed that for our top choices, we would be willing to pay for the tasting prior to booking, just so we can have some peace of mind about the food quality. It's a top priority for us both and we aren't willing to gamble!

I booked a semi-inclusive venue before tasting. We booked 2/2016, but our tasting isn't until next month. We read reviews, it's well-known in our area, we've been there before, and know others who have. We are confident everything will be fine.

My venue (all inclusive) doesn't typically do tasting AT ALL, except for their bi-annual wedding shows...My wedding planning fell right between the two expo's so I asked if there was any way to do a tasting, otherwise I wouldn't be comfortable booking. She had me come in the morning of a wedding they were doing and the chef prepped an extra plate of that couples chosen menu items. It ended up being totally different food than we chose--but it gave us an idea of how the food was prepared, tasted and presented.

We will do our tasting in a few months. That being said, our venue has all 5 star reviews on WW and The Knot and each mentioned the food so we felt pretty good about it without needing a tasting.

Our reception venue is our favorite restaurant, so we do tastings quite often.

All the venues I looked at did tastings only after booking. I thought this was so bizarre when I first started my venue search.

All of our potential caterers offered a tasting before we booked, so to me this was just normal. I would never consider booking someone before tasting and seeing their food! (We went to one of our caterers and the food was good, but the presentation was awful, and immediately we were like back of the list- if we're paying you $60/person (without drinks) then the food needs to look good too.)