Any Hitchers tasted their menu yet?

I agree I think its very wrong of them to charge you bearing in mind the amount of money you are spending anyway. Plus if they are providing a service to you, you should be able to try it first without being charged!

Our catering company usually charges for a full-on tasting session, as they try and get people to attend other weddings (before the guests arrive of course) to taste their food. But as we live quite far away we couldnt attend their functions to go and try the food so they gave us a tasting session for free!

We had ours at the end of Feb and we also had to pay £25!! I wasnt too happy about it myself for the same reason although I would rather taste it than not so just had to pay.

I do agree that after you spend sooo much money it should at least be complimentary!

If my mind was made up on the menu I wouldnt bother with it but we cant decide what to have we know what we would prefer but it may not be to our guests likeing, and I know you should go with what you want but when it is costing you a fortune you dont want to see people pushing the food around their plate do you. We'll just have to suck it up and pay, other thing is that the date is 20th May which is a Friday it means taking a day off work (getting married up North and I live in the Midlands, Im up the north east May 13 having hair trial and up on the 27th may to see Take That! It's bloody typical!

Definitely should not have to pay. We have two and these were included in our package.

We are using an outside caterer but we didn't get charged for our tasting and I don't think you should be either! Also, and especially if you are paying for it - can't you go along at a time and date to suit you?!

We had ours last weekend - it was private, they set up a huge table for us, gave us our 2 chosed starters/mains/desserts to try, still and sparkling water, canapes, and 3 bottles of wine (which we didn't finish.) After we'd finished we had coffee and a sit down with the chef to chat about my special requirements. (I'm a fussy bint and don't eat meat or cheese, so he's making me my own special food on the day.) We didn't have to pay for the tasting, but our venue was exceedinly pricy to start off with, so I think the extras are probably built into the price.

We're not paying for our tasting, but we did visit another venue for a pricing comparisons and were told we would have to pay for tasting as 'it was not the norm to try before the wedding' which I thik is a joke! If you're spending thousands on food you wanna know if its nice or not!

We've got ours in a few weeks and as far as I know, it is all included in the package...I hope it is anyway! I agree though, it seems a bit cheeky to charge you when they will already be charging you a fortune anyway.

The food decision is really hard...whether to go with what you would prefer or what you think most people will like. I think to try and cater ofr everyone, we'll probably end up going with something quite safe like chicken. I'm tempted to just pick what I want but then it seems like such a waste of money if quite a lot of people won't like it. V difficult! Then again, there is no pleasing some people, always moaning about the food at weddings!!

Ours was inc in our package price, which is how it should be. I think this is really mean of your venue to charge!

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This is what we'll probably opt for, would love to go for the sirloin of beef but the chef will only cook it one way which is medium and some of mone and OH's family would not touch it with the slightest bit of pink, you cant help how fussy some people are, but if you'd asked me in the early stages of planning woud I have chicken as my main dish I'd have said not in a million years! Anyway going back to being charged for the privilege I really feel like calling the venue and expessing my surprise and dissapointment but what good will that do I dont want any unease not with 4 months to go.

We get charged as well, they kindly said they would add it onto our bill! I think its a total joke but to be honest our venue is stinging us for absolutely everything - I never thought of asking these kind of things when booking, I just booked the place I loved.

I doubt we'll bother with a tasting to be honest. At the moment its a choice between beef & salmon (i'll get chicken stuffed with sundried tomato) or turkey & ham for everyone.

Where not getting a tasting at all!!!! not included in the package if we wanna try the food we have to book into the restarant (sp?) and pay for it but saying that im not paying massive amounts like some are our package was 1499 for 50 wedding breakfast and 100 for the nite but it think if ya paying massve amounts the it should be included! xxx

Included in ours we had tasting of two starters, two mains and two desserts but we are giving guests a choice for two of each course anyway so it seemed a bit pointless to be honest. If we had wanted any more options, we would have had to pay £25 per 3 courses.

Not sure if we'll have the option to or not but before we booked we made sure we ate in the restaurant at two random intervals to almost check up on them! Been back a couple of times since to show the parents around and food has been amazing every time so I won't be bothered if we don't get to have a tasting.

The only problem we have now is to decide what to have, I think we'll end up with chicken as well!

We've not tasted our 10 course dinner yet, think we're doing it next month - I can't wait! Ours is definitely free though.