Did you sample your food?

I'd ask. It's going to be served to your guests so you want to know it's going to not only taste nice but look nice.

Nah, just went for it. IMO a few tasters is vastly different to mass catering anyway

You shouldn't feel like a nuisance! It's your special day I'm sure the venue understand you want it to be perfect x

Depends on your venue and numbers. We married at a restaurant, and had the opportunity to not only have a fabulous dinner out on the excuse of menu tasting but got a chance to talk with the chef/design meals/talk about presentation/pick wines/nibble cheeses/ etc.

We are having ours. As FLOMB said, its the chance to have a meal out, you can see the menu as a whole so you can see how it flows and fits together IYKWIM?

Thanks all. I've e-mailed and asked if its possible, fingers crossed :-) x

Our venue didn't do tastings for this very reason. The venue was run by the catering company so we were confident that the food would be good - and it was!

Our original caterer refused to do a tasting for us, she went really weird about it. We ended up sacking her and going with someone else, who did do a tasting and it was great and she only charged a tenner each for it (but on the day deviated from the samples and agreed menu and put nuts in most things, great for my nut allergic OH and guests which she 'forgot' about). I think you should have one so you know what you're getting, but make sure you get every little tiny thing down in writing.

Yep we had a tasting with three different caterers before we chose who we wanted to prepare our meal. All were lovely and it made for a fun afternoon/evening every time we did it. I guess ours was a bit different as we hadn't chosen our caterer prior to going for tastings. Each of our tastings were free, incidentally.

We were told we could go for a food tasting nearer to the time. Need to ask them about it actually. Ours venue is a hotel though.

We went for our tasting on Wednesday night and we actually changed our mind on some of our menu choices. It really helps being able to see and taste the food plus it helps with the excitement . You are not putting your venue out, it should be part of the service x

We're going to an open day at our venue on sunday and the caterers are there, we hope to get some tasting in then... if not we'll arrange for a private meeting seperate,y x

We get a tasting included with the price although we are going to pay extra and have both mums come with us too as we think this would be nice for them.

The tasting is to choose the meals as well as the wine served with the meal.

I can't wait! I've heard good things about the food at my venue although I haven't eaten anything other than afternoon tea there. I'll do the tasting approx 6 months beforehand so I've got a while to wait unfortunately.

Tasting gives you the opportunity to try the food and decide on your menu choices. We went for tasting and were asked to choose one starter, one main and one desert each from the menu provided and make our decisions from there. It was complimentary too.

We have our tasting next Wed! Eeek excited! We have chosen two mains (plus one veg) and one starter and one veg so I presume we will be tasting all of them - although it is really just to confirm that we like those choices as we are giving guests a choice of those! (Rather than say having two to taste so we can pick which one we liked best and have that as a meal).

We have paid the deposit as caterers are part of our deal with the venue, but ordinarily it would cost 50GBP for the two of us and then we would get it off the price if we booked with them.

We will also get to sample some canapes, although we havent picked these specific ones to try so who knows what we will get.

Have not been told anything about if we will get to sample the evening ideas though (only just thought of this and we havent decided on what we want for evening buffet yet anyway...!)

I'm the same as my venue twin, and will be having our tasting in the next few months. MrsH2014- i've eaten there and the food was really good!

Good! I keep thinking I should go for a meal there but I never get round to it. The food was an important part of chosing a venue and although we haven't tasted it ourselves we just knew it'd be good.

I think it's so important guests are fed well, I've been to a wedding where guests got so hungry they ran in to the town to buy sausage rolls from the bakery.