“How Did You Trip Into Catering”

My name is Rosemary and I have only been in the catering/wedding industry for only about 3 years now, but 3 normal-people years actually means about 5-10 in catering years which means I'm coming up on my retirement(!). I know I haven't seen it all, but that is the beauty of catering; things happen that would shock a catering veteran that has been in the industry for 20+ years. You can never really be fully prepared in this industry because offsite catering is like picking up a kitchen and putting it where you need it. And then doing that 13+ times in the same day, over and over and over for weeks on end.

If you have never worked in catering, you probably would think it is similar to serving at a restaurant. which it is. Not. Actually, I wouldn't really know since I never really worked in the restaurant biz.

Recently, I moved to Seattle and accepted a pretty cushy catering position out here. When I first started, one of my coworkers asked me, "so how did you trip into catering?"

I said,

“I fell and smacked my face on every branch possible”

In actuality, it all started with a game of Dungeons and Dragons. I had been a part of the same campaign for about 2 years at the time with my brother and his friends. My brother is 8 years older than I am and most of his friends were roughly about the same age, if not even older so I wasn't particularly close with them. I had an extremely tough year as I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension, or IIH, which meant I had too much pressure in my brain due to an overproduction of cerebral spinal fluid. This meant I had intense migraines all the time. This, coupled with an intense phobia that seemed to snap into place overnight, lead to me leaving my biomedical degree 3 years into the program. I ended up switching to a communications major that I had no idea what to do with.

After a session of DND, I had asked around the group what I should do with my life as I felt totally lost. I knew what I wanted to do with my life for about 5 years at that point and I practically washed it all away. Randomly, I said out lout "I'm going to be a wedding planner!" Surprisingly, the group was really supportive and exclaimed "you can do it!!"

Except, they didn't do that. Not at all. They actually erupted in a fit of

"ew! I could never do that!" "You want to work with bridezillas??" "that sounds so dumb and stressful"

I really didn't care what they said. I decided in that moment that I wanted to be a wedding planner and so I started the research. I researched, and researched, and researched. I even bought a binder and included all my ideas and possible names for my company. I created an idea for a wedding planner that people can buy if they don't want to buy my services (you know, to create more revenue, I guess?)

In hindsight, I was pretty naïve. But "chase your dreams" and all that..

I figured, I shouldn't start planning other people's weddings if I knew nothing about it, so I knew I needed to get some experience. I ended up finding a position called "Event Designer" at a local catering company. I didn't really know what that meant in regards to catering and I just thought it was a planner that worked for the company. However, I noticed that it required 3+ years of experience (which I did not have, of course) so I decided to just apply to be an Event Captain. I figured I could do what my mom did in her job, and work my way up.

Looking back, I had a pretty good resume just for a captain. I had worked in sales for a DME company, had a degree, and I was extremely motivated. During the interview, the Sales Manager actually said I would be a wonderful fit for their coordinator role and asked if I was interested. I immediately jumped on the opportunity. I ended up having an interview with the General Manager, and another interview with all the Event Designers. I landed the role and got welcomed into the world of Catering.

As a Coordinator at this company, half of the job was in the office helping with admin work like answering the phones, creating menus, cleaning the office, prepping the decor for the events, etc. The other half of the job was going to the event on behalf of the Event Designers and managing the event team or just offering support to make sure the events go well.

The reason Coordinators were put on events is because each Sales Designer (and I think there were 3 at the time) would have up to 5 events in a day and they obviously could not be at every one. It was also the company policy there that a person from leadership or management had to attend every single event to make sure there was support. Often, we would not have enough Event Captains to fill the holes so the Coordinators would have to step in to lead the events (honestly, this was like 80% of the time during wedding season).

I had absolutely no experience being a server and the only food places I worked at was Jimmy Johns and Dion's. Then I was asked to not only lead my events, but then be in charge of teams consisting of staff that have worked with the company for years. That being said, I absolutely rocked my first year. Month by month, the other coordinators dropped like flies (I will definitely be addressing them in future posts). I honestly feel like I was born to do this.

Nothing has ever "clicked" in my brain as much as catering does.

I am a fairly reserved person at work and I kept my head down so I was unaware of all the drama at the beginning. I actually thought I was the worst coordinator on the team due to my lack of experience but I was actually the best. I didn't realize that until halfway through the season when the owner pulled me aside (talk about a heart-attack) and gave me a gift card and told me he saw how hard I was working and appreciated my dedication and passion.

Even a whole year later, the accounting lady called me "Quiet Rosemary" as I was pretty mousy. Of course, my name is not Rosemary, but I want to be somewhat anonymous as I am still in the event industry and I want to protect the people I've worked with and protect the companies as well.

Eventually, I was promoted to Event Designer (literally just a pretty way to say sales rep). I've executed around 100-150 events in my first year, around 200 in my second year, and only about 50-100 in my third before I moved to Seattle. I've done a handful now, but I am now a manager for an offsite catering team here (a big ol' fat team of just me).

I don't know how many meltdowns I've had, or how much longer I'll last in such a tough industry, but I'd thought I'd share the wisdom I've learned and help others out there maybe catch their breath.

Sincerely,

Rosemary