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2017 in Review: So Many Weddings Catered in and around Melbourne!

The run-down on some of our recent wedding catering gigs in Melbourne

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We’ve only been in the business for four years to date, and this has by far been our busiest year yet! We are proud to say that our business has grown steadily across this time, a lot of which we can attribute to word of mouth. This year, we catered more weddings than we have in any other year, and we've loved every bit of it. 

We’ve been focusing heaps on wedding catering of late, tis the season. We’re loving catering weddings in and around Melbourne. It's such a privilege to be a part of someone's wedding and we love to make a memorable impact and impress your guests. 

We’ve taken some time out of the kitchen to update our followers on some of the weddings we’ve catered this year.

Firstly, we’ve been reflecting on what’s helped our wedding catering side of the business grow so much in the past few years. We pack our food with flavour and pride ourselves on offering a super personable service. We believe that communication in the lead-up to the event is one of the most important things to ensuring a well-rounded menu and smooth running day. We enjoy chatting to couple’s in the lead-up, helping them to organise all the little details with regard to their wedding catering. This includes hosting tastings – a great opportunity to meet couples and their families. And of course, it’s a great opportunity for couples to sample our food and for us to collaboratively finalise the menu.

We kicked off the year with a big one. We catered Kara and Dave’s awesome wedding in Sunbury this March. As a couple, Kara and Dave were incredibly generous and helpful with our team. The wedding was on the parent’s property and it was absolutely stunning. The level of effort put into this DIY country wedding was out of control! The dad even built a bridge over an island on their dam, and the entire ceremony was held there – it was perfect. Kara and Dave went all out on their wedding catering, going with our wedding share plates menu, grazing table, canapes and roaming desserts. There was some very happy customers.

Later in the year, we catered a wedding in one of 12 remaining original homesteads in Nug Nug, Victoria, 4 hours out of Melbourne. This was the longest distance we’ve travelled yet. We really put the word ‘mobile’ in mobile wedding catering to the test. The father of the couple used to run hatted restaurants – so it’s safe to say we were a little nervous going in. But we had such a blast regaling details with him about fine dining, and serving him and the rest of their guests some fancy catering.

Then in August, we catered Felicity and Tristan’s gorgeous wedding in Boneo. The wedding was held at Felicity’s parent’s property situated in a landing amongst a forrest of gumtrees and surrounded by wildlife. It was an Australian paradise. Tristan is a chemical engineer with an avid mind for how food works. He even took up cheese mongering in the year leading up to his wedding and prepared his own grazing table full of home-made cheeses. He also prepared cocktails featuring home-made distilled gin and expresso martinis with home-brewed cold brew coffee. We were impressed!

Our most recent and one of our all time favourite weddings was held at award winning wedding venue Acacia Ridge Winery in the Yarra Valley. We can’t speak highly enough about this venue! Everything was so well organised. If you're looking for a wedding venue in Melbourne (or outer Melbourne), definitely get in touch with these guys. Surrounded by vineyards and mountain ranges, we were in awe of this location. The couple (Robbie and Sally) were so lovely and the best kind of critics to cook for, both with a background in hospitality. Luckily they were impressed with our wedding catering – so we were pretty chuffed.

We’re looking forward to capping off 2017 with one of our biggest and funnest sounding weddings to date, for Mel and Tim! Their wedding will be held at Flinders Yacht Club, just before Christmas this year. We won’t give away all of their secrets just yet. But let’s just say that we’re serving one our biggest and most varied menus to date. We’re looking forward to revealing the full menu and more details soon.

That’s it from us for now, we best get back in the kitchen. Follow us on the social medias for more updates about our recent events! And if you’re looking for a Melbourne wedding caterer, get in touch with Fat Cats Food Van and Fancy Catering. We’d love to chat more about what we can do for you!

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Erin + Matt's Stunning Country Wedding

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Erin + Matt's Stunning Country Wedding

Mixing it up in the Countryside: Cocktail and Sit-Down (Share Plates) Wedding Catering

 

It was all in the details for this beautiful romantic garden wedding. Erin and Matt were a delight to work with. We couldn’t help but share more details about their beautiful wedding. White Magazine recently published a blog article about their wedding too, which you can read here. The amazing photography skills of Jess from Brown Paper Parcel get us every time.

Given we are a mobile caterer, with a food van in tow, this allows us to pop up and do classy wedding catering for a country wedding, romantic garden wedding, backyard wedding or other DIY wedding styled event. This can reduce a lot of the stresses associated with a destination country wedding. We offer a no fuss full catering experience no matter what the venue or location - as long as it is somewhere in Melbourne or anywhere in Victoria (we haven’t quite crossed the state border with the van yet).

Erin was such an organised and relaxed bride. She brought so much creativity and thought to planning her big day and it shone through on the day and into the evening. We were thrilled to cater their Melbourne wedding, serving a selection of canapés from our Fancy Cocktail Menu to start and some delicious slow-cooked meats and tasty sides from our Wedding Share Plates menu, to their 100+ family and friends.

Share plates, otherwise referred to as grazing table platters, work beautifully for a more informal sit-down wedding. This style of wedding catering provides you with the best of both worlds. It is priced similarly to cocktail style wedding catering (canapés) and does not skimp on generosity, and of course, allows your guests the opportunity to relax, mingle and thoroughly enjoy their meal.

It’s easy to see why wedding share plates / grazing tables are a really popular wedding catering choice. We all know that sharing a meal with friends and family promotes a great atmosphere. Just like dinner parties with close friends – sharing food in good company creates a relaxed, happy, chatty, communal vibe. That’s why we decided to focus on offering share plates as our main wedding catering option. We love to see guests in full conversation and delight in their meal and the couple they are all their to celebrate.

We collaborated with Erin and Matt to make sure the menu suited exactly what they wanted. This of course involved chatting back and forth over email and phone. We also hosted a tasting for them, to assist in narrowing down some of their options. From there, we decided that canapés just after the ceremony would work well – allowing guests to take in the beautiful countryside and have a few champagnes post-ceremony whilst they went and got their couple’y shots done. This worked beautifully. We had wonderful waitresses serving, which made the whole thing a breeze.

For canapés, we served the following from our Fancy Cocktail menu:

  • Roasted pumpkin tartine with chilli oil and fetta
  • Prawn brioche rolls
  • Pulled pork sliders
  • Slow roasted eggplant pita parcels

Following canapés, guests headed inside to the amazingly transformed ‘tin shed’ (as Erin called it), for speeches prior to us serving dinner. As you can see, Erin’s attention to detail was above and beyond. It’s hard to believe a professional wedding stylist wasn’t involved!

Just as speeches were wrapping up, we snuck in and served our plated mains.

For mains we served (from our Wedding Share Plates menu):

  • Pulled lamb leg with salsa verde
  • Spiced roast chicken with yoghurt and tahini sauce
  • Beetroot salad with an abundance of fresh herbs and seeds
  • Cypriot grain salad with cumin and honey yoghurt
  • Green bean and potato salad with herbed mustard dressing

Top Cat and Head Chef Adrian, along with Erin and Matt’s input, designed this menu to be slightly left of field, gorgeously presentable, flavour packed and familiar enough that everyone at the wedding could appreciate their meals.

So if you’re planning your location wedding in Melbourne, the greater Melbourne region or anywhere across Victoria, hit us up! We'd love to work with you. 

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NYE 2016 Recap: Camp Nong Festival

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NYE 2016 Recap: Camp Nong Festival

We had an absolute blast catering our favourite Melbourne NYE festival - Camp Nong.

We've been providing food van catering for these fellas since they started the festival a few years back and we're super stoked they keep inviting us back! This most recent new years, we catered for 400+ festival goers, serving them a hearty shared meal of 6 salads (salads at a festival? I did say they were hearty yeah?) Here's what we served:

  • Seedy, herby beetroot salad
  • Carrot with harissa salad
  • Garlicky sesame cured broccoli salad
  • Pho noodle salad
  • Cauliflower tabouleh
  • Santa Fe quinoa with black beans

The kids loved em! And we had a blast serving these guys (and dancing with them afterwards). 

Nong on! (as they say).

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Wedding Catering Melbourne and Surrounds

BY YOURS TRULY, FAT CATS FOOD VAN AND FANCY CATERING

The wedding season has started a little later for us here at Fat Cats food van and fancy catering, with heaps of wedding catering coming up across Melbourne in February and March 2017. This is where we really get to put the fancy in fancy catering. We're also taking the van out for a spin for most of these super cool Melbourne weddings. We are so excited to be catering these events and look forward to bringing you a series of blog posts about them. 

If you're looking into having Fat Cats cater your Melbourne wedding, we suggest first checking out our fancy cocktailfancier cocktail and wedding shared plates menus for some inspo. We've also served our taco feast at engagement and weddings and it's super yum and fun. Then, get in touch with Top Cat Adrian for a purely personalised approach. It's Adrian's mission to make sure you have a menu that is just right for you and your budget - and one that will knock the tastebuds off your guests! (in the best way possible). We also love to travel so if you're planning an out of town wedding or event, Fat Cats provide wedding and other event catering to the wider Melbourne region - the van just loves getting on the road. 

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