Be My Guest Events & Catering

My wife and I hired Be My Guest Events to cater our wedding in the Chicago Park District. The food was fine, but the experience of dealing with this company left much to be desired. We stressed over and over and over that we wanted to stay within a set budget, and we wanted to operate within the set budget. Susann listened and we set out a plan of action, and agreed on a price. Two weeks before the wedding she abruptly demanded 2,000 more dollars in order to cater the wedding. She claimed she never promised to serve hot food or provide the things we wanted within our budget. So we had cold food at our wedding. I found her food ok, and the experience not worth the hassle. She also yelled out my wedding party while setting up the event. Good thing no one cared about the food anyway, since we had an awesome band.

We hired Be My Guest to supply bartenders and general bar setup for our wedding. The bartenders did an amazing job. They were very friendly and helpful the entire evening from supplying water before the ceremony to helping load excess alcohol up for removal (we did BYO, so we needed to get it in the back of a car). I will admit that the planning side of things did get a little confusing (reason for 4 stars), but the day of was perfect and that’s what matters.

My husband and I were recently married and for our wedding reception caterer we chose Susann at Be My Guest Events after meeting several other caterers and tasting their food before finding Susann. She has a fantastic, warm, and supportive personality and she helped us to get exactly what we wanted, taking our ideas for food into consideration so that we could basically customize dishes to our taste, and helping us come up with a plan for decorating the room that really turned out perfect and stunning. Their service staff on the day of were very professional and did a great job. We received many compliments from guests on the food and décor. Final cost was very reasonable for what we got. We highly recommend Susann for catering!

We hired Be My Guest for our Aug 2008 wedding at the Garfield Park Conservatory and had a very similar experience to Sara B.‘s
The food was very good and the staff was courteous.
However, there were significant headaches that I was left to deal with on my own that day, so I would recommend BMG only if you also have an experienced wedding coordinator. Susann repeatedly discouraged me from hiring a coordinator, saying she’d be handling all those little details. Not so.
The seating plan I had labored over for a month got mixed up by a staff member which put my mother’s elderly friends right next to the DJs speakers and across the room from all the people they know. And relatives we wanted to keep a distance between were seated practically next to each other. Huge bummer.
I found out too late that my photographers had had nothing to eat even though I’d paid for them and the DJ to have meals.
I also took Susann’s advice about not offering coffee service at the tables and regretted that because they set up the coffee at the opposite end of the hall near the bar so people had to get up and walk across the whole space just to get a cup of coffee when cake/​dessert was served.
I trusted Susann’s abilities, and appreciated the double and triple checking of the details, but lost all confidence when I arrived at the Conservatory on the afternoon of the wedding and walked up to her to check in… she didn’t recognize me! She just took the decorations I’d brought from me and walked away.
I’d met with her in person at least 4 times and I WAS THE BRIDE!!!
She didn’t recognize my husband either because he was helping our musicians set up in the conservatory and she scolded him about where they should set up.
Pretty unprofessional and unfortunately left a bad taste in my mouth.
I guess it all boils down to this bit of advice to all brides to be: hire a coordinator who can manage your vendors, including your caterer. And think twice about a caterer who isn’t keen on being managed.

We hired Be My Guest to cater our wedding this past May at Garfield Park Conservatory and I was left with mixed feelings. First of all, let me just say that the the food was great, which is what really matters for a caterer.
Susann is the main gal who you do all of your pre-​planning with, but I felt like she should have been more of a presence during the wedding because she was in the back the entire time. She had someone assigned to the front of the house who approached me a few times asking for final details, such as the order the tables would eat (information I had given to Susann well before the wedding day). When I sent my husband to find out what was going on, the list I had given to Susann materialized (whew, because I definitely didn’t have that memorized).
The part that really made me mad was when this same worker asked me why people were assigned to table18 because there were only supposed to be 17 tables. I guess they didn’t bring the most up to date floor plan to the event either. They did whip up another table pretty fast, but I’m still embarrassed that those guests were just standing there for awhile and it definitely could have been avoided.
Also, it seemed like we had to tell Susann our preferences over and over before the event. Maybe that’s good that she is quadruple checking, but it decreased my confidence that she knew what was going on. Initially, Susann discouraged us from hiring a coordinator or a planner to help on the day of the event. She reassured us that she would be able to handle extra things like the guest book, favors and place settings and she stated that an extra person would just get in the way. As the event neared, I was becoming less and less confident that she could handle extra things, so I regretted not hiring a coordinator for the day. I ended up assigning friends to extra tasks which I am glad that I did.
In the end the price was right and people were happy with the food, so that is definitely important! I would highly recommend having a friend or coordinator handle the non-​food related items and to make sure everything runs smoothly with the caterer as well, so that you aren’t bombarded with ridiculous last minute questions.

My fiancé and I met with Sue to discuss catering for our wedding. We were unable to book her because we had a change of date, but we wish we had been able to. For all our wedding planning, Sue was the first one to shoot straight with us and be completely open, honest, and helpful about every aspect of our planning. She knows the business inside and out and is completely committed to each event she caters. Her prices are reasonable and she has the scoop on little known venues throughout the city – she directed us to our new reception site after we had a change of plans. While we wish we had been able to book her, it was great just to meet with her. Do the same – you’ll be impressed.

We LOVED working with Susann and her staff for our wedding. We had the reception at the South Shore Cultural Center, which meant a multipl-​eroom set-​up, and Susann executed perfectly. She and her team served incredible appetizers (including a mango-​brie quesadilla that was AWESOME), fed nearly 300 people in a station format in less than 90 minutes (people LOVED the food) and kept the cost (including food, alcohol, linens, rentals, etc.) under any other venue/​catering combination in the city. Plus, she is nice, responsive, and very patient with Type-​A brides (like me).