Recognition for the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 is determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. Our past clients are among those that shared their experiences on WeddingWire, the largest wedding review site in the nation.

The Casual Gourmet stands among the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire community, representing quality and service excellence within the wedding industry. Awards were given to the top wedding professionals across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, and were based on the overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is honored to celebrate the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire community,” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “With the annual Bride’s Choice Awards™ program, WeddingWire has the unique opportunity to recognize the best wedding professionals across the US and Canada. We applaud The Casual Gourmet for their professionalism and dedication to enhancing the wedding planning experience last year.”

We are happy to announce that The Casual Gourmet is among the very best in Catering within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Martha Stewart Weddings, Project Wedding and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for nominating us to receive the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at The Casual Gourmet WeddingWire Storefront 

For more information on the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011, please visit weddingwire.com.

In fact to show how far we have come, later this year we will be catering the 25th Pops by the Sea concert, as the world famous Boston POPS orchestrer with Maestro Keith Lockhart once again comes to the Hyannis village green. Almost fifteen thousand people are expected to attend this quintessential Cape Cod event, an event that we have participated in nearly every single one of those 25 years.

The very first year The Casual Gourmet opened we got a call from Leo Fein (currently the Manager of the Cape Cod Mall) who was organizing the Pops concert that year for the first time. Leo called to see if we could do 250 picnic baskets for the 25 VIP tables and sell concessions.

With no more than a handful of staff and some 3000 expected attendees, I did not know if we could pull it off but said yes with a mix of excitement and nervousness.

The VIP baskets were the easy part – we will be doing a version once again this year for the 150 VIP tables. But having just been in business for a few months, I had no idea what to do for concessions for 3000 people.

Leo had me sold on the idea of a Sunday picnic supper, so we decided to do fried chicken meals with the idea that it would be like a picnic. And with 3000 people expected, we assumed at least one in three would buy the meal.

Whoops….

After myself, my sister, my husband and few other staff hand sheared and fried enough chicken for 1000 meals (because of course at that point we didn’t know where we could purchase that much pre-cut breasts and legs) we sold a grand total of 6 meals.

Despite the miscalculation, out of that event came not only a great and lasting friendship with the Pops by the Sea but also with the Salvation Army – nothing like showing up with 994 fried chicken meals to donate!

A big thanks to the Cape Cod Chamber for the honor and to all of the staff, clients and, even, miscalculations that have made our tag line, Cape Cod’s Foremost Caterer, a reality!

We are proud to announce that we have been added to the uber exclusive ‘Little Black Book‘ on StyleMePretty.com.

Style Me Pretty’s Little Black Book is a highly edited collection of wedding service providers – from mom and pop boutiques to A-Listers. Bottom line, these vendors are the best of the best.

We like to think of ourselves as an A-List mom and pop boutique so we feel right at home among the premiere wedding vendors in the country. It really is an honor to be invited to join the Little Black Book!

Our inclusion comes after Style Me Pretty featured a wedding we catered (and a peacock cake we baked) this past summer in their post ‘Cape Cod Wedding with Serious Style.’

Kudos to the team at Style Me Pretty for building one of the best wedding blogs out there!

Olive, who was a speaker at the convention, also received the prestigious Star Service award for her volunteer involvement on the ICA membership committee prior to her appointment to the board. Casual Gourmet’s Executive Chef Robert Smith, along with catering sales associates Sarah Biggs and Cheryl Stewart, were also in Vegas to root for Olive has she accepted her appointment. Olive and the Casual Gourmet have been affiliated with both Catersource and the ICA for more than 15 years.

“Membership in the International Caterers Association shows a company’s commitment to the highest levels of food, service and professional ethics,” Olive said. “It is an incredible honor to sit on a board with so many of the greatest caterers in the world.” The ICA is the preeminent organization of catering professionals, with more than 1,000 members worldwide. The ICA, founded in 1981, supports and promotes all aspects of the catering business through publications, educational seminars, workshops and demonstrations. Catering is the fastest growing segment of the food industry, with an estimated 10,000 caterers in North America.

During her tenure on the board of directors, Olive plans to work toward improving the association’s visibility and further increasing its membership. Olive also sits on the Caterers Committee of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.

Olive opened Casual Gourmet in 1986. She is known throughout the catering industry as being an expert in producing legendary weddings. The Casual Gourmet has won the ICA’s prestigious CATIE award for 2007 Signature Caterer for Best Wedding, Cityvoter’s 2008 Cape Cod A-List Best Caterer, and the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Reader’s Choice Best Cape Cod Caterer.