Bold Catering & Design — Local services in Atlanta

Let me clarify by saying that our experience with Bold Catering was very different compared to the experience with Bold Design. I would consider them two separate entities.

On the catering side, everything was excellent and I would have given it 5 stars. All of our guests were raving about the food. Communication with our sales manager was okay. I had to email several times to get a response and remind her of menu changes that were made months prior. But overall, I think the quality of the food made up for it and we were really happy with how everything turned out.

Our experience with the design team, on the other hand, was EXTREMELY disappointing, which is why I gave an overall rating of 2.

Little background - My husband and I had already eloped and were just hiring the company to do a small reception for 75 people. No ceremony was involved so the amount of set up/break down they had to do was minimal compared to a traditional wedding.

A few months prior to our reception, I was in a bind to find someone to help with design/decorations. I had been working with a lady and she fell off the face of the earth so I figured it would be an easy route to work with the design team at the company we were already using for catering. Our catering manager put us in touch with a member of the design team. I let her know that my husband and I both work in healthcare and really don't have time to hash out fine details and be super involved in the process. Our goal was to find someone we meshed well with and have them run with the inspiration we provided. Unfortunately, I think our lack of direct oversight was what led to us being completely taken advantage of.

Upon our initial conversation, Annie seemed very confident in the plan and was open with me about pricing. She let me know they have a $5,000 minimum for design. I agreed because I was already in a rush to find someone and she seemed to assure me that she understood where we were coming from and would make it worth our while. Unfortunately, that was not the case at all. During our final walkthrough at the venue, our coordinator asked her what the design plan was and she responded by saying, "I really don't have a lot". At the end of the meeting, I addressed her and basically tried to set the expectation that if we are paying a $5,000 minimum, we hope to see a full design plan (i.e. lots of greenery, etc). I think she was offended because she became defensive saying that her name was attached to the design and she wouldn't want to tarnish her reputation...She also told us that we would need to pay for extra time to set up the café lights we wanted, otherwise they would still be setting up when guests arrive (which is unacceptable in my opinion). They originally had a 3 hour window to implement the design plan...Not only did we pay extra for the design team to open the venue at 2pm instead, giving them a 4 hour window, but we had to pay the venue as well for the additional time.

The design 'team' (not including Annie) did not show up to the venue until 4:30pm, 2 and a half hours late... The lights were not hung according to the proposal and took all of 30 minutes to hang, as opposed to the several hours she quoted us originally. The décor for our reception consisted of 13 table linens, tiny floral arrangements, 2 rugs, a few strands of café lights, and some votives. I had to purchase all of our signs, table numbers, etc. separately which I think is utterly ridiculous for the amount of money we paid. We didn't let the disappointment of this mishap ruin our reception, but it is really unfortunate that there are people in this industry that do not take pride in their work and will absolutely rob you blind if you let them.

Luckily, our coordinator advocated for us and we were issued a generic apology. We were told that we would be issued a refund check for part of the design that was not implemented per the proposal. This check has yet to be received, nearly a...

My husband and I got married at a Bold Catering & Design venue on January 8, 2022. The food was wonderful but the customer service provided by Bold was terrible. We initially worked with Danielle. During the tour I specifically asked her about access to the venue before the wedding and she assured me that we could have access all day on the day of the event. Before I signed the contract I asked Danielle if Bold staff would place the centerpieces that I brought on the reception tables when they “flipped” the room during the cocktail hour between the ceremony and the reception. Again, she assured me that this wouldn’t be a problem. As we got closer to the wedding I reached out to Danielle with questions via email. It often took several days to a week to hear anything back from her (even just an acknowledgment that she had received my email). When I scheduled our food tasting, I asked Danielle if we could arrive 30 minutes early so my mom could see the venue and we could discuss details with her. Danielle said that was fine and confirmed with me the day before. My parents drove in from out of town to attend the tasting. When we arrived and asked for Danielle, Autumn came out and told us that Danielle was on a flight back to Atlanta and wouldn't be a the tasting. She then asked us why we were there so early! A few days later, we were informed by email that Autumn would now be our contact person. I was hopeful Autumn would be a little more responsive, but that was not the case. It was like pulling teeth to get an answer to simple things like the width of the tables they provide. Autumn also informed us that we would not be able to access the venue until 3 hours before the event. I explained that I specifically discussed earlier access with Danielle and was told it wouldn’t be a problem but she told me they would not honor that. She also informed me that I would have to pay for Bold’s basic design package in order for their staff to place centerpieces on the reception tables. The cost of the basic design package - $1,500.00 (keep in mind that I had a very small wedding and needed centerpieces placed on 4 tables). For two weeks before the wedding I went back and forth with Autumn just trying to find out how to connect my laptop to their sound system – we were told multiple times that we could play music through their sound system, we just had to plug into it. I had no idea how it was setup or what type of plug I needed. She kept telling me that she would have to speak with her “internal team” to find out. She was never able to tell me. I had to go to the venue three days before my wedding to look at it myself - it was a standard audio jack. Even our day of coordinator, who was copied on all of these emails, commented on how unusual it was to not get answers from the venue staff. Fast forward to the night of the wedding. We had an open bar (we chose a package where we prepaid for drinks for each guest and would be billed for the overages after the wedding) but the bartender tried to charge our guests for drinks! When my parents told him that it was an open bar he argued with them! We had a buffet-style dinner, but ordered plated meals for the vegetarian guests, which were not brought out. My husband had to go to the kitchen and ask for the vegetarian meals to be served to our guests. When I was researching venues I only found positive reviews for Bold Catering & Events so I was really excited about using them for our wedding. I’m not sure it was just the particular people we worked with from Bold that were the issue or if it was because we had such a small wedding that we just didn’t spend enough money to get the same type of service that they give couples who have large, expensive weddings. I have to say that the food was excellent, but I’m very disappointed in the customer service and would not recommend using Bold for...

We hired Bold Catering for our wedding over labor day weekend 2022. I would NOT recommend hiring them for a big wedding event. The bartenders were extremely rude to me, my family and our guests refusing to pour us drinks even though we had paid for the alcohol and there was not a venue cut off time. To be rude to the bride, groom and father of the bride who is paying for the whole event is beyond me. They also took advantage of us by up charging on items and adding in hidden fees two weeks prior to my wedding. This is a very expensive catering company that comes with extremely poor customer service, coordination and communication.

To go into more detail about our experience with them: We requested two signature drinks and paid for the extra cost associated with this. They failed to get the lime juice out of the fridge or bring the jalapeños/tajin to make the signature drinks so that was a complete waste of money and failure on their end. Two weeks prior to our wedding they increased our catering quote by $20,000. Thankfully I had the time to check the proposal line by line to see where the extra costs were added in. They up charged a significant amount for linens and napkins and double charged for items like the salads that should have been included in the already expensive buffet price. They also tacked on a transportation fee and tent set up fee for nearly $9,000 TWO WEEKS before the wedding. I asked for them to share the quotes from the transportation company and rental company to make sure they weren't increasing the cost. They refused to share the quotes but said that we could source the rentals ourselves. My wedding planner was a huge help getting their required rentals and we ended up saving $5,000. If they knew these items were going to be part of the proposal from the start than they should have had a line item with an estimated cost so we were prepared instead of getting a surprise so close to my event. I will note that their food is delicious and the catering employees in charge of the food were amazing. Our guests raved about them. Unfortunately the bartenders were extremely rude and our event coordinator was not great about communicating expected costs throughout the...