Festive Foods Catering & Special Events

This is the worst catering company out there. If you want to run ot of food at your wedding, this is the place for you, We dealt with a, HORRIBLE supervisor named EDUARDO CARRASCO he was very unprofessional and had unsensitivity to our needs, He emailed us trying to explain hidden charges and demanding us to pay the hidden fees.

Festive foods is awesome. They catered my wedding in May, 2013 and it couldn’t have gone better. They are not only caterers but wedding coordinators. Mrs. Levine made sure everything was perfect months in advance and made sure I had everything we needed (dj, flowers, officiant, etc) but didn’t push any specific venders (but provided lists of ones she knew could do good jobs). The food was amazing, all our guests said so. They also treated me and my groom like we were king and queen. We brought our own alcohol for our wedding because our location allowed it and they made sure they had refrigeration for it all. I loved my experience with festive foods and I highly recommend them for anybody’s wedding. They are located kind of far but you don’t have to go all the way there to meet with them, they can meet you closer. We only did our tasting at their headquarters and it was a beautiful drive and it’s in the most amazing mansion.

My mother had used Festive Foods on numerous occasions when she lived in the Washington DC area. She didn’t hesitate to recommend that my partner and I use them for our wedding. Lauren Levine and Eduardo Carrasco were a joy to work with. Lauren provided us with guidance as we planned the menu for the wedding. She worked with our budget and gave us excellent recommendations to keep costs where we needed them to be. Eduardo ensured that our wedding went smoothly. I had met with Eduardo several weeks before the wedding and he was very calming, letting me know that he will take care of this and that, and that I shouldn’t worry. Of course my partner and I had some nervous moments but they were for nothing. On the day of the event Eduardo and his crew did a great job. The food was delicious and the service excellent. Our guests were very impressed. I would not hesitate to use Festive Foods again, and I would willingly recommend them to anyone looking for a caterer.

We hired Festive Foods Catering as our wedding caterer — the principal coordinator and most important vendor of the event. Festive Foods’ performance during the months of planning, set-​up and execution stages of our wedding was absolutely remarkable and far exceeded every expectation we had of their service. We could not recommend Lauren Levine and her Festive Foods crew more highly. Organic, cruelty-​free, healthy and gourmet foods are Lauren’s forte and the primary reason we chose Festive Foods after a tasting that lasted several delicious hours at their rustic office. While the quality and taste of the food was foremost on our minds, we were also highly impressed with Lauren’s patience, responsiveness, attention to detail and innovative style. Lauren was truly as excited about our wedding as we were and her responsiveness proved it: she responded to myriad calls and E-​mails generally within a couple of hours and often within minutes. She really pulled out all the stops to accommodate and recommend special flourishes and customizations that only a highly experienced professional could do. Lauren and her team worked her magic within our budget. She made expert recommendations regarding décor, menu, bar items, linens and even other vendors to ensure we didn’t spend more than we planned. The result was an exceptional value. Lauren’s service and expertise easily rivaled or exceeded other DC caterers who would not even consider our business unless we were able to increase our budget by 30%. On the day of the event, Lauren coordinated almost every aspect of the wedding with our other vendors to ensure the event was perfectly flawless. Our tables, seating cards, linens, place settings and bar were breathtakingly beautiful. The Festive Foods catering staff were efficient, professional and well dressed. The whole evening flowed due to Lauren’s choreographed direction. The real proof was in the pudding, however. We received numerous praise and compliments on the meal from our guests, both during and after the wedding. Lauren was with us every step of the way. Festive Foods made our most special day a memorable success and we have no doubt she could do it for you, too.

We didn’t know how important choosing the right caterer was until our wedding day.
Festive Foods did a FANTASTIC job to help make our wedding day full of great memories and have everything run smoothly. Lauren was such a pleasure to work with! We were a little stressed from our previous caterer backing out 2 months before the event after having the menu and details set. However, that turned out to be a blessing as we then contacted Festive Foods and felt so much better after our meeting with Lauren. We looked at 4 other caterers and nothing came close to the service and attention she gave us. She was extremely responsive and very easy to work with. Going out to their tasting restaurant in rural VA was at first off putting for me but it was well worth the trip. The food and venue were great and it is always nice to be treated like royalty for an evening.
On our wedding day, we had very little time to set everything up due to venue time restrictions. However, Lauren and her team were able to get everything ready on time, even with Lauren being occupied for a good 30 minutes sewing suspender buttons on one of the grooms pants. :) They were also very helpful in keeping the live band a surprise for one of the grooms which was a big moment of the day. During and after dinner, everyone was asking us about the caterer and complimenting the food. Food isn’t always the highlight of the wedding but for us it was extremely important and everyone is still talking about how good it was when they remember that night.
We were so happy with Festive Foods and highly recommend them! You will not regret it.
I don’t give out fives often but it is well deserved here and I will recommend Festive Foods for any event for the price, service, and experience. You only have one chance to make the event work and if it wasn’t for them, I don’t think it would have turned out as great as it did.

I did a lot of research before choosing our wedding caterer, but I used three key criteria when we were deciding on our caterer: their responsiveness, their price, and the taste of food. Festive Foods right from the start was the best at addressing these criteria, and were very willing to do anything to make wedding planning easier. I was planning our wedding for about 11 months, and I had a lot of questions, and Eduardo Carrasco answered all of them promptly and was a calming presence because they were one vendor I didn’t have to worry about. They were also the most cost effective based on my comparison, and worked with me even when I would change my mind on the menu ideas. We were on a budget, and they were also flexible with how we can break down the payments in several installments, looked for ways we can save money, and even eased my mind about day of coordination by offering staff support on the day of. Lastly, their food was delicious; and our guests raved about! My absolute favorite are their cakes and pies! Overall, Festive Foods made my wedding day wonderful, and they exceeded my expectations not only in the food, but the service, and coordination of the wedding. I didn’t have to worry about any of the set-​up because I trusted Festive Food staff Khoa Ly who made everything flow smoothly and on time. I would definitely use Festive Foods again if given the opportunity and highly recommend.

My wife and I had a wonderful experience with Festive Foods! Lauren was fantastic and provided excellent ideas as well as a great attitude. The food was delicious and our guests loved it. Her team was efficient and friendly. They coordinated with the other vendors and made things run smoothly.
IMO, Lauren went above and beyond my expectations and acted like a day of person.
We certainly recommend Festive Foods.

We dealt with a horrible supervisor named Eduardo, who constantly increased the price of the contract. We asked for simple changes and without informing us at the time of asking questions– we received emails with a price increase of $ 1000! Seriously the worst customer service we have encountered. Not to mention the following emails also had additional $ 750 price increase. For extra staff. B.S. Eduardo was very insensitive to our needs and our budget. Horrible mistake, save your money

We used Festive Foods for our wedding and they were not only fantastic but also very reasonably priced. Not only did they give us the best quote, but then we were blown away by the quality of the food, our wonderful planner Lauren Levine, and by the final outcome of our reception. Everyone was impressed and the food exceeded our expectations by far. Hiring FF was one of the best choices we made regarding our wedding.

Eduardo took great care of us, responding to emails almost always within the hour. The staff at the event were amazing, always offering food and drink, making sure we had some sustenance on our big day. They worked with our budget and accommodated all our requests, even making some suggestions that garnered rave reviews. People still comment on how good the food and service were. Can’t wait to finish the top tier of the cake!

We used Festive Foods as the caterer for our September, 2009 wedding.
The food and service at our wedding were amazing! I reviewed 4 proposals, and Festive Foods came the closest to my budget (although all caterers in the DC area are overpriced, in my opinion). This was mainly because they gave me a good deal on the linens and equipment if I signed by a certain date. I used the more simple linens and china that they had in house and that saved a lot of money. I knew the location of my wedding (Strong Mansion, Sugarloaf Mountain) was so gorgeous, that no one would care about the simple white and silver china.
There were some extravagant costs though. The rental fee for the nicer, wooden chair was a lot (because they didn’t have their own) and their delivery fee was a bit steep. This could be because they are no longer in Maryland. They are in Virginia, west of Manassas. The final bill was a tad more expensive than I was expecting based on the proposal and preliminary bill, but I think that was because we had less people than we originally thought would attend, hence the food prices go up. They could have broken down the proposal/​bill a bit more so you could see the exact charges.
They did a wonderful job setting everything up and making it look beautiful. And they really catered to the bride and groom — every time I turned around a waiter was offering me a drink or an hor devour. They had a lovely plate of hor devours waiting for us after the ceremony and again after our pictures, as well as a tray full of drinks for our wedding party after the ceremony. All of guests thought the food and service were impeccable. I’d highly recommend them — I worked with Eduardo. They also did our cake — it was delicious and pretty.

Delicious food, great service, beautiful arrangements. My husband and I couldn’t disagree more with the negative review of Festive Foods that has been posted on this site. We worked with Lauren, and she was even more helpful and responsive throughout the whole process that we could have asked for. Our wedding catering was exactly as we planned and imagined, and more!. The price was reasonable (believe me, we did our research/​comparison shopping) to boot. Our wedding was over a week ago, and we are still getting compliments on the delicious food and attentive service.

If you want to run out of food at your wedding, have unexpected additional invoice items and hidden costs on your final invoice, and work with an unethical man, then choose Festive Foods Catering for your next event — Eduardo Carrasco is your man. That’s exactly what happened to us at our wedding a few months ago. After some negotiations, they finally won us over when we did a food tasting at their food headquarters at Poplar Springs Inn in Warrington, VA. The food there was really great, but the bad news is, the food at your wedding will not be like the tasting AT ALL. At our wedding reception, the meat was chewy, rough and tasted like cardboard. The starch dish was sour with too much vinegar. The most embarrassing part was running out of food — that should not happen at your wedding! We should have heeded the warning signs; their Rockville location burned down a couple of years ago so we had picked out our linens in their Warrington, VA location. (When you piss off that many people, do you really expect to get away with it?)
Even after all of that, we would have walked away from it and moved on because the wait staff was friendly and good — we ended up tipping them an optional 20% but we had another unexpected surprise. Eduardo increased the proposed menu price on our final invoice and charged our card without even discussing with us. This happened the day after our wedding… imagine the chaos! We immediately contacted Eduardo to notify him of the error. He became impossible to reach as soon as the wedding was over and the final invoice was paid, citing the flu and family sickness. We had enough and are now in the process of suing for the money he still owes us.
Warrington, VA location:
9245 Rogues Road, P. O Box 275
Casanova, Virginia 20 139