Occasions Caterers Review

We received a catered dinner delivered to our airbnb as part of our package for the Middleburg Film Festival. The food was exceptional. Everyone in our party was blown away by the freshness, tastiness and creativity of the menu. Now we are all dreaming of post Covid dinner parties. In the meantime, I am trying to find an excuse to order more from them ASAP because it brought so much joy to us to indulge in such deliciousness from salad to entree to dessert!

My gf use to work here n they treated her like trash never gave her the application , she was still coming in to work n then when she refuse bevause there was no paperwork they tried not to pay her that Sara girl has such a nasty attitude she dont care for her employees at all

Occasions caterers specializes in catering for special events. We contracted them to to cater our wedding in Washington DC. They have a wife variety of menu options and have worked all across the DMV area, so they are very familiar with how to work in most venues. We were at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. They were very professional and arrived on-time, set up for everything they needed, and coordinated well with our planners and other vendors. Their servers were all very professional and attentive during our wedding. The bartenders were very good, combining good personality with good service at the bar. Overall, we were very pleased with how Occasions performed at our Wedding. The food was also very good.

This is a fantastic company with good customer service and the food is amazing. Best caterers in DC hands down. I will definitely be using Occasions again in the future.

The food was absolutely delicious. It was served beautifully. The team, to a one, was a pleasure to work with and incredibly professional and skilled.

Have had a great experience working with occasions. Cannot wait till things are back to normal to use them again.

We cannot say enough about Occasions.
They were exceptional at the three most important things for us: food, service, and options.



The entire team at Occasions is there to make your event wonderful. They were professional, accommodating and so classy. Seana and Kate were available for our questions with clear answers that made us able to enjoy our day without worry. They know how important this day is and treat it as such.

Occasions was able to accommodate everything we wanted. We wanted family style food (big shared plates so your guests get more of what they want) - no problem. A Funfetti cake - you got it. Adapted cocktails - sure things. Chairs, linens, flatware - they have a huge selection. They listened to our feedback, adapted their menus, and made sure everything was still top notch.

Bottom line: Occasions has a staff that is so talented and service oriented, they will make your wedding (or event) exceed expectations.

I worked with this company for Protocol Staffing Services (their in house staff providers). This company strives to provide the best cuisine with superior service. I am proud of the work we put forth and would recommend working here... or hiring this company... to anyone.

I used to work there part time and now I work there full time. We are always looking to hire more dedicated part time servers and we start at $18/hr.

Occasions Caterers made our wedding fun and delicous

Here is the email we sent Joel Wolke at Occasions Caterers thanking him and his team for making our wedding spectacular:

Joel,

Thank you so much for all you and your team at Occasions Caterers did to make our wedding day exactly what Adam and I wanted a fun day, surrounded by friends and family, with lots of fabulous food and NO stress. It was particularly special for us to have you and Occasions be a part of this special day after experiencing how special you helped make my sister s wedding day.

The weather gave you a few challenges, always the risk of an outdoor event, but everyone adapted gracefully. We actually were happy to have the brief rain shower that helped cool off the evening, but I know it added a lot of work. The cocktail reception was moved from outside by the lake to inside on the second floor, and then back outside again. I was amazed at how quickly all the drinks, glassware and tables were moved, setup, torn down, moved again and re-setup in their original locations. The lake was a beautiful place for the reception and your staff insisted that we take advantage of it, not showing any signs of frustration for the extra effort it required to get everything back downstairs when the rain stopped. We also decided to move the dinner inside (and kept it there!) and everyone did an amazing job emptying the family room of furniture and setting up the tables and buffet.

We also gave you the challenge of creating an entirely vegetarian meal that I (the vegetarian) and Adam (the carnivore) and our mostly non-vegetarian friends and family would love. You far exceeded our expectations; the food was delicious. We received lots of guest comments about how much they enjoyed it. More amazingly, some of Adam s meat-and-potatoes relatives told us it was the best food they d ever had period , not just the best vegetarian food. And, let s not forget the dessert buffet filled with an abundance of wonderful little treats. My sweet tooth was overjoyed.

There were some many things that made the event special for Adam and I: The summer beverage stand (the Ginger-Lemonade was a particular favorite), the specialty cocktails (I couldn t get enough of the Watermelon Vodka Cooler), the Vidalia Onion Tart (sweet and savory perfection), the mini-popsicles (mmmmm Pina Colada). I could go on and on, as there wasn t an item served we didn t love. A special extra thank you for gathering each hors d oeuvre on a platter for us to try after our photographer was finished with the fancy posed shots; it would have been tragic to have missed any of those tasty morsels.

Please let everyone know how grateful we are and how much we look forward to having Ocassions Caterers at our next special event.

I don't even know how to start this review.

I usually don't write negative reviews but I felt I had to share our experience.

Our daughter is getting married next year so she flew home to Maryland last week, to get a bunch of wedding planning done. Our wedding planner, scheduled three caterer tastings for the week. The first two went off without a hitch.

We arrived as scheduled to Occasions catering in Washington, DC at 12 noon, for our tasting. Their entrance was very impressive, with dinnerware, chairs and linens on display, but when we arrived nobody greeted us and we felt totally out of place. Our wedding planner took us into the tasting room. Fifteen minutes after our scheduled tasting Shawna, from Occasions, finally acknowledged us. She came in to the room to say hello but didn't make eye contact with anyone and then promptly left the room. A few minutes later she called our wedding planner out of the room.

Despite the numerous emails confirming our appt. and a phone call from our planner to Shawna the night before our scheduled appointment, Occasions dropped the ball and was not at all prepared for us. The reason Shawna asked our planner to speak outside of the tasting room was because they needed us out of that room for another potential client. So they made us leave their tasting room and put us in their display room where they made a mock up tasting room.

Since we hadn't eaten yet and I was on the verge on "Hangry" , I asked for a roll or a little something to eat. Fifteen minutes later a waiter came in with a basket of bread. Then they brought a plate of hors devours that were cold, even though they were supposed to be warm. Based on the fact they were not what we had requested and there were not enough for each of us to try, it was clear these were left over from the people who were scheduled for the tasting room we were hurried out of. Shawna tried to tell us they were the correct serving temperature.

Finally at 12:45pm they came in with two "display" plates (for 4 people) of meals saying our actual meals would be coming out. By then my husband was getting very upset with the poor service and attitude we had been receiving from Shawna & Occasions. We said we were going to leave and forego our tasting of the main meal. Shawna said she understood and would go get us desserts to take home. She left the room and within a couple of minutes the waiter came in with our entrees, talk about lack of communication! We told him to pack them up and we would take them home and that we were done. Shawna came back with desserts to take. Some were still frozen and parfaits were thrown together for us (again clearly left overs from the other peoples tasting). Carlos came back with our entrees and we left. (I do have to mention that Carlos was very good, he tried very hard to make a horrible situation better). We drove straight home to put everything in the refrigerator before going to our next scheduled appointment. When we got home we opened the "care packages" to see what we got and we were blown away by the awful smell. The meat was still raw and God only knows why the fish smelled so bad, needless to say, all of the meals went down the garbage disposal.

Occasions is supposed to be in the service (catering) business.
When someone sets us up at a table with clearly dirty dishes, that who knows how many other people have touched, and expects to serve me food off of it. I am insulted.
When Occasion's tells me "what do you expect? we are not a restaurant" That is absurd! A catering business needs to be a restaurant that works remotely from it's kitchen, yet they could not even prepare and serve food in their own building!
When someone tries to serve me food that was clearly taken from another persons table I am disgusted.
When someone gives me undercooked meat & very bad smelling fish. I am sickened.
I feel I have to bring this out in a review so others will know that Occasions may not be all it's "known" (notice I used past tense) to be.

Excellent! Food, service, people.... everything from start to finish is stunning. I highly recommend this catering company.

Occasions always rises to the occasion from breakfast, lunch or dinner. I am always pleased with this cater!

Thanks for a fabulous night! The evening was better than the tasting and that was hard to beat. The vision, the service and the overall product were exceptional. The team at Creative Parties, Ltd. appreciates the effort.

It was alright I didn't finish the time I signed up for.

They catered my husband's birthday party. The food and service were exceptional.

Best service in D.C. Big or small Occasions will make your catered event one to remember.

The employees at this company are extremely rude nasty and very overbearing in personality. When you contract with other companies to do an event for a client the goal is to work as a team to provide exceptional service. Practicing in discriminatory behavior to certain employees due to age and honestly color is completely inappropriate and, unacceptable. There are more then a few of Spanish and. Of Spanish Native employees who work for this company who have acted in an unprofessional manner who have been dictative and bossy towards othet contracted employess. Whomever is in charge of the staffing for events, for this company needs to really get a hand on teaching your employees on how to behave towards others.

Great food, I would have them cater any of my events