ABOVE & BEYOND

Above & Beyond is our full-service option. We take on the venue, the transport, the catering, the lighting and the sound, and run them as one operation rather than as six separate bookings.

More couples are organising more of the wedding themselves, and most of it is straightforward. The parts that catch people out are the ones that stay invisible until they become a problem: what time the venue makes the music stop, whether a van can get up the track, where the power comes from at the far end of a field, who is allowed on site and when.

It is not wedding planning, and we would rather be clear about that than blur it. We handle the large, physical side of a wedding and work alongside the planner or coordinator who handles the rest.

The parts of a wedding that need equipment, vehicles and crew are the ones we hold:

• The venue
• Transport and parking
• Catering, bar and service
• Lighting
• DJ and sound

All of it is quoted, scheduled and run by the same team, on one contract, which is the part that makes a difference to how the planning feels.

Alongside weddings we cater film and photography productions, which is a harder version of the same problem. A shoot moves location through the day, the call sheet changes, and there is rarely a kitchen, so we bring our own and plan for the schedule shifting rather than assume it holds.

That is the part we bring to a wedding. A venue with a curfew on the music, a track too narrow for a lorry, no power where the kitchen needs to go: most of these we have already met on another job. They are also far easier to deal with in February than on the day, which is why we go and look at a venue before we quote rather than after. There is more on the venue rules that shape a wedding in our prices article.

We are caterers and event producers rather than planners. The detail a good planner handles, the part that makes a wedding yours rather than a template, is work we would rather leave with someone who does it every day.

We work regularly with three coordinators we trust and are glad to work with yours. When the production sits with one team and the planning with another, both move faster, because neither is waiting to find out what the other has agreed.

One point of contact for the parts that take the most organising, rather than a different conversation for each one.

Meetings that cover several things at once, so there are fewer of them and more is settled in each.

Less paperwork, because it is one contract and one invoice instead of six, and fewer surprises in it, because the costs sit together from the start.

There is a practical reason it usually costs less than booking each part separately. When the same team covers more than one job, the staff and the vehicles are already there, where booked separately each of those is paid for twice. The catering is included at a special rate as part of it.

We work at fincas, villas, private estates and established wedding venues across the island, and bring our own kitchen equipment, so a venue with no kitchen of its own is not a problem. There is more on that on our venues page.

If you would rather take the catering on its own, that is family style or plated service, and what each includes is set out on those pages.