Well Dunn Catering

Hands down the best catering food and service ever. Our wedding was perfect!

We really wanted food for our wedding that didn't taste like boring, bland wedding food. Well Dunn has an impressive spread of delicious hors d'oevres, and they let us sample some of the most popular ones at our initial consultation. We were able to personalize and tweak menu items, and we tasted full portions of everything at our final tasting. We worked with Madeline, and she did an amazing job of coordinating with our venue and other vendors to make sure everything ran smoothly on our wedding day. Madeline was incredibly responsive, answering all of my questions promptly and helpfully. Since my husband and I missed most of cocktail hour taking pictures, Madeline had a tray of hors d'oevres set aside for us when we arrived. Well Dunn has both great food and great service - I definitely recommend them.

Well Dunn Catering was an absolute joy to work with, they listened and incorporated my ideas, desires, and overall theme for the wedding into a fabulous and well planned out menu. They did a fantastic job on the food, presentation, staffing, and linens. They helped to make the day a memorable and elegant event for both my husband and I as well as all our guests. We could not have asked for more in this catering company.

Well Dunn catered my wedding this past year, and they were fantastic. A little hard to nail down at first, but once we were able to meet with them in person, they were fantastic. Prices were really reasonable and they knew everybody involved in the wedding from the florist, to the venue manager which made things so much easier logistically. We worked with Ric, and he was a total professional and managed everything wonderfully. The appetizers were so delicious (mushroom tarts are to die for), and the main course was great, too.

My only complaint was that they ran out of main courses, which I think was due to the way they served the food (they brought out platters of the main courses and served table side vs. plating beforehand). A lot of our vegetarian guests ate fish, and so they ate up some of the fish dishes instead of the ravioli they were supposed to get.

Additionally, Well Dunn brought along what they called our "personal butler", Javier. His job was to make sure my husband and I ate first, constantly brought us drinks, and even fanned me when I got too hot! He was wonderful - I couldn't have asked for a better experience!

At the end of the night, Well Dunn packed a little basket with leftovers and desserts for us with a bottle of champagne. It was such a nice touch and we devoured it in the hotel after!

All in all, I'd totally...

Well-Dunn Catering did an exceptional job catering my September 2012 wedding. I worked with Madeline M. and she did a fantastic job from start to finish. First, Well Dunn is incredibly organized and detail oriented. Madeline made sure that every detail was taken care of during both the planning process and during the event. She patiently answered every question I had, and made sure that we had everything we needed. I trusted her judgment and left all the details (and even some decisions!) to her. Having never planned a wedding before, I was so grateful to have someone made sure I didn’t forget anything.

Second, the execution on my wedding day was flawless. The setup was on time and looked amazing. Most importantly, I didn’t have to spend any of my time or energy making adjustments or following up on anyone. Everything was taking care of in the assigned time framed and was perfect. In addition, Well Dunn assigned a server just to take care of the wedding couple; I can’t say enough about how helpful it was to have her. She made sure that we had everything we needed throughout the night—she even made sure we sat down to eat our dinner!

Finally, the food was excellent. I received so many compliments on the food. I wanted simple, delicious, and local food. Well Dunn put together the perfect menu. This is not your average wedding fare of dry chicken and boring salad—this was restaurant quality on a large scale. Plus, the tasting was phenomenal. We sampled many hors d’oeuvres, wines, and entrees in their beautiful townhouse/office.

I would highly recommend Well Dunn catering.

Where do I begin? How about from the beginning? I am sure you can understand that when I first started shopping around for caterers, the possibilities were endless. Well look no further. I narrowed down my (extremely thorough) list of caterers to 2. The menus were similar, the prices were similar, the reviews were similar... but the one thing that the other company was missing was YULIA. She was responsive, friendly, patient and helpful. She is the #1 reason I chose Well Dunn.. and boy, what a great decision that was.

She remained all of the above throughout the entire process. We invited our mom's to DC for the tasting. My mother is quite a "food snob", and my mother in law is quite picky with her food, so Well Dunn was up for a big challenge. Not only were were all impressed, but they were more than happy to make the changes that were requested.

Now, I need to talk about Javier. Javier was our waiter during the tasting. We were so impressed with his professionalism that we requested that he be at our wedding. Well, we got lost in the piles of to-do-lists and forgot to follow up with this request. To my surprise, Javier approached me on our wedding day (needless to say I was so happy to see him), and said that he made sure that he kept his schedule open for our wedding day, and that he would be our own PERSONAL waiter throughout the night. Trust me when I tell you, you will not have time to eat. Well, Javier made sure that we had our own appetizers during cocktail hour (he was standing to the side with a silver platter as our pictures were taken), my champagne glass was never empty... and when I was sweating from dancing... Javier pulled out a fan to cool me down. I literally felt like a Princess. We nicknamed him "Saint Javier".

Well Dunn has amazing food and most importantly (trust me on this one) the best staff you could ask for. You WILL NOT regret choosing them as your vendor!

Well Dunn catering and Ric Marino are simply wonderful. We planned a wedding from overseas and they were totally capable and very accommodating despite time zone differences (the groom and I are in the UK and my parents were based in China) and were happy to see us on last minute visits to the DC area. We had a number of decision makers including my father who is very picky and wanted an Indian/Western fusion menu. In our meetings, my parents provided detailed and complex feedback which Ric's team were able to take on and deliver in the tastings. My dad has interesting views on serving meat well done (no pun intended) and on our wedding day they made sure that my dad's steak was cooked that way while the other guests were served medium steaks. We really appreciated having such a bespoke service. It was a real pleasure to work with Ric who is a complete gentleman. His calm and gentle manner and his sense of humour make it very easy to work with. His team is exceptional especially Javier who was our personal butler and was adept at managing an unruly guest and really made sure we were comfortable. A special mention must go out to another catering staff member who, due to unexpected thunderstorms, got completely soaked helping our DJ move equipment outside. My groom asked him if he was OK and he replied with 'Don't worry about me Sir, it’s your day' - total class. Also, Ric was very quick on his feet and suggested that we bring forward our cake cutting so that we didn’t waste any time while we waited for the rain to slow down for our fist dance outside. Well Dunn is a truly great choice and if I ever have another event in Washington DC, they will definitely be my go to caterers.

Working with Well Dunn Catering and Yulia specifically was a wonderful experience. They listened to us and helped craft a perfect wedding day menu for us. We're both foodies and didn't want "typical" wedding fare. Yulia gave us many great suggestions and incorporated our suggestions and changes to create amazing food. Our guests are still raving about the food saying it was the best wedding food they've ever had.

Yulia and her team were wonderful from the beginning. They took an interest immediately and were attentive and responsive from day one. We talked to several caterers and none of them had the warmth and interest that Yulia and her team did. Creating great food is only part of it. The details make or break things and Well Dunn's attention to detail made our wedding extraordinary. From the linens to the place settings to the wait staff - everything was perfect.

I HIGHLY recommend Well Dunn Catering. They made our wedding truly an amazing...

Without question, choosing Well Dunn to cater our wedding was the best decision my now husband and I made leading up to our wedding. I can't say enough good things about working with Well Dunn, and working with Yulia in particular. From our first meeting through post-wedding follow up, Yulia was extremely professional, warm, accommodating, and responsive. She completely understood the vision we had for our reception, and made it more beautiful than I could have imagined.

Well Dunn customized and created new menu items for us so that we could acknowledge our family traditions, and executed them brilliantly. And beyond all of this, the food that Well Dunn makes is amazing! I would order anything I ate at our tasting at a nice restaurant, and I wish there was a way I could eat it all again. I got so many compliments from our guests on how good the food was, and I saw very few plates that weren't empty heading back to the kitchen. Additionally, the service provided by all the catering staff that night was top-notch. We even had a server assigned just to take care of the two of us for the night; he was always nearby to take care of whatever we needed, including a pocket fan to cool us down on the dance floor!

I would recommend Well Dunn to anyone, because I think all brides deserve to have as perfect of a wedding reception as I did!

We had a fantastic experience with Well Dunn. Madeline was wonderful to work with and the food and service were excellent. We wanted the food to reflect our taste and be great quality. All our guests gushed about the food!

Well Dunn did an outstanding job for our wedding. The food was fantastic but their best asset is Yulia Poukalova. She was great from the very first meeting through the day of the wedding. She made us feel like we were her only clients. She was responsive and patient with all of our ideas and questions and even made changes for us with ease up to the last minute. Yulia even dropped by on the night of our wedding to wish us well even though she wasn't officially working our event.They are a one-stop shop as we got food, linens, chairs and table settings through them. Everyone commented that the foos was great and that their staff was wodnerful. Our wedding was indeed Well Dunn!

Well Dunn Catering was one of the first vendors we hired for our wedding and we never looked back. Well Dunn was amazing. Steve Dunn, the owner of Well Dunn, coordinated our event and he was so, so much more than just a caterer. Steve is a kind, fun, caring individual who really wanted to make sure we had the best wedding possible. He was willing to accommodate even our craziest whims and make them a reality -- for example, when he made sure we had homemade heart-shaped ice cream sandwiches in our favorite flavors. How cool is that? Steve also has impeccable taste and served as a quasi-event planner for much of our wedding planning, giving us advice and guidance on everything from the color scheme to the seating arrangement. In fact, I think some of our favorite ideas and concepts for the wedding came from Steve. He is also incredibly thoughtful -- he made sure that we got to sample each of our main courses, and even sent a late-night snack to our post-wedding hotel suite in case we were hungry after all our dancing!

And the food... oh the food. We had several tastings because we couldn't decide between so many wonderful dishes, and everything we ate was delicious and beautifully presented. Steve understands how to tow the line between making amazing dishes that are a huge cut above typical wedding food while also making food that a large number of (often picky and discerning) guests will enjoy. And our guests raved about the food -- many of them said it was the best food they had ever had at a wedding. My husband still can't stop talking about their homemade pretzel bar snack, and the Pimm's Cup Steve created as our signature cocktail is still my favorite drink. Finally, Well Dunn was wonderful value. Having received quotes from other top DC caterers, we know that we got great bang for our buck.

I would highly recommend Well Dunn Catering for any wedding, and if you can get Steve to coordinate your event, consider yourself extra lucky!

We had our wedding at the National Museum of Women in the Arts last weekend. Well Dunn was definitely our best vendor choice. We received so many compliments on the food and the amount of servers present during dinner serving our guests. We had 175 people at the wedding, but everyone seemed to receive their food at the same time. Lots of comments from guests about the attentiveness of servers.

Yulia was amazing. From the beginning, she listened to everything that we said. She wanted it to be perfect for us - not just easy for them. She always gave us options, but never pressured us to make one particular selection. Yulia was just so flexible and competent. She made us feel like we were in good hands during the whole planning process - and she really proved that we were on our wedding day.

Lastly, so many people told me I wouldn't eat anything at my wedding. Yulia made sure that we enjoyed the food too. It seemed like someone was always behind my husband or me with an appetizer - and the head server waited to put our entree down until we got there, so that we would be able to eat it hot.

I would highly recommend working with Well Dunn & Yulia.

What a fantastic experience we had working with Well Dunn and our representative, Yulia. Yulia put together an incredible evening for us and our guests. The food was amazing, the staff responsive and professional, from the very start we knew we were going to have the perfect wedding reception. Our guests are still talking about it. We would highly recommend Well Dunn and Yulia for your next catering event.

All I can say is wow. The service and food by Well Dunn is fabulous and far exceeded my expectations. Our main contact and coordinator (Yulia) was beyond amazing -- so organized, responsive, and detail orientated. I am convinced she is a secret super hero...Also, we are still receiving compliments on the quality of the reception service and the food. Throughout the planning process, we did not worry about our reception at all -- Well Dunn is truly a five star organization, and they made culinary magic happen even under a small tent next to the venue. We would highly recommend them to any couple looking for a beautiful, worry free reception beyond compare.

I loved all my wedding vendors but Well Dunn was by far my favorite! They did an AMAZING job with everything and the food was ridiculously delicious! I had the pleasure of working with Yulia as my coordinator and she was the nicest person ever! I may be biased but I think it was by far the best wedding food I had ever tasted. I could not get enough of all the appetizers and the dinner and desserts we selected were fantastic. We had initially attended an amazing tasting where we selected all the items but I was worried that at our wedding it may not taste as good because sometimes when things are made in bulk they aren't as great. Fortunately, I was wrong! Everything served on the day of the wedding tasted just as good as when we chose it. During our private cocktail hour, my husband and our bridal party were blown away by the food. They brought in special trays just for us and assigned us a private bartender/server to serve us during the private cocktail hour and for the rest of the night. I still have wedding guests calling and messaging me raving about the food and people are posting pictures left and right of just the food itself! At the end of the night, they even made us a basket with a bottle of champagne, wine, water and all the leftover food and desserts. We ate it all for days! My only disappointment is that there wasn't more of it!

Not only was the food delicious, but Yulia and her staff was beyond fantastic, both before the wedding and the night of. Before the wedding, Yulia made sure to respond to everyone of mine and my fathers crazy emails immediately and was so nice and accommodating. We must have changed things on her hundreds of times but she never hesitated or complained! When we were worried about price, Yulia worked with us on ideas how to save. On the day of our wedding, everything went so smoothly and looked great! On top of it, everyone working the event was so professional and accommodating. Our personal server was so great and continuously checked on us throughout the night to make sure always we had enough to eat or drink. Everyone always told me you don't get a chance to eat at your own wedding, but by the time I left that night I was so full I could barely walk!

Yulia and Well Dunn went above and beyond to make our wedding fabulous and we couldn't have asked for a better night or for better food! If I could rate them higher than a 5 I would! We were originally deciding between them and another caterer (who as a little cheaper) but after talking to Yulia and attending the tasting, we knew there was absolutely no comparison. My husband and I (and my parents) are so glad we chose Well Dunn and we must have said it 10 times the night of our wedding after numerous times since then. If you are hesitating on hiring them because of the price, I recommend cutting corners elsewhere and splurge on hiring Yulia and Well Dunn! My family and I are already trying to plan another party just so we can use them...

There are no words that can adequately express how much we loved working with Yulia and Well Dunn for our wedding at the Carnegie Institution for Science. The food was insanely delicious- some of our guests are lamenting the fact that they didn't also get a to-go tray of the risotto cakes from the cocktail hour- and the service both before and during the wedding could not possibly have been any better. Yulia responded to every email promptly and professionally, no matter how many times we changed our mind about the most minor details (and then there was the time we asked her to completely re-do the initial proposal because we didn't communicate with each other properly before contacting her; we were amazed she didn't drop us on the spot). Every little thing we wanted, we received, including a "special" meal (Kraft mac and cheese and cranberry sauce) for a picky eater.

Just prior to the ceremony, both sides of the bridal party were provided with trays of food. We were all starving by that time, so it was much appreciated. The staff were consistently pleasant and helpful, especially one particularly kind lady who was assigned to the bride and groom to make sure we had everything we needed all day. We might actually be the first bride and groom in history who got to eat on our wedding day!

The best part, though, was the trays of food we were able to take home with us at the end of the night. After months of planning our wedding, we are too exhausted to cook, so the leftovers are much appreciated.

Seriously, ask for the risotto cakes. They are amazing.

Well Dunn did a fabulous job on the day of my wedding. The food was AMAZING and the wait staff was impeccable. Unfortunately, the days leading up to and those after were not as wonderful. I often found myself asking for things repeatedly (seating arrangement layout, menu revisions, etc) before the wedding and am STILL asking for things after. There was a fairly significant discrepancy between what we were told our final bill would be and what it actually was (we didn’t add anything or have extra guests) and I’ve been asking Well Dunn to resolve this for almost a month now. It's just so nfortunate that what I’ll remember about this company .

Knocked it out of the Park.

We visited many caterers in DC...plenty of them to choose from. Our contact at Well Dunn was Yulia, she was the only person throughout this ordeal to find the "ONE" who understood my wife. Yulia Poukalova understood our vision, and at no time tried to boot strap us into the traditional ceremony. We felt that we were Well Dunn's only client. Our guests genuinely liked the food. Yulia helped us piece together a seasonal buffet that fed our 150 people in a very short period of time. The setting was beautiful, inviting, and warm....yet still efficient!

Thank you Yulia and Well Dunn Staff

One word- AMAZING! Listen, I am not an easy person when it comes to event planning and attention details. I like things a certain way and I expect things to be perfect. Why not, I am paying for it. Well Dunn and Yulia exceeded my expectations a 1000%. I cannot rave enough about her professionalism, her ability to change things at the drop of a hat, her graciousness and kindness and her ability to put on a GREAT event. If you are looking, check out Well Dunn. You wont be disappointed.

I cannot say enough about how much we loved working with Well Dunn. Yulia was our event coordinator and she is just a gem. From the first call, she answered all of our questions patiently, revised the menu for us multiple times, suggested a wonderful selection of linens to enhance the event, and was willing to work within our budget to put on a great reception. While I'm sure she was always juggling multiple events, it felt like we were her only clients - not an easy feat when you're working with brides, I'm sure!

And the food! The food was soooo good. We heard from many folks that day and afterwards that it was some of the best, if not THE best food they had been served at a wedding. Their wait staff is excellent as well.

We could not be happier that we went with Well Dunn.

Food and service were terrific and they took care of all the details during the reception.