Little Heirloom is a curated menu offering from Heirloom DC, born from the common refrain of, “we just want our wedding to feel like a really great party.” We know there are a lot of people out there who just want really delicious food without breaking the bank, and that’s our - and your - time to shine. We’re not a “bargain” caterer, that’s not the goal. The goal is providing the very best value for clients looking for delicious, artisan, scratch and seasonally driven menus.

From the start, Heirloom DC was designed to be a way for clients to have highly customized, artisan catering for their wedding or special event. Little Heirloom is a spin on that, but offers Heirloom’s artisan style and restaurant quality menus in a slightly more streamlined package. With Little Heirloom, one of the main ways we’re keeping things simple is that we offer package-pricing — $120 per person for food and dinner service (bar services, desserts, and tax are not included).

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The main difference being that we don’t allow any customizations in the Little Heirloom menus. If you want 6 appetizers and late night snacks, or a personally crafted menu experience, we’re totally happy to refer you to the team at Heirloom DC, who will be happy to put together that custom menu & experience for you.

Little Heirloom offers Plated Dinner Service. We love family style menus, buffets, stations and elaborate plated menus, and if you do too and your budget allows, we’ll be happy to recommend that you check out Heirloom DC, our parent company.

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As another aspect of our streamlined services, we are a company dedicated exclusively to wedding catering, and our pricing package is based on a minimum guest count of 75 people. We are able to provide an estimate for guest counts less than 75, but it will involve adjusting our price per person above the starting package of $120 per person.

Little Heirloom is designed to embrace the spirit of seasonal, artisan  menus, and to that end, we leave a lot of room for our chef to be inspired by the best ingredients available at the time. We do not guarantee or specify any ingredients more than a week in advance of the event, but trust that our “chefs choice” will always be the very best of what’s around. We will, of course, take into consideration any allergies, sensitivities and personal preferences. For example, we love the pasta dish but can you remove the mushroom? No problem!

We will provide up to 10 vegetarian/vegan/special diet meals included in your dinner price. These are served as a plated dish to guests who are identified in advance. We will also do our best to accommodate other special dietary considerations, if alerted in advance.

Little Heirloom holds complimentary tastings for clients only, and once you move forward with us as your caterer. Meaning, you sign on the dotted line, we will move you into the client experience process and begin scheduling all your pertinent meetings; including tasting and rental selections.

We love our team, and 100% of our crew are in-house employees who know our food and our service standards. For the base package, we staff our weddings with 1 server for every 15 guests for weddings of 75 guests or more, which provides an optimal mix of excellent service for your guests, while keeping the overall costs manageable. Our team will pass apps and drinks during cocktail hour, and serve food and pour wine during dinner. Additional servers are listed with some of the add-on items as needed. With less than 75 guests, the ratio of servers per guest increases, and your price per person is adjusted to reflect.

Absolutely. Our pricing includes service staff on site for 9 hours, and can include everything from setting the tables to taking out the trash. Should your event require more of our time on site, we will be happy to add the additional labor hours to your estimate as needed. Staffing varies based on the duration/location/needs of your wedding, and we will handle making sure that we are appropriately staffed to provide excellent, spot on service. 

Little Heirloom is all about keeping things simple and cost effective, and we also believe that focusing on the food allows us to provide an exceptional meal at a great value to you. For that reason, we encourage clients to purchase their own alcohol. Vodka is vodka and as such, we want you to spend your dollars on areas that make an impact, like the food, as opposed to spending more with us for liquor when you can easily purchase it yourself. We will help guide the purchases and quantities, and receive the alcohol onsite, sort to the cocktail hour, dinner service and reception bars, then organize at the end of the evening for pickup. We will also provide our bartenders and liquor license.

We offer recommended guidelines for alcohol purchases based on experience, but you know your crowd much better than we do! Do you have a ton of fraternity brothers in attendance, or is it mostly your mom’s white wine spritzer drinking friends? We make our recommendations, but since you know your crowd, it’s always a good idea to get a second opinion from wherever you end up buying the booze.

For the set $120 cost, Heirloom provides options in a few styles for the following: Place Settings - Two Course China, Two Course Flatware, Wine & Water Glassware, Cloth Napkin. As well as, standard Glassware for Two Bars - Cocktail Hour and Dinner/Reception and all utility kitchen and bar equipment. Tables and chairs sold/added separately as many venues provide their own. If you’d like to add these, you definitely are able to.

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However, we don’t coordinate any other rentals directly through Little Heirloom Catering Co. If you have something more elaborate in mind, for the style and rental pieces like a display bar or lounge furniture, we can recommend you over to the team at our parent company, Heirloom DC (link here)

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You may also choose to upgrade your rentals with specific styles or something that aligns with your pinterest and overall look. We can help you select these during the client planning process, however, please note - these swaps will not reduce any portion of the $120 per person cost and will be added as upgrades & additions to the base price. You will have the opportunity to approve these cost changes before it's finalized.

Step One & Done: Tell us, Yes, it’s you we want!

Once you’ve decided that Little Heirloom is the right fit for your celebration of love, we’ll send you a catering agreement to make it official. Once we have your signed agreement and a 50% deposit, consider the deal sealed! From here you'll start working with our wedding production team on all fun details and logistics including, scheduling your tasting, site visit, confirming your rentals, and selecting your menu. We’re there every step of the way to make sure the planning process is a memorable and fulfilling experience!

Please reference everything included in the Little Heirloom base package, and also peek at the extent of the add-ons offered with Little Heirloom. All add-ons and/or anything provided separately from Little Heirloom that may already be included in the base package, are in ADDITION to the base package. In other words, no portion of the base package pricecan be reduced, even if you are providing something on your own or via another vendor that the base package may already include.