local event staff

[teresaelsey.livejournal.com]

I'm looking to hire four or five people to help with passing appetizers, buffet setup and serving, and cleanup at my informal/partially self-catered August 3 wedding at the Armory. Anyone have suggestions on where to find them?

What I'm wondering is if there's a happy alternative somewhere between working with an official event staffing company (a little too formal for our needs) and hiring strangers from the jungle that is Craigslist (a little too anxiety-provoking for our mothers). I like Taskrabbit, but I couldn't tell how active the site is in our area; also thinking about university job boards or where to find folks who do this freelance.

Thanks!

Comments

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that Davis Square's EventTemps, which may look official and formal on the outside, is a fairly casual hirer - folks get on their list and pick up freelance jobs - not much training or pre-planning required. So it may be closer to your plan than it looks from the outside. TaskRabbit and Tufts would be my other suggestions.

*I've also never worked with them at all; this is hearsay.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I used to work for them. You're right about their business model, and they do have to pass a background check before getting hired.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd known about EventTemps back when I was desperately unemployed. I totally would have applied.

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

I've used TaskRabbit on several occasions and love it. Also with a month's lead time you are likely to get several people responding and you could like have your pick.

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

I'm getting married around the same time at the armory. We wanted to make some food ourselves, and have our have a few of our favorite restaurants bring in food. I thought about using a catering temp service like eventtemps who I worked for when I was younger but we had trouble finding someone who would be the leader to coordinate things and direct the temps we would hire. If I had been willing to go back and do some more catering gigs, I could have observed the supervisors and approached one of them, but I don't have time to do that. I do have catering experience but in the end decided that we didn't want to be stressing about chafing dishes and dish rentals on our wedding day (and we are DIYing some other stuff), so we ended up going with a local catering. Sorry that is probably a not very helpful response.

But if you don't find enough people through other means I'd be happy to work that day (since I'm getting married their the next month I'm trying to observe the venue as much as possible).

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind my asking (and you can PM me if you want), how expensive is the Armory for a wedding? I went there for the first time the other day and I really liked it, and it seems like the kind of place to keep in mind for maybesomeday.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

I'd third Taskrabbit - they're quite active around here, judging from the number of tasks that pop up in my inbox (I work as a runner, full disclosure), and plenty of those are for event help.

[lizzyclean.livejournal.com]

We hired the Butling Brits (http://butlingbrits.com/home) to serve the Red Bones and Trader Joe's wine at our VERY informal wedding. They were a complete delight to work with. I think three of them worked for us that night (four hours) but they have more people on staff. They were professional and knew what they were doing. We needed them to help set up the food buffet, while we were otherwise occupied, and pour some wine. Then at the end of the night they helped us organize and clean up. I highly recommend them! They provided exactly what we needed - just a bit of help with the food and drink while we got married. I do not recall the cost but I think it was very reasonable. And they're local!

[seltzer92.livejournal.com]

i would like to hear about your wedding planning experience at the armory so far. their website says that the rental rate includes bar staff...are you using the mezzanine or bottom half?

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

Includes the bar staff and an A/V tech person. You buy the alcohol from them.

[ringrose.livejournal.com]

Some sites vastly prefer actual caterers, rather than self-catering. I think it's an insurance thing. We ran into it for our wedding years ago at a different site.

Their site says "You can bring in any professionally prepared food (from a caterer, restaurant, supermarket, deli etc. - but nothing homemade). There's no fee or restricted list of caterers, but we would need to talk to your caterer in advance to make sure they can work within the constraints of the venue." They also want drinks to be bought through them. That said, I would guess Lizzyclean's suggestion of the Buttling Brits might satisfy the Armory as a "caterer" for them to talk to, letting you keep your informal plans mostly intact. Or maybe you're two steps ahead already and my cautionary words are unnecessary.

[bex77]

Harvard has a temp agency run by students that employs students. We've used them to bartend and serve at events with great results. I'm not sure how active they are in the summer, but it's worth checking out. http://hsr.hsa.net

[elements.livejournal.com]

I've worked with Simply Serving at work before, and they are relatively inexpensive but very professional.

[lomagna.livejournal.com]

I did some catering jobs through the BU job board when I went to school there, so that is an option.

[teresaelsey.livejournal.com]

Thank you, everyone, for really great and helpful responses!

Sounds like Taskrabbit is a good place to start. EventTemps looks like they can provide staff on basically zero notice, so that's a reassuring option to have in our back pocket. (And I worked for Harvard Student Agencies back in the day, so I should have remembered about their temp agency!)

Somerfriend -- so thrilled to hear from someone else planning an Armory wedding. Sent you a message!

Regarding the wedding planning experience with the Armory, it's been overall quite positive for us. When we booked the place, they had only hosted a few weddings and were pretty loose in terms of policies and procedures. Over the last year, they seem to have gotten much more seriously into the wedding business, and with that, become much more formal about how things work, which has its pluses and minuses.