vegan columbus: vegan living in central ohio

So, the Mr. and I are thinking of having the wedding ceremony and reception at the Ohio Statehouse. This is cool and exciting because there are lots of really neat event spaces, and not much decoration is needed to make it all look pretty because it's already pretty majestic, and you get parking and security and the rehearsal and table/chair setup and security all included. However, they require that your catering come from their list of approved caterers.

I don't really know of any especially vegan catering in Columbus, since I've never had to arrange catering for anything before. (Yeah I know there's the catering section on here, but I've never actually used their services.) So I don't know if this will be a problem or not. Their list of approved caterers on their website is:

• Catering by Design
• Creative Cuisine
• Spagio Restaurant Catering
• Vito's Catering

That's a pretty short list, but at least it narrows things down for me. I mentally crossed off Spagio because their style of food is not what I'm thinking for my wedding, but here's my initial correspondence with the other three. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, the summary is: I want pan-Asian food, none have very Asian or very vegan menus, they all implied that they could deliver vegan pan-Asian food, but only Creative Cuisine came right out and said "a vegan reception won't be a problem".

And here's the full text, for those of you with too much free time:

Original Message:

Hi,
I'm getting married next year and just starting to try to figure out all this planning stuff. I used to have the impression that when having an event catered, you could pretty much have whatever food you want, and you just tell the caterer your selections and they make it and serve it and you pay them and we're all happy. But in looking at caterers' websites, I've been finding each one has a menu or set of menus. Are these menus just sample menus, or are the possible selections usually confined to these lists? We want to get married at the statehouse, and they have a pretty short list of caterers they work with, which might be a challenge for us because we're vegans and on top of that, there's a pretty narrow range of foods we agree on.
So, what we want wouldn't have to be very complicated, but it is pretty specific. For example, we're thinking something along the lines of vegan sushi, seitan "chicken" skewers with thai peanut sauce, and pan-fried asian noodles with broccoli. Is such a thing possible? Pretty much everything I want to serve at the wedding is stuff I could make, but not on such a large scale, so it's not really complicated stuff.
Thanks.

Response from Vitos:

Thanks for your interest in Vito's Catering, Inc. We use our menus as a guide but commonly we make specific custom menus to better fit our clients needs. Typically our procedure is to set up a meeting with one of our two
wedding consultants and our Corporate Executive Chef to discuss your special event. Our goal is to provide an extraordinary experience which will bring you a lifetime of spectacular memories. I look forward to hearing from you to set up our initial planning meeting. Thank you.

Response from Catering By Design:

Thank you for your interest in Catering by Design. We would be happy to design a menu around your dietary specifications. You are correct our menus are not very helpful for vegans! If you can provide us with some
recipes our Chef's will prepare the meal for you. We can also arrange for a tasting to see if we prepared them correctly and if that is exactly what you would want to serve. I look forward to hearing from you.

Response from Creative Cuisine:

Thank you for considering Creative Cuisine to cater your wedding reception at the Ohio Statehouse. I noticed your concerns about choosing your own menu. Sure, we have our printed menus but they are suggestions only-- a vegan reception won't be a problem. The easiest thing would be to tell us what you want and we'll take it through to the part where we are all happy. Your specific menu items mentioned in your inquiry are a good start.
Please let me know how I can be of assistance.