Female-Owned Foodie Businesses Cater to Weddings, Bridal Showers, and More
By Karen Hendricks
As the saying goes, brides need something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue for their wedding day.
We have the “new” part covered, deliciously, as we highlight freshly-launched female-owned businesses. Meet Stacey, Tessa, Brianna, and Brooke—and their beautiful creations, designed to make you fall in (foodie) love.
Biggerstaff’s Catering: Marry Menus
Stacey Schlosser followed her heart. Last year, after 22 years of building Biggerstaff’s Catering, she prepared to transition her popular Gettysburg-based business more fully into weddings and events.
Then on March 13, the day she was supposed to relocate from the Gettysburg Seminary to the Gettysburg Fire Hall, the pandemic hit. It was fateful timing; she was able to move, even as restaurants and caterers were forced to shut down, and now she’s poised to move forward.
“I’m encouraged by the vaccine, and I’m encouraged by the business that I’m scheduling for the future,” says Schlosser.
She emphasizes that she doesn’t have a “canned approach” to catering, whether it’s for weddings or other events.
“What we really love to do is customize,” says Schlosser, who earned a degree in dietetics and credits her versatility in the kitchen to coming from a long line of cooks, including her mother and grandmother.
That’s why, when she was asked by a bride to replicate her grandmother’s famous chicken dish as a wedding entrée, Schlosser happily built the menu around it. Over the years, she’s created mimosa bars, numerous BBQ-themed menus paired with outdoor or barn weddings, dessert tables, and even a Japanese-style menu complete with hand-rolled sushi. Parmesan-crusted chicken is one of her most popular traditional entrees, and just recently she was planning a menu around steak and crab cakes.
“I don’t know that we have a specialty. Our specialty is being flexible,” Schlosser says. “I really just love hearing what people want to have, and I’ll find a way to produce that.”
In terms of venue, Schlosser describes her new home base at the Gettysburg Fire Hall as a great venue. “Sometimes fire halls have a stigma, but it’s lovely,” she says. She regularly caters weddings at Hauser Hill Event Center and Beech Springs Farm, and she’s a preferred caterer at the Historic Round Barn.
“Weddings have changed so dramatically due to COVID-19,” says Schlosser. “I get the feeling that some brides have felt like they’ve had to settle for something that was a little less than they wanted, but several we did last fall said, ‘Oh my gosh I never thought it was going to be just as good as the big wedding I wanted.’”
And ultimately that’s Schlosser’s goal with every event, especially weddings.
“I want them to know they’re in good hands with us from start to finish, so that they’re able to enjoy their day and remember it.”
Biggerstaff’s Catering
35 North Stratton St. (Gettysburg Fire Hall) Gettysburg
717-334-3855
www.biggerstaffscatering.com
Gettysburg Picnics: Head Over Heels with All the Feels
Outdoors events, amid the pandemic, are quite literally a breath of fresh air.
Tessa Walter of Gettysburg noticed a social media trend—picnic businesses—taking off across the country last summer, and the timing was right for her to hop on board. The former social worker, at home with her newborn son, caught the entrepreneurial spirit.
“I think people are looking for something new to do,” says Walter. “People want to be outside and feel safe, yet take pictures to post on social media. Picnics are the way to go. It’s very ‘choose your own adventure.’”
Here’s how it works: Walter works with each client to customize a one-of-a-kind picnic experience, perfect for a date night, marriage proposal, bridal or baby shower, girls’ brunch, intimate wedding, honeymoon, babymoon, and other special occasions.
The base picnic includes a grazing box for two and the entire setup, alfresco: area rugs, linens and place settings, vases and candles, pillows and décor, plus details such as rose petals—all customized to clients’ visions.
“No two picnics will be the same,” Walter says.
From there, clients can choose add-ons, and Walter has built a network of local businesses to provide those: charcuterie boxes for grazing, florists, massages, and more. As for picnic locations, she’s partnering with local wineries, and she’s secured a permit to set picnics up on Gettysburg National Military Park grounds. She recently staged a beautiful picnic celebrating a couple’s
15th anniversary in their backyard.
Event planning has been intertwined with Walter’s entire career experience, so Gettysburg Picnics feels like the next natural step.
What excites her the most?
“I can’t wait to see each and every client’s face, when they see their picnics—especially the little surprises I have planned for them, those little touches and details,” Walter says. “Putting a smile on people’s faces—that sounds so corny, but honestly— with this quarantine, to be able to give people a two- or three-hour break with this luxury experience in their backyard or on the battlefield, I just look forward to seeing the joy on their faces.”
Gettysburg Picnics
thewalteryears@gmail.com
717-357-1750
www.gettysburgpicnics.com
www.instagram.com/Gettysburg.Picnics
Something Sweet: Confections to Win Your Affection
Life keeps getting sweeter for Brianna Beverly.
The stay-at-home Gettysburg mom launched Something Sweet nearly 10 years ago, and her “over-the- top” celebration cakes have been a hit at bridal and baby showers, birthdays, and special occasions ever since.
“I like to be creative and experiment,” says Beverly. “If you want an everyday cake, that’s ok. But if you want a wow cake, I’m your lady.”
The self-taught baker launched Something Sweet with beautiful tiered birthday cakes, but then she took things up a notch.
“For my son’s sixth birthday, I made a superhero cake—it was my first real structured cake, and the response was wild,” Beverly remembers. “My photos went all over the internet. I had people from all over the world asking me for tutorials. It even went into a magazine from the U.K., and I kept thinking, ‘I’m from Littlestown, Pennsylvania.’ I was so taken aback.”
Cake orders have been steady ever since. In fact, regular customers often book her structured creations weeks in advance.
But she recently added some tiny tasty treats that have taken off in a big way.
“I began making macarons, and my business literally exploded,” says Beverly.
Macarons—meringue cookies with buttercream filling—often resemble pastel mini-sandwiches.
“They’re crunchy on the outside and chewy, melt-in-your-mouth on the inside,” Beverly describes.
Popular macaron flavors include cinnamon roll, blueberry muffin, chocolate fudge brownie, chocolate peanut butter, salted caramel, and white chocolate raspberry. She regularly lists weekly flavors on her Facebook page.
The sweet treats are a hit at bridal and baby showers; Beverly envisions creating wedding favors “in cute little packages wrapped in bows according to their theme” and colorful macaron towers for dessert tables, as post-pandemic wedding plans resume.
“You can basically take any dessert and turn it into a macaron—the flavor options are endless,” says Beverly, who creates more than 30 dozen macarons weekly (that’s 360 macarons!) from one home-based oven. However, her home now boasts a second refrigerator, just for Something Sweet.
Sometimes she even works side-by-side with her two young sons.
“I work a lot with model chocolate, which is a lot like Play-Doh—in fact,
I give the boys Play-Doh while I work, and it’s cute to see them do what mommy does,” says Beverly. “While my kids are young, it’s easier to operate out of my home right now, but having a tiny shop someday would be truly a dream.”
Something Sweet
somethingsweet.cakes@yahoo.com
www.facebook.com/cakesomethingsweet
www.instagram.com/somethingsweet.cakes
Bak’d & Boarded: Charcuterie to Share with Your Cutie
Brooke Fogle describes herself as a custom charcuterie stylist, which is appropriate, because in her day job, she’s a stylist of a different type. A cosmetologist who has managed numerous salons, she’s now using her flair for design to assemble charcuterie boards for her home-based business, Bak’d & Boarded.
“It’s a trend that’s taken off,” says Fogle. “I really got into it. I love serving people and giving people an experience. It’s not just about the food, but the way it’s presented.”
A Gettysburg native, Fogle, 29, currently lives in Crofton, Maryland, but she regularly delivers her custom charcuterie boards back home to Adams County.
“The amount of support I’ve received from the Gettysburg area is crazy amazing,” Fogle says.
What ingredients are key to charcuterie?
“Within one board, I like to always have something sweet, like truffles. The last board I did had little pastries with jam inside,” Fogle says. “Also something salty—crackers, some meats—plus a good arrangement of cheeses, vegetables, and fruits that pair well with those cheeses, and fresh herbs give a nice aroma and aesthetic.”
With charcuterie boards, it’s also about the composition, placement, and colors, she says.
“When somebody looks at it, I want them to be happy to eat it,” Fogle explains.
This spring, orders for wedding boards are pouring in—including a massive 12-foot board for a barn wedding. She’s also developing brunch-themed bridal shower charcuterie boards, complete with foods she describes as fun—waffles, croissants, mini-pastries, and sausage.
But the reason her business begins with the word “Bak’d”—and the reason she always incorporates fun baked items?
“My entire childhood, my grandmother baked everything. I learned so much from her. Baking brings me back to that place and makes me so happy,” Fogle says. “I even plan on using some of my grandmother’s recipes for May wedding boards. All the things I’ve learned from her—that’s where my inspiration comes from.”
Bak’d & Boarded
www.instagram.com/bakdnboarded
