Budgeting??

This is depending on the area you live in, if you decide to serve a full meal, and what you’re even able to and comfortable with spending. To give you an idea you could always get multiple quotes from places to see the average costs

I would think, at minimum, you’d be looking at $1500 or so for food for 100 people (and that’s if you can find catering for about $15 per person (most likely bbq, Mexican, or Italian)). If you have your wedding during a meal time (such as a 4 pm ceremony and then subsequent reception), you need to feed your guests. I’d recommend googling the average costs of weddings in your area to get a ballpark figure, realizing that the more people you invite, the more expensive it is.

We are spending 6500 on full service catering (including chairs, tables, rentals, bartending service, cake cutting service, cleanup and setup) for an 80 person wedding. Our overall expenditures are getting close to 30k


You can do a "cake and punch" reception at a quick, non mealtime reception or serve a meal.

I think you and your fiancé need to first decide what you want your wedding to be like as that will give you a better idea of what your financial expenses will be like and then how you have to tailor your dream day to the budget you actually have to work with.


Ie do you want the full bells and whistles of a traditional sit down wedding with full meal service and music, or do you want something simple and sweet and a mini wedding?
We are looking at $35,000 for a traditional sit down wedding with a live band, three course meal and free flowing alcohol for about 120-130 people.
You can also save costs significantly by holding your wedding on a weekday!

You should think about what kind of wedding you want first and take it from there. There are a lot of places who do brunch weddings if you are okay with getting married in the mornings vs at night, and weekdays and Sundays tend to be cheaper if you choose to do a meal and/or bar as well. We are spending about $20k total for $140 people and our venue is costing us about $12k of that $20k. Our venue however provides a lot of the things that cost extra, like uplighting, centerpieces, cake, etc. If you’re more into a smaller wedding, things will of course be much cheaper.

Definitely sit down with your fiance and figure out the style your both want. My cousin did his wedding at a Chinese restaurant that did a buffet style dinner for them and it was really pretty and good food! Ultimately you need to fish around the area where you want to get married and just contact people like crazy to see what prices they give you. Never be afraid to ask questions or inquire, if you don't choose them, you'll never talk to them again!

This is going to vary greatly on where you live and the type of wedding you are planning on having. Your guests should be fed something, but depending on the time will depend what type of food. At a non-meal time, you can get away with appetizers or cake and punch. But during a meal time, guests will need full meals.

We paid $155 per person for our catering. In total, our wedding cost around $25,000 (100 guests). That did not include any of our attire or my engagement ring.

The budget is dependent on what you and your fiancé are looking to do. I would sit down and write down all of the 'must haves' and go from there. Then you can begin to research it a bit further. Wedding wire also has the budgeting tool so you can plug in prices and quotes you receive so you can keep track of what the expenses will look like overall.