Can’t Afford to Cater, but have no Choice!

The contract should have stated (a) that you are required to use one of their caterers and (b) that you have a minimum expenditure. If you signed that contract, then you have two choices: save more so you can afford this place or likely forfeit what you have deposited and find someplace else.

You can certainly see about doing an appetizer-only reception but then you would need to shorten up the length and not hold it over a meal period.

View Quoted Comment The contract stated to must use the preferred vendor, but the person we dealt with said it’s was customizable and no more than $35/pp. Obviously I’ve never done this before and didn’t know the fees cost more than the food. All the sites that listed the prices never give an indication of what these cost until we got estimates back. We had no way of knowing based on what information we were given. The venue is paid in full, so there’s no refund.

Oh boy. Those contracts are usually air tight.

2 things. 1) call the space and see if you can get out of the contract without losing your money. If you signed this week, they may be able to work with you and both parties just walk away. 2) if you can't walk away talk to the vendors and see what you can cut from their responsibilities. Ie. Can you forfeit the number of people or ask people if they could help serve in place. Tell them they don't have to supply a cake or no need to cut the cake to reduce costs. If you can get the food bill down to that $3000 minimum, that might be the best you can do. Remember most of the money is spent on food, so you may need to cut back on other things. Good luck.

Unfortunately, since you signed a contract you're stuck with it. The venue doesn't have any say over the catering costs so they shouldn't have given you any type of info in their prices. But you could have also called the catering companies and asked for quotes before signing the venue contract. How were you planning to serve pizza if the contract states that you have to use one of the preferred caterers? Did you not read the contract carefully before signing? Or just hoping one of the catering companies could make that happen for cheap? Catering is not cheap. They have to factor in the cost of not only the food, but also the salaries for everyone who cooks, delivers, serves and cleans up.

You have a couple options
1. Start saving as much as possible to make up the difference in cost before the wedding date.
2. Talk to the catering company and see if they are willing to work with you. Maybe they can reduce the menu options to lower the cost?
3. Talk with the venue and see if you can change the date of the wedding. Move it to a later date to give yourselves more time to save the money.

Is there a minimum you must meet for the venue? If there is, only serving appetizers isn't going to lower your price because you must pay that minimum no matter what you serve. $3000 for 60 people isn't bad if that's including the service fees. We paid $15 per person to cater Olive Garden for a birthday party and they didn't even bring it to us, let alone set it up, serve it, or clean up after.

Can you change the time of day of the reception so that you can serve brunch, or afternoon tea which is usually less expensive?

View Quoted Comment I would suggest figuring out what you can afford to pay, then asking the caterer(s) if they can work up a proposal within that price range. If you deviate from a listed package, you might be able to bring down the cost. But whatever your per person cost, you're going to have taxes and service fees on top of that.