Caterer: Final Payment & Vendor Meals

1. We owe our final balance 7 days before the wedding.
2. Our vendor meals are the pp cost-open bar cost so they’re technically close to half price but that’s because I don’t have to pay for the bar for them.

What does your contract say about payments and vendor meals? It’s not really unfair treatment if it’s outlined in your contract.

We can make payments whenever we want but the final count is due 2 weeks before hand and the final payment is due 3 days before. I believe we got a 15% discount on vendor meals and did not have to pay for the open bar for them, we just paid for food at 15% off.

We have an all inclusive venue and catering is with them too. For the vendor meals, they are charging us a fraction of the regular price per head.

We owe it by the day of our wedding. We also had vendor meals that were just a fraction of the cost too. Like maybe less than half cost.

I've never heard of paying a caterer the day of the wedding. Why would they prepare all of that food and schedule employees for an event that they haven't been paid for yet? What if you don't have the funds, do they just throw everything away? Our final payment is due 2 weeks before the wedding, the same time our final headcount is due.

Some caterers do offer vendor meals. Sometimes they're the same meal as the guests for full cost, some times the same meal as the guests at half cost, and sometimes they're a different (lower cost) meal entirely. What does you contract say? This is something you should have asked about before booking. Our vendor meals are full price and I don't see an issue with it. The caterers are providing them with the same amount of food as a regular guest, I don't expect them to make up for half of the cost just because these people are working our wedding.

We owe our caterer I believe 2 days before the wedding. We're having a buffet-style meal, so our vendor meals cost just as much as adding another guest. A bit of a bummer, but I get it.

I'd have to double check our contract but I think final payment and guest count is due 7-2 days before the wedding.
Vendor meals were less than halfm

View Quoted Comment Caytlyn,

Thanks for your response.

I have been married before and the final payment was made the day of our wedding at our reception... not paid in full - weeks ahead of time.

We have already made 2 deposits to our caterer. So, we pay in full.... what if the caterer decides to not show up, we are just out thousands of dollars?

We shouldn’t be the one taking all the risks.

For my previous marriage, I paid our photographer in full prior to the wedding and it took !!8 months!! to get our photos and only because I threatened to call our attorney, the Better Business Bureau and put an ad in our local newspaper. After threatening, I got our pictures the very next day.

So my mindset, is about looking out for ourselves and not being taken advantage of.

View Quoted Comment

That's what contracts are for. It's unfortunate that you had a bad experience in the past, but most caterers aren't going to provide a service without first being paid in full. Was this not part of your contract?

This is all standard unfortunately. That's why there is a contract. We don't have to pay until the day of and vendors are free (buffet) which is VERY unusual.

We owe our balance the day of the reception but will be paying off the catering portion at least 1 week before the wedding so that we only owe our bar bill.

We are paying full price for our vendor meals.

I believe our final balance was due 7 or 10 days before. Our vendor meals were $100 cheaper than guest meals.

We owe ours 10 days before we had to pay half up front

I believe we had to turn in final count two weeks before and the final payment 10 days before. Sure there is always a risk but that is what your contract is for, to protect you (and the vendor) in the event the contract is breached. If I remember correctly our vendor meals were discounted (I want to say 15-20%) and they ate from the buffet. Everything you are describing sounds pretty standard and doesn't appear that they are taking advantage of you.

Yes, we paid the final payment before the wedding. I think it was by 48 hours before, but could’ve been a full week. This is fairly standard practice. By the day of the event, the caterers need to have paid for most of the things (food, rentals, etc) already.

For us, the final payment is due 21 days before the wedding. We are having a buffet style, so our vendor meals will be the same meal as the guests. Our caterer told us to add them into our final cost and just tell them how many are for vendors, so they can plate the food for them, and keep warm in the kitchen.

Thanks for everyone’s comments. It helps knowing that we aren’t the only ones.

Our final payment is due 30 days before our wedding date.

Our caterer just emailed and said she’d Invoice us AFTER the wedding. Not before, not the day of, but after...does anyone see any problems with this?