Catering costs

I've got a quote for 12k for 80 people. Similar breakdown - about 6k for food family style, service, rentals, etc... In Sonoma, CA.

I’m in Maryland..ours is about the same- $115/person for hors d’ourves, plated dinner, linens, plates/glasses/utensils, and servers. Open bar is another $27/person.

Where are you from?
This would be pretty standard in most non-rural places. I live near the Delaware beaches and catering there was 90/pp and DIDNT include any of the other things you’re mentioning. Renting glassware and China is expensive.
My catering is sooo inexpensive and affordable because I decided to get married in the rural area and not in the city or beach part of DE.

View Quoted Comment I am from New Jersey where unfortunately everything is over priced! We’re getting married on a farm though and the caterer uses tons of stuff from the farm so I thought I’d at least catch a break because the food would be local and seasonal

That's similar to mine! A little over 20k for 180 guests, with the same sort of package. They have absolutely amazing reviews though, so I'm feeling like the price is worth it. If yours doesnt have great reviews you might want to keep looking? I wpuldnt want to pay that much if I wasn't convinced that the food would be amazing. I'm getting married in southern California

If you think it's too much, price out what it would cost you for all the rentals, subtract that and then divide the remainder by the number of guests to get a per person figure for food. It won't sound nearly so outrageous.

View Quoted Comment I did get married at the Delaware beaches. Our catering was affordable, I’m pretty sure our food came out to be like 40 dollars per person, not including alcohol. Now we didn’t have it in a ballroom, but we did at a restaurant had two apps, plus buffet dinner. We had ours at Bethany blues in Bethany beach. It was amazing. Plus their bartender came up with my apple cider mimosa I’m getting a lot of compliments. I would highly recommend them for affordable catering and bar. They were amazing.

That's why we're inviting less than 100 people. $45 a head, we were lucky to find a great venue that offered what we want. But feeding that many people will add up no matter what. Yikes.

Also to add; we only had 50 guests.

I think most caterers in my area run $12-35 a person just depending on what it is.

My catering is costing $3,500 for 90 people. This includes three appetizers, two main dishes (enough for everyone to have one of both), three side dishes, a salad, bread/butter, staff, and burners because it is buffet style. We are going to get plastic dishes from Costco, the type that look like real silverware but is actually just fake 😉!

View Quoted Comment I will say Bethany blues was a more affordable option! We looked into them to cater but we decided on something a little more affordable because we already had a venue. But a lot of the other venues and hotel options were double.

View Quoted Comment How many guests were you looking at? Bethany blues could do about 50 people and they went as low as 20.00 a person.

We are paying a little more than that for about 90 guests, but ours includes an open top shelf bar.

View Quoted Comment I already have everything booked and have 130, but thanks!

Ours is about $15k for 140 people in Northern Virginia. Includes cocktail hour, reception, and open bar, and all the service taxes.

My catering fee is 7k for 200 people. 24.99/pp. Three types of passed hors d’oevres during cocktail hour. Two meats two sides salad roll lemonade and tea. That also includes the service fee for the waiters and bartenders. This is in GA.

View Quoted Comment That is great! I’m happy for you

Honestly, that sounds like a lot for not including alcohol, even in NJ. I guess that’s what happens when you choose a venue that doesn’t have in-house catering and all the stuff you need. I feel like all the venues I looked at in NJ were in the $125-150 range pp, but that was with top-shelf open bar.

I agree with starsinwaves. This sounds expensive to me, but mostly because it doesn’t include any alcohol.