Catering costs

Our venue does our catering. The venue cost is $3k which includes tables chairs linens and all dishware.

The quote for the catering is about $7,700 (so $77 per person for 100) which includes one passed horsdevours, three stations, and open bar.

View Quoted Comment I'll look into them! My venue allows any caterer. Thanks 😁

View Quoted Comment Let's all drink our Winking Owl to that!

View Quoted Comment Lol that's Aldi! But hey, they're in the family, right? 😜 Get a lil' Two-buck Chuck.

Our family is cooking for our reception! Catering can be crazy expensive here and it's not as good! Hope you find a caterer you are happy with.

Yes that’s why we are now doing a destination wedding

Wow! We're paying 2K for 150 people. Wedding is in a smaller town.

I am so sorry for all of you Brides that are going through all of this.... I'm paying $2,067 for a 140 people. This includes the gratuity taxes and 2 servers... We have three main dishes for the guests to choose from as well as wedding soup, salad, bread and two sides

Sarah, is your venue Cecil Creek Farm by any chance? I'm in South Jersey as well and that was my dream venue but after getting a proposal, I couldn't justify spending that much money. I'm now looking at Rode's Barn.

View Quoted Comment Cecil creek seemed a little too small for us. We booked Johnson’s Locust Hall Barn in Jobstown

Seems a little over priced to me I’m in Maryland my catering is $2500 for 80 ppl. $12 pp for open bar. They’re not providing linen and utensils because I didn’t like theirs but even if I did I think it would maybe be close to about $6000. So yeah I would keep looking if I were you.

View Quoted Comment Johnson's is beautiful! Good luck with your planning

I was also shocked at the price of catering. For 120 people it will be 15000 for us as well but I'm impressed with everything we are getting. We have a full open bar, linens, glassware and China. Champagne toast, 8 passed hors d'oeuvres, 4 stationary appetizer tables, a salad course, a pasta course, guests will get to choose between 4 different entrees. We are also getting a dessert bar and a 2 tier wedding cake through them.

Mine is $1600 for 100 people for 2 entrees, 2 sides (buffet style) and non-alcoholic drinks in North Carolina.

Actually, that seems like a very reasonable price. When we were considering venues where you had to hire your own caterer, we couldn’t find any caterers we liked at less than $150 pp just for food. That’s why we decided to go with a venue that provided catering. I just couldn’t see plunking down and additional $5-7k just to rent a venue.

Reading through all the posts, keep in mind that while location can dictate price, so can the good itself. There’s a big difference between catering BBQ or Italian food in trays than catering for a more formal cocktail hour and sit down dinner. Not saying one is better than the other but there’s a huge price difference. We catered Kosher deli for our welcome dinner the night before our wedding at $16 pp. our wedding catering was $175 pp (included venue, cocktail hour with 4 apps and 2 stations, family style sit down dinner with 2 entrees, DJ, $25 pp bar credit, tax and gratuity). For NYC, that was very reasonable.

I'm also getting married in NJ and my wedding for that same amount of people is costing about the same (15K for 130 people roughly after service fees and taxes) However we went with a semi inclusive venue where a lot is coming with that price aside from just the food. For a little over 100$ PP we get a full cocktail hour, 5 hours of mid shelf open bar, 3 course meal, 5 1/2 hour reception, ceremony space, private use of the facility all day - all tables chairs linens, glassware cutlery ETC, DOC, staff handles all set up and break down of facility. So we really felt like we were getting out moneys worth since so much was included in that price aside from just the good. However I will say that that isn't a bad price and seems to be fairly standard for NJ

I feel like people really over pay for food..

Catering is pretty expensive! There is quite a bit that goes into it outside of the food though and if they are including everything you mentioned it's actually not that bad. That's pretty much why we are doing a 30ish person wedding in Vegas lol

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With catering it's much more than just the food. It's all the containers, the staff that comes with it, the transporting of the food, the linens, the plates, the insurance and all that.