Catering Help!

Where are you located? That will help

Yeah, cut your guest list or increase your budget.

Of course it's barely possible. That's $22 a person INCLUDING all fees. Cut your guest list.

Your venue requires a licensed caterer because they have common sense.

If you insist that BBQ is not an option, the only other thing you might possibly find in your budget is maybe basic Italian. Pasta, salad, bread. That's about it.

Italian? Honestly, if your budget is $4,000 you need to cut your guest list. Plus, you still need to provide drinks. Do you have extra funds for the bar or does that also need to come out of the $4,000 - cause that won't happen for the number of guests you have.

How did you set a budget of $4k without actually getting quotes to see if this is feasible???

@kristin I see you still have hope lol

Check local, just starting catering companies that are still licensed. Does the venue have any preferred vendors that may be able to offer a discount? I know (at least in my area) $4000 is very reasonable for that amount of people, without having to go the BBQ route. I think it very much depends on location.

Italian or Greek?

I also agree that your budget is tooo low.

Sounds like there is no hope, HA. I am located in Orlando. This would be just food, drinks would be separate.

We are paying for this entirely ourselves and we have tried and tried to cut the guest list with no luck. We even have a B list with about 40 more.

If you've only "cut" the list to 175, you haven't tried hard enough. Sorry not sorry.

Depending on how formal you want it to be, Italian is a good way to go. My fiance and I are going casual and have Schlotzky's catering our reception. Similar number of guests and budget. It's about $10 per person and includes sandwiches, salads, chips, and cookies with napkins, forks, plates, etc. for serving. It's doable, but you may have to sacrifice style for substance in some cases.

You could try emailing a bunch of caterers with your numbers and budget and see what they say but... I don't think it's going to happen. There's a certain cost that's unavoidable no matter how cheap your food is (servers, chef, tax, tips, etc.), and if you want standard "nice catering" your food won't be that cheap.

You need to either cut the guest list to about half or find a way to pay the $7500 quote you have.

In Orlando??? That’s not really feasible. One venue we’re looking at in Altamonte Springs is around $3200 for 35 people...

We cut from over 80, down to 35. It’s feasible if it’s not not your budget to host 175.

Dear sweet lord no... DO NOT B LIST!!! It’s rude as fuck.

I am near Orlando. Magic Occasions catering in Longwood has a $24 pp buffet. Not sure about the taxes and fees but you might try them.

http://www.magicoccasions.com/wedding_catering_orlando.htm

I think you have some more trimming to do.

@Susan, that's before taxes and gratuity. Still doesn't fit her budget. Her food would have to come out to about $18 per person pre-fees to fit her budget.

Not gonna happen.

The people on the B list are probably not going to get invited anyway, they were people that we cut. And they are NEVER going to know and probably won't even care. I was invited to a wedding last minute and did not care one bit.

In Orlando, this is going to be extremely difficult. Honestly, I’d say try to cut more. I’d rather cut people, than improperly host them.

There’s no way to really properly host 175 guests for $4k in Orlando.

What’s your venue?

My fiance does have 7 siblings with their wives and husbands and kids and I have 4 siblings with significant others. So the extended family is quite large. We are going to try and take more people off.

The venue is 1010 West - its an awesome venue and since its newer, very affordable. We are DIY-ing a lot of the decor and flowers so we are cutting where we can, most definitely.

You think the B listers will never know, but they will. It's not that hard to figure out. I agree with a previous poster. Choose your caterer, calculate the per head cost. If it's $50, you can invite fewer than 80 because you must include taxes, tips, etc. Now, start your guest list all over with parents, siblings/SO, grands, etc and stop when the maximum number of guests is reached.

I kept kids off the guest list, if we didn’t, our guest count would double.

Just kidding is right, you don’t need to invite people you barely speak to.