Catering Is So Expensive!?!?!?

I’m also in CT! Unfortunately I think that’s the pretty standard price (for a multiple course dinner w/ a pretty stacked cocktail hour at least). I do think CT is one of the more expensive states unfortunately. I agree, looking into an all inclusive might be your best bet! We toured quite a few and there’s so many beautiful options in CT! And it makes the rest of the planning so much easier because they take care of it all! We’re paying around 20K for our all inclusive venue for 140 guests. This includes open bar & wedding cake. I know if we were to book everything piece meal it would be closer to 30K or so! With that being said, it’s fairly normal for food to be 1/2 your budget so you don’t my seem too far off track!

We are getting married in Virginia, most are avaraging bet $85-115pp which is actually on the cheaper side. I have also found places that charge up to $135-$150pp.
I agree with everyone, find a venue that offers all inclusive packages.
You are not alone, I looked at about 20 places before finding the one that fits our needs.

Good Luck!!!

View Quoted Comment Wow, $76pp is a good deal especially with alcohol included.

What area are you in? We paid 5k for 215 guests. 12k is outrageous! Lol how many meats do you have? Tht also raises the price. Some venues include the bar as well with their prices...just get a breakdown of the full price. Food is one of the most expensive parts of a wedding

View Quoted Comment Good to know, thank you!!!

View Quoted Comment I’m in Connecticut!!! Yes so expensive!!

Have you looked on thumbtack.com? What about a personal chef? We found our caterer on thumbtack 🤗

That sounds about right. You have 200 guests to feed. Even if you took 200 guests to a nice restaurant, their multi-course meal is going to cost +/- $75. When it comes to catering, they have all of their staff and also travel to your location, cook, serve, clean up etc., etc and there are usually service fees. So it all adds up.

I tried finding a smaller catering company that was refutable and it worked out to be about 40$ pp but we chose to do buffet to keep cost down

What about getting a food truck(s)? Not sure how fancy you’re planning on it being though so may not work.

If you go with catering options that are less formal so just taco or barbecue you would get a price that is a lot lower

And here I was having a hard time considering paying $32pp for a total cost of about $2,000 xD. That seems so high, but food is just really expensive. I would say that you could go for a less fancy food option, buffet instead of plated meal etc...

View Quoted Comment

Catering actually should be about 60% of your overall budget.

My FH and I are actually looking for a venue that we can cater from the outside. It is insane the price of these venues. My 1st venue that we looked at was for 350 guest (including kids) for $25,000 on a Saturday. That was way over our budget. So we looked at another venue and that one was $19,000 for a Saturday as well (ask for a special buffet for kids if you are having more than 30+kids, its much cheaper). We came to a conclusion that we needed to find a venue that lets us cater and bring in our alcohol because we would be able to play around with our budget way better. So my vendor is charging us $5200 for 350 people. Its a buffet, including home made tortillas, fresh waters, appetizers, dessert pastries, and 2 dinner choices. We are doing kegs instead of a cash bar. We negotiated as much as we can and a lot of the venues, let me tell you would rather work with you than let you walk out. I live in the INLAND EMPIRE,CA...

I think it definitely depends on the area! Try looking at smaller places or even if you have any meat lockers/processors around? Some meat lockers do catering as well and might bring the price down! That is what we are doing...

We were having the same issue and we decided on BBQ buffet to keep the cost down! Also bringing in our own alcohol and keeping it simple. Also look into bringing in your own plates, cups and silverware if you're not opposed to it, that can cut the cost down as well!

We had a smaller guest list, but food and drink was over 1/3 of our budget. Roughtly half the budget should be venue, rentals, and catering. As for the cost of catering, it's going to depend on what type of food you want, how many guests, and what's included (linens/flatware, etc). One way that you can try to get costs down is to work with a caterer on a package that might be outside of one of their "regular" packages if they're willing. I've literally said this is how much money we have to spend, what can you do for me with that? I've done this for a number of events and it's turned out really well.

It may depend on your food choices as well as what others have suggested. We were looking at catering for 200 but I gave the companies a set price and wanted to know what we could get for that price. Once you do that, you already know the cost, as do they, and you're less likely to find minuscule issues that will cost a lot.

We ended up going with pizza which was less than $2000 lol

I’m in Nashville, which has recently has become an insanely popular destination wedding location. So everything is super high no matter whom you go with. There are not that mention all inclusive venues either. Some all-inclusive started at well over 30k. It’s crazy.

No, your not crazy!! For our guest count of 100. Most caters wanted to charge us 5k-10 and they wouldn’t give us everything we wanted!! We eventually found one for $1500 and they gave us everything and more!!