Catering Quotes

Its a bit low, especially for the Bay Area. but i have no idea if tacos affect the price enough to really change things. from what i have seen typical catering can be much higher than $22 per person, which $1500 would be for 70 people.

It's a little love for my coast too. Is that just for the food? Don't forget you'll still need to plan on tableware, beverages and service.

Some of this depends on the time frame of your party too; a short afternoon get together will need less food than an evening party where you expect your guests to stay for more hours.

The venue we are renting comes with all tables, chairs, silverware, etc. We just need the food. Drinks are BYO that we will be supplying separately. Because its so casual and we are working with a budget, we are shying away from any service and our venue is suggesting if we go that route that we need to hire a kitchen manager to just help with plating the food for the buffet table and cleaning up after, which is fine and we will probably end up going that route.

It may seem low just because being from the bay area, most are higher. Like Celia stated, I would look into also if that includes bevrage, linens, and service etc. That will shoot the price up if not!

That does seem very low to me. You might be able to find a more caterer, but it will be hard. Maybe try restaurants that do catering? Not very fancy but chipotle does catering in that price range.

I live in Portland, which is probably close to SF prices. We wavered between a taco bar and Hawaiian BBQ. We ultimately went with the hawaiian bbq because it was a better value, but we found several places with drop-off service for $14-16 per person for 2 kinds of meat, beans, rice, tortillas, taco veggies and condiments. It's doable, but check local taquerias and mexican restaurants. Traditional wedding catering companies were the most expensive by a lot. Good luck!

Our caterer is charging us a little under $19pp here in Phoenix. We will have salad, bread, string beans with Applewood bacon, lemon marinated chicken with a choice of Alfredo sauce or some other sauce with capers, artichoke hearts,and fresh ground mustard. Or they can eat the chicken plane since the marinade alone is amazing. We're also having a pasta with sautéed seasonal veggies. Oh and a coffee, tea, fresh fruit water station too. I researched my little heart out to find exactly what we wanted and at the right price. The head chef will be at our wedding with his staff and he even has a portable grill to start grilling the chicken so it can be cut right in front of each guest. All of his fruits and veggies he gets from the farmers market on Sundays and everything else he orders organic. Sounds fancy right? I'm in shock we got such a great deal too lol

@LightBlueGem, did the drop off service work well? Was the food hot? Did you have anyone at the venue to help set it up and break it down?

If there is a Chipotle in your area you could try them! They do catering now, and they have like two different packages, one is you can pick two meats, and the other is three, and it comes with their rice, beans, all the salsas, chips, guac, etc. I think it's about $13.50 per person...so super affordable.

http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/catering/catering.aspx

I'm not married yet We ended up going with a Hawaiian BBQ buffet with set-up and servers, so I can't say how it would have gone. I did a ton of research, though. My mom was going to help, we had plenty of time to set up, and the plan was to put out baskets of single serve lidded souffle cups full of cheese, sour cream, and salsa to expedite and avoid mess. We veered away from it because our guests list is double yours, but I think it could totally be done.

It sounds like you're sticking with Mexican, but since you guys are both flipping the "shaka brah" in your avatar, I have to suggest Hawaiian BBQ for reasonable casual fare. We got a HUGE spread, with servers, from a higher end Hawaiian restaurant in Portland for less than $15pp. Granted, our wedding is off-season, but it's worth checking out if your not married to a single idea yet. I researched catering for hours...and hours. I refused to believe that I couldn't feed my party for less than 5 Gs. I finally had to get creative. Good luck!

Good luck. As most have said, that seems a little low. I live in NC and that would be low here. We had the best luck with picking http://www.catering-by-design.com/ You might want to stay away from having a meal all together and hire a food truck, or just serve heavy apps. Like Wendy said, you'll still need to find someone to bus tables.

What Jessica said! They do a great job

1500 is pretty low, especially for all of the extras like Celia said for tableware (even if it's just paper plates and napkins) and help with setup/cleanup. That works out to a little over $20/person.

Ours was $3500 for 65 people in Western New York. Granted, it includes open bar for 3 hours but that was the lowest quote we could find. Unless you're going with a chain like Chipotle, you're either going to have to reexamine your budget, your guest list, or your choice of caterers. Plus, we've found that despite our caterer having good food, they're not always the most organized and we've had to babysit them quite a bit. You get what you pay for.

It's low for a catering company, but definitely check chipotle or local mexican restaurants. The first time I was engaged we had booked a local mexican place for a taco bar for $9.50pp.

eta: if I showed up at a wedding catered by chipotle, I would be pretty sure I had died and gone to heaven.

In my area a decent taco bar would be around $15 per person. I'm in the midwest.

Ugh PLEASE for the love of god don't do Chipotle for your wedding. You live on a coast that is known for having great Mexican food, so why the heck would you use a chain, semi-fast food restaurant. I bet you could get a similar price as chipotle from a local mexican or taco place and come in under budget, especially if you are actually only worried about the food and not about plates, silverware, or even managing the kitchen.

I would say it's low. You are looking to spend 20-25.00 per person. When you go to most chain type restaurants, you are going to spend at least that per person around here without appetizers and desserts. Plus they are banking on filling that table several times throughout the night. Consider most fast food value meals are about 9.00 (in this area).

You have equipment and staff to think about. Chafers, sterno, china/platicware, are they included do you need to pay to rent them? Are they wire (disposable) chafers? Who is going to pay attention to make sure things like sterno is lit, enough water is in the pan so things don't burn, etc, Who is cleaning up after the guests? Even if you have plastic plates, are they just going to sit on the tables? Do you expect your guests to clean up?

Can you revisit the budget and/or guest list?

Don't let the opinions here discourage you. From a standard wedding industry viewpoint, they are correct. But for some reason, I feel like every time I mention the word "wedding" to a vendor, the price goes up 50%. Yeah, yeah I know. More goes into weddings than other parties, they deserve to charge that much, I'm unreasonable for expecting the same prices as a regular "party", etc. But I just can't get around the price gouging. You can feed 60 people for 1500 bucks. I promise. The internet is full of weddings for under 5k with way more guests than that. Sure, you'll have to do more work and it won't be a fairy tale princess wedding at a castle with a 4 course meal. But it doesn't sound like that's what your looking for. And I think getting creative with your budget is more fun, anyway. Good luck!

Yeah, LightBlueGem I agree with you, I think ultimately, we will have to get creative! Working with a limited budget is no fun at all and would I love to feed my quests 50.00 a plate meals? Sure! But its not realistic and I refuse to spend a small fortune on a wedding. Luckily for us, we found a venue that includes EVERYTHING except for food and drinks, so we are lucky in that way. I think we will go with a cheaper drop off catering service and pay to have a kitchen manager to do all plating and clean up. Thanks for all the advice, I did ask for it after all

I'll add this. We're in a major metro area. We were able to feed 65 people at our rehearsal dinner with a full service buffet style set up (tables and chairs and linens included) for just under $1500. We had our favorite local bbq restaurant handle the catering (this also included a person who served the food) and set up and break down so your budget is entirely possible! I know it's a different food style but I'm hoping you receive some confidence from this....it definitely can be done!