Catering tip stupid question. :)

I don't know the answer to your question because my sister is a caterer and she is taking care of my food! Yay!

But this is a very good question. Not stupid @ all.

Oooh good question..and um, your wedding is sooooo soon. I'm freaking for you. lol

Sorry no answer from me, our catering bill includes gratuity.

Our caterer is already charging us a 17% gratuity, so I will not be adding a tip. From the way my contract is written, the 17% is on the total before tax.

Um no. The servers will each get a cash tip ($30-$50 ea.) and then the person I'm working with in the planning will get a gift of some sort… I'd give him cash but he's a friend of mine so that's weird.

Okay, this is helpful thank you.

FMC no need to freak for me. I'm freaking quite enough for myself. lol.

Kris please text me pictures of the sausage centerpieces. I will love you forever

TIP may already be included in yoru bil so double check. Here in Jersey its included 18% I did not provide them with another tip on top of that

So not a stupid question. I asked for a breakdown of food, rentals and services. We are tipping based on our service total.

Nope...we tipped on food alone.

This is not a stupid question at all.

Our total tip was $800

I sure was not planning on tipping because our venue/caterer charges a 20% service charge. Our bill would have been way less without this so I figured they already added their tip in.

My gratuity is included (just double checked!) but I would tip on food value like I do when I eat out.

I would tip on food only. They are probably already getting any service charge, and the only time you tip for rentals is if there are separate people who drop them off and set them up.

Ours is just food and service and we are tipping 20% based on the food amount.

Is a service charge a tip? I am guessing no?

My food charge (meals, apps, etc) is about 12,000.. 20% of that is 3,000??!!?

Tiffany...we had a labor fee on ours...which I'm going to assume is similar to the service charge...and after posting about it before my wedding (see thread here ) I found out it's not the same thing as a tip.

Wow.. I knew we had to tip, but honestly I hadn't really figured the cost of that percentage. Call me stingy, but in my head I was just thinking a couple hundred extra dollars for most of the individual vendors, spread around an extra $1000 bucks or so. (I wouldn't be unhappy with an extra $200 at the end of any day!)...

but 17% or 20% of my catering bill is more like $700 or $900 bucks - I could hire a cheap DJ for that! I wish my boss gave me an extra 20% for services well done! ...even if yearly bonuses happen, my amount isn't even close to 20%.

Thanks for the wake-up call ladies! Time to find a bit more moolah!

This isn't a stupid question at all. I just went over this with our venue manager. It's a complicated formula, we will pay 20% for food and beverage only. rentals and tax will be calculated separately.

Yeah, even if i only tip on the dinner price, not apps and all that, it would still be $900... I mean I am pretty sure the waiters at a banquet hall make more than a waitress (correct me if i am wrong).. and I think they deserve extra for a job well done, but I don't know about $900.

Blah, where did I hide my money tree?

Does a bartender/ carver/ cake cutting fee go to the person doing those things? I would think so. and then would not think you would tip on top of it?

Why is this such a hard topic for me?!?! I work in restaurants, but I make $2.63 an hour so tipping is a given. I don't have a clue what these people make hourly..

Okay, % on food it is.

CKJL, I think the problem is there's so much variation. I would think catering staff would make at least minimum wage plus tips b/c they're doing other stuff like unloading chairs and setting up tables/etc. But I don't know.

Jessica I break it down like this - 20% of our food only is around $1400. (We're ordering beverage separately.) I asked the coordinator and we're going to have 7 staff at the event. If I give the head waiter $1400 to split among them, it averages to about $200/person.

I had no idea we had to tip....oh my.

3 more days and now I am freaking out! Yikes!