Food & Drink Minimums

Wow that’s insane!! I’d be looking for a venue who doesn’t require you to cater through them.

View Quoted Comment I haven’t even came across such a place that doesn’t require catering through them... The smallest food and drink minimum I have came across so far was $10,000. That is a little more reasonable and doable, but still seems a bit pricey for what I’m asking for. One place came back with a starting price of $265 per person (just for food and drink). Their menus did not wow me! I’m just glad to know that someone else thinks this is also insane, and that this is not just common place for weddings.

View Quoted Comment What city do you live in? I’m near Kansas City Missouri and it’s about half and half of venues who make you cater through them or a selected cater.

View Quoted Comment I live in Rochester, NY, but I am looking all over the state

View Quoted Comment Oh that may be more common in your state so I can’t speak to that. 😬a lot of times our venues here either have a list of required vendors or they leave it completely open as long as the vendor has insurance.

What about an early Sunday afternoon and evening? Dec has a lot of events: wedding, company holiday parties, etc. Might be hard to get that min lower. Try a weekday, or different month.

What’s the average cost per person for their weddings? By that I mean, if you have a 150 guests, would it be possible to be at $15k for catering without spending any more?


Sometimes, venues just have a minimum because that’s what it costs to have them make enough profit for it to be worth the work (considering a 50-person wedding and 150-person wedding would still probably run for the same amount of time). If you were a venue owner, would you rather have a 50 person wedding or a 150 person wedding? You’d want the 150 person wedding because it would mean you probably would make a bigger profit. Unless you could somehow guarantee that 50 person wedding could get you the same amount of profit. Because most likely, they can book a larger wedding for that same day anyway.
During off-season, my venue had a $18k F&B minimum on top of venue site fee. The minimum per plate cost was $140 (ours ended up being $200 per person with top shelf open bar). They didn’t care if we only had 50 people so if we chose to have a small wedding, we would have had to make up for the difference by getting $11k worth of appetizers and drinks. Haha
It’s going to be dependent on how popular the venue is and your location.

Have you considered a zoo or park? For only 50 guests $15000 is crazy. My food cost is $43/person catered. But this is Albany,Ny area. My friend is getting married at the Syracuse Zoo and their minimum for off season was $5000 which is reasonable.

That was my issue. I couldn’t find a venue that was affordable. All of the minimums were ridiculous. We decided to plan a house party and have it catered by our favorite restaurant instead of the formal reception. I’m saving so much money!

View Quoted Comment Even January, February, and March have those minimums as well. Those are considered really off season and a lot of venues are discounted, but apparently just not the ones I like.

I think you have to keep looking and hopefully find something with a different price tag. I think that is ridiculous F&B minimum for an off season wedding.

I'm getting married at Lake Tahoe, which is a pretty pricy destination, on a Sunday in December and our minimum is $5,000. $15,000 is a lot of money especially for only 50 people.

View Quoted Comment One venue for example can only host a max of 90 people. Their packages start at $265 per person. So I believe most are just expensive across the board no matter how many guests you have.

The minimum for my venue in Chicago suburb, is just over $5100 for food and drink for 75 ppl on a Saturday.

View Quoted Comment That’s a really great price! I got married at a Zoo/Safari Park and it ended up being one of the pricier venues. Buuuut all the money went back to research and the animals so we didn’t feel too bad about the cost.

View Quoted Comment Oh yikes! That’s crazy. 😩

View Quoted Comment Yeah, it’s probably because you’re in NY. :/ I feel ya, our wedding was in Southern California. Unfortunately, we don’t get as much bang for our buck in HCOL areas as we would in places like Ohio or New Mexico.

Same here, $10K F&B minimum, before the 30% taxes/fees and $3K Site Fee. We’re also having a Friday wedding, but in Key West, FL, and inviting around 60 guests. The prices are steep, however we always knew we wanted an intimate wedding at a beautiful destination with the absolute best-of-the-best venue, food, entertainment, etc. It’s our way of “rewarding” those closest to us and celebrating this special day, so we’re forking up the money. My FH is from New York! (Small town called Rome) I’m from/we live in Miami now. So when we first started shopping for venues in my hometown and his - more in NYC - we quickly realized that plenty of great venues require these high F&B minimums. Also, December in general is a busy month, not only with weddings but big-box corporate holiday parties that bring in mucho bucks, so that may be a reason for the minimum. Best of luck and congratulations!

If you're in NY, that sounds kind of standard. I'd start checking out "unusual" venues... or up the guest list to make the minimum worthwhile.

We were in NYC, so the minimums there were kind of eye-popping.

Have you priced out hiring a space and getting catering in? (Though, in NYC, we found that was often pricier.)

No it just depends of the venue. I opted for a venue that allowed outside catering so that I didn't have to worry about minimums knowing I didn't have a large guest list.

Try to find a community center? those are usually cheaper and allow for outside caterers