Gratuity Question

I'm not much help, but following. I also am confused about how to tip the catering staff!

Yes! I'm glad I'm not the only one! My mom wants to tip on the total, but I don't think so because that includes every plate, fork, knife, glass...etc.

That's different than how they did it for me (grat was included), but I'd tip the bartender personally and give the food/bev manager the tip and ask her to split it among everyone (back and front of house, not bartender) fairly (this was Melinda for us). I don't see any way you could possibly tip them all individually and not miss someone.

You could also ask the best way to do this when you have your next meeting with the staff, they probably have a process. I would bring it in cash, though.

Maybe they can tell you the number of people that will be working and you could have it split into envelopes at least so they can just pass them out?

Stephanie, that's very helpful, thanks! Would you tip the bartender on the entire bev cost (20% of $2400), and then the servers, etc, 20% of the dinner and cocktail hour food?

Our service charge is the tip, so I won't be much help. I think we will probably tip a bit extra in cash as well as long as we are really happy with everything. Different places earmark the "service charge" for different things. Honestly, if our service charge was not for the tip at all and was on top of what we are paying the staff (almost $2000 just for staff), we wouldn't have been able to use our venue, way too expensive. Our DOC mentioned that people usually bring cash in envelopes rather than writing in a gratuity on the final bill.

Thank god......I just checked my own contract. It says "staffing and gratuity"!

You would give an envelope to the person in charge at the end of the evening. The bartender would get $20-$25 on average.

Muscularteeth, I hear that. All along I assumed that the service charge was included until I got the updated contract today...that's over $1k that we hadn't really budgeted for!

Oh shit. This reminds me to look at my contract when I get home. I always assumed it was gratuity myself.

We are almost 2 months out, this is the 3rd iteration of the contract, and this is the FIRST time that line has been in it...

Lara - We have the same situation! I am planning on giving each bartender and server about $50-$100. I read on a few websites that was typical. We have 2 bartenders and 4 servers.

MG, that's actually very sane. If our bar bill is $2400, and there's only 1 bartender, who is already getting paid $280 for the event, I feel that $480 is a bit insane...

Seriously this is annoying - we are in the same situation!

We have a 18% service charge, which my venue also explained that it basically covers their pay. They did tell me that they are paid more than serve and minimum wages, so they get a decent pay to begin with and that a tip is just on top. Plus we have the 8.75% sales tax.

Apparently the venue puts out a tip jar on the bar (I didn't even know that they just mentioned it) and it actually gets split between the bartender and the wait staff. Honestly I have no idea how many people there will be for the wait staff to know how many people will be splitting it. FH and I aren't cheap when it comes to tipping, but this just throws me off. So....am I supposed to take what all of our food is and then tip another 18-20 % on that on top of already paying 18% for their pay? Am I paying the chef's wage and kitchen staff as well? Because if the 18% is paying the bartender and there is a handful of wait staff, then their wage wouldn't be too bad.

When I told FH that the service charge isn't actually a tip he was pretty annoyed. His plan is to put $30 in the tip jar at the end of the night along with the other tips, but I feel like that's not much at all. I certainly don't want to leave and people be picking up and commenting how cheap we were not leaving anything. I don't really know what to do.

Also the service charge is on top of EVERYTHING not just the food. We are paying $395 for an extra room rental and the 18% is on that as well. So, our 18% is $1019.41....Am I supposed to come up with that again to actually tip???

Jillian! Yes, this, EXACTLY. My DOC is actually in the process of talking me down from the ledge. She's saying she's never tipped 20% on a catering contract. She's saying that their service charge is 15% so if we choose to bring it up to a full 20%, it's at our discretion. Like you said, the staff isn't restaurant waitstaff (who make $2.15/hr) either. I don't want to seem cheap, and I'm typically a very generous tipper, but I kind of feel like we are being gouged out of every dollar possible at this point.

Thanks for posting! I just looked at my contract and it just says "caterering fee" $2800. I wonder if gratuity is included in that fee?!!? Sent her an email.

MrsPope, fingers crossed for you! Those caterers can be sneaky little bastards.

Brides be ware, I had to ask our DOC (also the venue coordinator) point blank what it was for. She was very forthright once I did but no where on the contract did it say anything besides "service charge". I actually had her say it again when FH was present before we signed the contract, just to make sure everything lined up. I don't think that our DOC is out to gouge us, but never feel bad about asking what a charge is going towards.

As someone who spent 5 years serving and bartending at weddings, I NEVER worked a wedding where the couple tipped 18-20%. I think the caterer charged like 18% "service charge" or something like that. The first few years, we made a decent hourly wage ($12-$15/hour, depending on our position and how long we'd been working there) and then anything the host decided to tip we got on top of that. We'd maybe get $20-$50 each, at the very most. And a lot of the time we wouldn't get anything extra. My last year working there, they changed their policies. They changed our hourly wage to the regular serving wage (so around $3.00/hour for servers, $7/hour for bartenders) and then anything the couple tipped would be divided among us on top of that. We were PISSED. The 18% service charge was used to pay everyone's hourly wage (servers, bartenders, and kitchen staff) and we were lucky if the couple tipped on top of the service charge. The new manager was kind of a dick and wouldn't accurately explain how the service charge worked, so a lot of the couples thought that 18% was going right into our pocket. We found that out when a friend of a server booked a wedding there and asked about the service charge. I wasn't sad to go.

Because of my experience I always make sure to get clarification on how service charges actually work for the venue. I think $50 tip for a bartender and then maybe $20-$30 per server would be just fine, but that all depends on how your venue pays their staff.

Lori, thanks for that explanation. That's actually exactly what I was trying to figure out. I'll push back to the caterers. Thanks!

So, I have a call into my main contact at the venue and I'm going to ask her flat out. I asked someone else before there and they said it wasn't the gratuity it was to pay their wage (which prob matches what Lori said about it being 12-15)

I looked over my contract and there isn't anything mentioned there other than it just being 18% service charge. I picked up a new booklet from them last time I was there with updated pricing and on the back it now says 18% (12% gratuity 6% service), so Lara I think you're DOC may have been right regarding that it's a portion of it. The person I spoke to before did NOT say it that way. If it is 12% already then maybe we will just leave a $200 or something and call it a day. I can handle $200 I CAN'T handle another $800-$1000 haha. I will write again after she calls me back and I get an explanation. It may not be exactly the same as you're venue, but it will give you an idea of what it is like for someone in a similar situation.

Jillian, sweet, thanks!!