How much to spend on food and beverages?

How many people are you anticipating? Our minimum is $18,000, for reference, and we are expecting 150 people.

Your geographical location, and type of food will greatly affect total catering costs. In our area in Southern NJ, $5000 would get your food and beverages for about 30-35 people. Most places are $150/pp (taxes and fees included), so doing the math on that = small wedding.

Thanks ladies, I'm in North Carolina and planning on no more than 50.

Does that include service and any rentals (i.e. linens, flatware, dishware, glassware, etc)? It's not crazy, but not necessarily inexpensive either. Our catering bill came to about $90/person for everything (food, drinks, service, gratuity, rentals), but I thought that was reasonable. We were in the Shenandoah Valley

I think $5k is pretty reasonable & realistic for 50 people. I have 75 guests, and $5k is about what we're spending on just the buffet and bar (not including our cocktail hour food or any of the staffing, venue fees or rentals). I looked at venues that waived the rental fee but had a food/bev min of $12-15k.

Well that depends on the number of guests, of course, as well as your location. $5000 for 5 people is pricey, yes. $5000 for 100 people is not pricey.

That seems reasonable - it works out to $100 per person.

I'm in South Carolina about 20 minutes from Charlotte, North Carolina. If that's pricing for Raleigh, Charlotte or any of the bigger cities that's not too bad. What a does it include?

$5000 minimum for 50 people sounds good. Does that include furniture, linens, plates, glassware, etc? It’s probably a little pricey for your area, but if you get a lot of service out of it and the quality is excellent, the price is justified to me. I live in a HCOL area, and $100 PP is actually hard to find. Most venues and off-site caterering are $125 and up, probably $150 average for a starter package.

$100 pp is a very middle of the road cost. I do not think that is over priced, especially if you count the cost of included alcohol!

That doesn’t sound bad at all. Our venue is $4000, got it for $2000 because we booked it early but catering(minus the open bar) is costing $9-10k for 120 people. They’re doing the cake also and it’s an additional $680. As long as the food is what you want and it’s delicious then it’s worth it!

We saw a nice venue that had a food minimum of 10k, so we walked away from that one.

the venue we have had a person minimum of 130 and was pay per person

Thanks everyone the catering is provided from the venue. The venue costs covers the table settings and food and beverages are provided by catering I'm not sure if alcohol is included (it's on the catering menu). But I will find out. Thanks again!

Im midwestern/MO and i think that charge is outrageous, but that's high for my area. it completely changes based on where you are geographically.

we're spending about 1700 total on wine/beer for drinks and catering with non-alcohol drinks. our venue is BYO - so we hired a caterer that doesnt do alcohol and are bringing our own sangria/wine and beer for everyone. the caterer charges by itself are 1400, and that was a deal for my area but most spend about 3000.