In House Caterer or Outside Caterer--cheaper Option?

Depends on the level of formality you’re wanting. But if you’re having a more casual wedding and just wanting the cheapest option it will save you money to do outside catering. BBQ/Mexican/Italian restaurants will be cheapest.

From my experience with inquiring about venue costs and caterers, I've seen that venues that include catering seem to be more expensive than those who allow outside caterers. You can always find a cheaper caterer depending on what food/quality you want. I have found $10-30 per person looking at random caterers. The venues that included catering were more like $30-75 per person.

Apples to apples we didn't find much of a difference (we did a line by line budget comparison between a diy venue and an all-inclusive). The cost advantage to outside catering is that you open up cheap options like bbq, pizza, Italian (often from a local restaurant rather than a pure catering service).

The few I looked at with in house catering were more expensive. But I'm sure every venue is different. Best way would be just to start getting quotes.

This is much harder to answer than it looks! First you would have to be going with a venue that is only outside catering and then consider if that venue has someone who will be helping to coordinate. If not, you have to look into a wedding planner for day-of services. Some in house venue will charge you for using outside people or not let you at all since it is a liability at that point.

Then it depends on if you want plated or buffet. If you hire an outside caterer, while the per plate cost will probably be lower, you need to take into account hiring servers, washing of dishes, cake cutting fee, etc. These are all fees that outside caterers may charge (mine does all but the cake cutting fee), but they are included with an in house caterer.


This also depends on where you live! I live in New York near the city, so venues with catering are a lot.

So while it can look cheaper at face value, you really need to look at all the costs involved!

View Quoted Comment All of this! We also noticed that venues that were all-inclusive had cheaper/free rental costs for the venue itself (as opposed to venues that cost more to rent), but had a food/beverage minimum instead. Like our venue actually was free to us if we met the food/beverage minimum of $6,500 (which was did...almost two times haha).