Normal, or too much? Paying 21% gratuity on top of cake fee and corkage fee

It sounds normal actually. a lot of places around here will give you their prices and then charge an additional 20-21% service fee. So you need to add that up before you book places.

Definitely standard.

Every single wedding venue I looked at charged a 21% service fee. It's to pay their waiters/staff who are taking care of your wedding. Most places you don't have to tip in addition to that. You tip 20% when you go out to dinner, it only makes sense you'd be be required to tip 20% at a venue as well.

Mine is a 22% service charge and an additional 5.3% VA sales tax if that helps.

Yea that sounds about normal. All of the places I toured were 20-22% service charge.

Mine is 20% service charge and 8% tax but they don't charge a corkage or cake cutting fee.

We are paying 21% service charge, 6% sales tax and then another 10% tax on all alcohol.

Sounds like the norm.

What other service fee are they charging besides the cutting fee and corkage fee? Or do you mean they are applying the service fee to the cake cutting/corkage fee?

21% of the food/beverage total is normal for service plus gratuity, but it seems weird that they would apply that to the corkage/cake cutting fees as well. My venue isn't charging me those fees, so I don't know if they would have applied the service fee to those charges, but I do know they are not applying the service/gratuity to the cost of the space itself OR the cost of rentals.

It could just be a goof on their part, and it never hurts to ask them to make sure that is correct.

Sounds normal. Ours is 20% service charge plus the 8% sales tax.

Mine is 22% service fee and 6.5% sales tax. It sucks, because it's almost an extra 1k for us, but it's normal.

^ I think my service fee comes to 2k.

Which is a huge reason we are not doing open bar because then that's another 1k just in service fees. Nope sorry.

Sorry if I was confusing guys. I know a service and gratuity fee is normal on the per person charges (dinner, cocktail hour etc). I'm not THAT out of the loop lol.

I'm asking about just the cake fee and the corkage fees.

@ Barbara - I checked with them and they said "oh well we won't charge you tax on the corkage fee or the cake fee but there is a 21% service and gratuity that will be added to both the cake cutting fee and the corkage fee"

I totally get that I'm paying near 30% for taxes and gratuity on the food, hor dourves etc and the room fee. Not complaining, THAT I know is completely standard. I also totally get that bc I'm bringing my own wine and using an outside baker for the cake that they want to charge me a corkage fee and a cake fee (to cover the servers pouring the wine and cutting the cake), but they are charging an additional 21% service fee on top of these 2 things. To me that is a service fee on top of a service fee. It's like going to a restaurant, tipping your waiter & the waiter saying okay but I had to carry your food to you, and I don't consider that part of my tip or salary, so pay me for that too. Don't get me wrong, I always tip over 20% when I go out but this seems different

I hat those fees, but it sounds about normal.

I'm not sure it's legal to charge tax on a service. You might want to check that out.

Thank you Celia, I was hoping you would chime in.

They aren't going to double tax. You're right it's not legal to do that.

I would have thought that the cake fee and cork fee were separate from all the other charges that get charged gratuity and service fees, but if you've seen this to be standard then I'll take your word. There were some management changes at my venue so I've been nervously second guessing a lot of things recently.

Oh sorry just saw your update. No I'm not paying any additional fees for cake cutting or corkage.

I think thy can charge you a service fee on top if the cork/cake fee. The cork and cake fee is making up for what they are losing by you getting cake/drinks somewhere else. The service fee is paying/tipping the person who is cutting/opening bottles. Makes sense to me.

I've never gone to a BYOB restaurant so I don't know anything about cork fees. I asked some people who bring their own bottles to dinner and they said this is typical so it makes more sense to me now.

Thanks ladies!