Outside Vendor fee???

My venue charges a $200 deposit if we use a caterer outside of their list of preferred caterers. However, they do reimburse that $200 within 2 weeks after the wedding. I guess it's more like a security deposit since they have not worked with my caterer before.

If they have inhouse vendors apart of the package its very common for them to charge a fee of some sort to go outside of that since they probably have a deal with that vendor and would be loosing money if you don't use them. My cousin had this issue with a venue she wanted that had an in house baker. She did not want to use them and asked about bringing in her own cake and they said to use an outside baker they charge a cake cutting fee of $2 per slice or something like that. She ultimately decided not to use that venue but they are just trying to make up the money they may be loosing out on.

Our venue had one for using a different caterer, they gave us 5 options. They are all well reviewed so we are just going to use one of them. I would just decide if it's worth it to you guys to pay the extra $500 (just estimating for 5 vendors) to bring in your own! But it's fairly common.