Reception

Yep. We are paying $103 for food and open bar.

Yes! on average that's said to be the costs

it's high and it sounds ridiculous but it is very common

That's not bad. It depends on what type of venue and what kind of food you are having. We paid $140/pp with open bar.

View Quoted Comment Ok! I wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy 😂

View Quoted Comment Yea, when I received the estimate I was like...is this right? Lol I don’t want my family to stroke out! 😂

We paid $200 per person in California.

View Quoted Comment $140 per person? Goodness. We’re doing reception style with beer & wine only

View Quoted Comment Wow! $200?! We’re having our wedding in New Orleans, & we’re still saving money because if we had it in Tennessee...there would be way more people to accommodate. Lol

View Quoted Comment Yeah $134 per person for food and $55 per person for beer and wine. But that was for stations and passed appetizers during cocktail hour, a 3 course plated meal, and dessert. It also included gratuity so it wasn’t that bad when you added up everything it included.

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Sticker shock is so real during wedding planning sometimes. even though i hear all the time weddings cost a lot, when actually planning and hearing and seeing the prices, it's just still a shocker to me

That is a great price! We are paying $152/pp for ours with a plated dinner and an open bar.

Yes especially to include alcohol. Ours is $105-110 pp depending on the food we choose!

Seems like a great price with alcohol included. Booze can be a budget buster.

Our local reception was a steal at $71 PP (two plated courses, dessert, wine & beer). Perhaps because newer wedding venue. Our DW in Napa was $165 PP + tax/service fees (plus per consumption for drinks).

Whether it's reasonable is going to depend on what's included, what you can afford, and how that estimate compares with other similar venues. But, yes, compared to what we paid, about $185 pp, in So Cal, with everything included, it sounds awesome! Also, make sure you know if that includes both tax and service charge (often up to about another 30%), and what the expectations are about any additional tipping. For us, those three items added up to about $50 on top of the base charge, getting us to that $185 number....

Oh goodness! I’ll reach out to them because I don’t see it on the estimate. 🤦🏽‍♀️

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Yes! It can be shocking, but it's often a "small print/footnote" on their advertising materials/brochures, and they may not make it super obvious until you're signing your final booking contract. Most venues tack on an 18-22% "service charge" (and for most, this is NOT the tip) and whatever your local sales tax is (for us, it's nearly 9%, and many venues figure the tax on the subtotal including the service charge...). After all that, we paid an additional $700-800 in cash tips for bartenders, valets, the venue bridal attendant (who was basically the bride's shadow all day), the waitstaff, etc.... That $100 pp goes up really fast!

Definitely sounds like a good deal depending on your area. I’m in NJ where everything is overpriced anyway and we found a beautiful all inclusive venue for $110 per person.

Very reasonable! 😊

Wow after reading through this thread I'm thankful for Metro Detroit MI lol. We're paying $45 per person for family style (enough food for each table served to table but then people serve themselves from those dishes) and open bar.

Our venue is $120 pp