Tip for Catering

We tipped 20% of the total and the catering company split it between the servers.

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Did you do this when you paid your balance or after the event?

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We wanted to tip based on service, so we tipped at the end of the reception.

I feel like it would be nice to even just tip each server directly if you could but 15-20% would be fine to give the caterer after if the service is really good

You should tip 20% of the total bill. They will take care of splitting it up amongst the servers. Personally, the only reason I wouldn't tip 20% is if the service was just absolutely despicable.

My FH's friend (A) chose someone he was very close with and trusted, someone that was not in the wedding party (B). The day of the wedding, A cut checks and put them in envelopes with names on them. B was given all the envelopes and was asked to give them to the according vendors. I thought it was a great idea especially because we're going to be so busy the night of the wedding.

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That sounds like a good idea!

View Quoted Comment Do you really tip 20% ? A 1500k tip seems pretty high to me. Is that normal

View Quoted Comment Yeah, it’s fairly common to tip 20%. Some venues/catering companies automatically add it to your invoice as well.


The venue for our Welcome Dinner charged a 20% service charge and told us that it didn’t include gratuity (it covered admin stuff and whatnot) so we ended up tipping about $1800 (our dinner was around $9000 before any service fee or gratuity.) So altogether we spent over $12k and $3600 of it was for service charges and gratuity. :/

Our estimated food/beverage/alcohol cost is estimated to be around $6500 (which includes 10% tax and 20% service charges). I asked the caterer if that 20% was part of the servers tips and she said no, but it does allow them to pay the servers $15/hr during the event. So we will tip the servers on top of that as well but we probably won’t tip 20% since they’ll be getting a much higher hourly rate than they normally would

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It totally does seem high but it's common. It's just like going out to a restaurant but on a much larger scale