Tipping at venues that do their own catering

My venue suggested about $3-5 per person for tip in addition to what you give to the Maitre D and your banquet manager

I think that's a lot Spring, and I love tipping....unless that's for the entire group of guests to cover all the servers? That might make sense....

I'd say 40-90.00 for each server and more for your MD and BM, if they work the party.

Our venue is the same (all inclusive), but we have to add 20% service fee and 18% gratuity on top of the cost of food / beverage per person. So I assume this covers the servers, but we will tip the bartenders and our Day of Coordinator separately... hoping that's the correct etiquette for this.

When I was exploring using a caterer at a venue that did not do catering, I got quotes from 5 caterers and each charged $45-50 per server on top of food cost (which I assume they saw at least half). So it was clear that they weren't paid like restaurant wait staff and that $50 per person would be a nice bonus vs what is needed for a living wage. Not sure if that's the case in a banquet hall or not.

@Erlene that is exactly how my contract is set up as well and I plan to do what you said.

@erlene and @spaghetti did your contract break down costs in detail or just have one per person cost and the service fee?

Editing this to remove what I said. I'm double checking my contract because now I'm confused and not sure if I need to budget additional tips...

Alright so my contract says this:

I'm interpreting that to mean that the "tip" is taken care of in the service charge but I will double check with my DOC.

That reads like it pays their salary. Mine says the service fee is for administration and execution of the event under the terms of the contract and that the service fee will not be distributed as gratuities.