Venue doesn't provide plates, silverware or glasses

I have been to plenty of weddings that use hard plastic plates. As long as they aren't flimsy, they should work fine.

I had the same situation and decided to rent from my caterer. I guess it depends on the food that you are serving but I was able to get all plates, glassware, barware, napkins for about $8 per person.

You can rent real China, flatware, and glassware from a party supplier.

I think your meal will really determine that. What are you serving?

We bought nicer plastic ones off of amazon, they're thicker shiny plastic. We got the plastic utensils that look like silverware and then plastic cups. We are doing buffet thought, if you're doing a plated meal I would recommend purchasing or renting them. Rentals will be picked up and cleaned buying will leave that up to you. Dollar tree could be a good place for utensils and glasses you can get pint glasses there usually, but I'd get plates somewhere else or rent those.

Bbq brisket or roasted chicken loaded mash potatoes,steam veggies

Thanks ladies I will check into it

We're going through Famous Dave's BBQ for our wedding of 130 people and they wanted like an extra $4/pp to upgrade from paper plates and sporks to plastic plates and plastic utensils! Yeesh!

Some rental suppliers will have pretty affordable real plates/cups/utensils. I was able to find plates as low as 50 cents each. Since our venue is entirely DIY though, we didn't want to be bothered with trying to figure out where to put guests' dirty dishes...and it still got pricy.

We ended up going with the "China-look" plastic stuff through webstaurant.com... I got 260 small paper plates in our color (for cocktail hour and cake), 140 nicer plastic dinner plates, 500 cocktail napkins, 200 white pocket fold napkins, 150 heavy-duty silver plastic utensil sets, another 150 matching forks for dessert, and 140 plastic wine goblets for a whopping $170. Is it the classiest? No. If we were having a fancier wedding, I'd have sprung for real rentals. But it's sure better than paper, and will complete the look nicely and with little hassle or cost.

I checked a party rental place they want to charge me around 1000.00 for everything but that's for 200 ppl

1k isn't bad at all.

In addition to the type of food you're serving I'd think about the formality of the event. IMO those plastic plates are only acceptable for a very casual event. Like back yard 25 people. But again, just my opinion

I'm gonna look into renting thanks

I was wondering about that too. Our current plan is to do a taco bar and I don't have a place for dirty dishes. The wedding and reception are at an all outside venue. We aren't really having a big fancy wedding. We're planning on 60ish guests.

Real is always nicer. If you do need to use disposable, don't use plastic. Get the compostable type of plates and utensils. Amazon has so many options.

I’m renting real ones. I didn’t want to create that much waste buying disposables nor deal with trying to collect/wash/resell plastic ones

I've seen so pretty plastic plates tho but I'm weighing out all my options

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This breakdown is SO SO HELPFUL!

Having 120 guests and worrying about ordering the right amount. Can you let me know how it works out? I think the only thing i'm considering doing different is napkin rentals and either renting real silverware or buying inexpensive ones. I've had too much trouble in the past with plastic cutlery

Getting plates & cutlery through caterer. It's $2/pp for "high end" plastic, $3.50 for china. If you use your own plates/cutlery, it's a $1.50/pp "handling charge" :-( But for the rustic barn venue, we feel the plastic will be fine.