Catering budget - 130 people

I think that is super do-able, our caterer is $4300 for 100 people and they are staffing the bar and that was their top package, they had a lower package for half that price.

I think that is doable - from the places we looked at prior to deciding on the caterer, we noticed that buffet style dinners were quite cheaper than the rest because they didn't need as much staff to attend your wedding. The other thing you can do is skip having a catered late lunch and maybe ask some family to help with that so you have some extra money for the main dinner. For our wedding, our families offered to make buns and various desserts for our late lunch, which was nice because then we will just a bunch of meat and cheese trays. We also looked into booking a food truck for the late lunch, the only reason why we didn't is because there wasn't enough of a variety and I didn't want people to go hungry.

I have 130 people and we are doing buffet style. came out to 30$ a plate. and I budgeted 5000$

I think you're far enough outside the GTA that the price can work, since you're not including cocktail hour appetizers and bar in this cost. If you factor in 13% tax and 15% gratuity on that, you're essentially at around $6100 total or roughly $47 per head. As long as there are no minimum spends with your venue/vendor, you should be fine.

That being said though, I find your dollar is maximized much more when using a venue with in-house catering. A typical Toronto-based buffet made in-house can cost around $35-50pp but for the exact same meal catered from an external vendor, it's probably closer to $70pp.

Good luck!

I found that I could feed everyone for about $30-40 per person. If we wanted a BBQ buffet, it could be cheaper than that. But that didn't include dessert or late night snacks. I'm pretty sure we're just ordering pizza and eating wedding cake for that. I did have to search high and low for reasonable caterers just north of Toronto though. I also found that smaller local restaurants were cheaper and more willing to accommodate too.

Although I'm in Manitoba we were able to get our catering from Danny's Whole Hog BBQ for $20/person plus tax? But this was just for the supper and dessert buffet style. The late night snack was something we did ourselves.

That sounds about right. We did family style for 120 with a late night snack.

My parents paid for the caterers, but when I added up the cost/guest + taxes + 15% gratuity + 22% catering service fees, it was around the $8,000 mark.

Our bar and dessert were separate costs, but the caterer set our our dessert for us.

Make sure your caterer only charges you for half your guest count for the late night snack!

FH and I really splurged when it came to the food since we'll only have 60 guests. It'll come to about $110 per person, and that includes apps, dinner, dessert with tea and coffee, late night snack, labour, and set/tear down of tables. But I believe that the average price for a plated dinner is about $50-$60 depending on what you choose, so I think you'll have no problem staying under your budget and is realistic considering you're thinking of not having apps or a plated dessert.