Food

Love the cake and punch idea!

Wow! $18!!!! Thats it???!!! My price is about 7 or 8 times that! I would be extremely happy with the $18 price. I agree with other posts, that deal is incredible! But if that doesn't work for you, maybe offer cocktail or brunch reception?!

I would say that $18.00 per plate per person is a good deal as I am looking to pay $32.00 per plate per persons or a guest list of 100. Have you considered serving hor d'oeuvres or brunch reception instead?

My choice of friends are great thanks

I never said I pay less than $18 for a plated full course meal. Because I would never pay for one of those. Which means I would definitely not pay for my guests to have that type of meal. I've also never been to a wedding where my friends or family have expected a generous gift. Sorry for your choice of friends. I wasn't asking for a cheaper caterer, I was king about something in lieu of.

Agreeing with what others have said. For that amount of people you will probably never get less than $18 / pp for a catered meal.
Where do you live that you'd pay less than $18 for a multi course plated meal? Even chain restaurants steak in $20+. Plus you have tax and tip for the people who serve and prepare the good for you.
Sorry to be harsh but weddings are expensive. Especially the typical 100+ people multi course meal of standard fare receptions. If you can't handle the price tag either invite less people or don't do a dinner. Literally nothing is mandatory beyond legal paperwork.
While I can appreciate wanting to save money I wouldn't want to go to an event where the host's bottom line was serving the cheapest meal in existence at the expense of everything else. Especially when I'm willing to give generous gifts for a decent meal.

$18 is extremely cheap. You would never find that price in Montreal. Bare in mind that people will give you $$$ as a gift. Food is one of the most important things in a wedding and it is ultimately what guests want. They want to be well fed.
In Montreal, people typically give you $150 per guest as a gift. I don't know what it is like where you live.

Wow! I would say $18 per plate is a deal! Of course I will pay a good deal more than that for a good meal on a night out so my measure for this is obviously different. You could do an evening wedding and ceremony and have everything after supper so that there is no expectation of meals and just have the cake and some snacks. Or a cocktail reception with only appies.

Ours will work out to between $90 and $100 per person for 120-130 people since there is a food and beverage minimum for the room and I am doing my darndest to stay as close to the minimimum as possible. That cost includes the room, the ceremony site, table, chairs, linens servers and bartenders, I am working to make it also include beverages( incl alcohol), appies for cocktail hour and midnight snack.

I am in the same situation as you! Expecting up to 150 guests and hoping to keep the prices down. We are considering doing our own food buffet style. Prepping/ cooking all the food the day before (BBQ style!) and just hiring a couple people the day of to heat all the food and put it out for us. Pulled pork, coleslaw, corn bread type of deal.
Also considering doing a build-your-own-burger type dinner and just asking a couple family members to run the BBQ. Just need burgers , maybe some veggie burger options, all the fixings, potatoe salad, maybe some smoked corn on the cob. Most the food can be picked up at costco for relatively cheap

Hi Krsytal! I guess you could also go for a cocktail reception, that way you could have appetizers instead. You could also go for food stations or buffet where you don't need to hire staff or have a potluck.

You should take a look at these ideas to see which option would suit you best:

Cocktail reception invitations

Plated Dinner vs. Buffet

Potluck?

Let me know which ones you prefer! I can't to see what ideas you'll come up with for you wedding! Did you already find a venue to hold your reception?

$18 is super cheap .... the cheapest we found was 27.95 a plate ... food is super expensive and honestly you get what you pay for .. we were getting crazy quotes for up to $60-70/plate ... its crazy but that tends to be a big part of the budget

18$ is a fantastic price! Most quotes I got were at least 45$ per person for a plated meal! I think you have found a great price- if you were to find anything cheaper I would start to fear losing quality, or not having enough food provided.

As a real life example: I was planning a cocktail reception (posponed), and out cost per person for apps and a station was about 30$ per person.

I don't know your area very well, but I would think to spend less than 20$ per person you might need to consider a lunch or brunch reception, or even a short afternoon reception with a sweets table. The worst part of weddings is the cost, I think it is a big surprise to a lot of us when we start planning!

You are often paying for more than just food when you're paying $18/plate. That $18 (which is very cheap!) includes the staff service, food, and drinks (likely water/pop). Either way, if you really don't want to pay that much then you could always move your reception earlier and have brunch or a cake and punch reception. Cake and punch reception is just as it sounds, you serve just cake and some drinks, the reception should be from about 1pm to 4pm max.

We are skipping supper. Our ceremony is at 7 with popcorn and nocho bar then at 10 have sandwiches, hotdogs veggies and chips and dip thought out the night.