To think £100 pp for a wedding is ridiculous

[Kab13]

Found a great venue for our wedding, you can stay all weekend with 34 of your guests in these beautiful houses for a reasonable price.
Got a quote for the lot yesterday and it amounts to £100 pp for breakfast dinner, canapés and a couple of drinks per guest.
Someone please tell me that it's just way too much? Because I love the venue but I can not bring myself to pay £14 for "six bites" of canapés pp and £50 PLUS VAT for ICE?!
Really annoyed that such a lovely venue has ruined itself for us by insisting you use this ridiculous caterer.
And yes, that is the "cheapest" package they offer!

We have 80 people for the wedding breakfast...we could do much more sensible things with that kind of money.

I've had a look at your spreadsheet, I would say the three course meal for £50 pp is a little excessive. It depends what the meal is though, if you are all having lobster then fair enough. But if it's a standard fine dining meal it should be less since they are making it on mass.

If you love the venue then try and negotiate with them. One venue I looked at wanted double for the same thing, so we went with a different one.

Book church/register office. Hire a village hall, preferably one with parking and a playground (if inviting children) and near some B&Bs. Bribe people with pizza and beer to decorate it. Get caterers to do afternoon tea. Speeches. Hot buffet and band or dj.

That's the best wedding I have ever been too. Memorable for it's simplicity.

Are people definitely going to want to stay three nights? Yes, they may be driving 7 hours & so may need to stay the night before as well as the night of the wedding but would they want to spend the extra night?
How does the catering work for the meals other than the wedding breakfast? Will it be self catering? Are you planning on providing the food or are you planning on the guests providing the food? Do they all know each other so they could agree in advance that one person will be on charge of a supermarket shop or that they will all have take way one night or will they all provide their own bits & pieces?

Sorry to say that sounds like how much we paid pp. But there are cheaper venues, you just have to decide if it is worth it to you. We actually had their overpriced wine because the corkage made it cheaper than buying elsewhere! And guests stayed in nearby hotels at their own expense although we had a block of travelodge rooms for anyone that needed them and paid for a minibus to the local hotels- that could be an option for a non- accommodation venue?

Sounds very expensive but if you like the place. Weddings seems to have become overpriced. We paid £30 per head for three course home cooked meal by owner and staff at 14 c manor house including use of the whole place free. Only our whole party there. The log fire in one of the rooms was one of favourite memories and the views over the countryside. I think shes put her price up now as its several years ago.

We hired a uni hall of residence (out of term time obv) for our guests. Not glamorous - but everyone on one campus & not pricey at all.

She didnt even charge us cockage. She didnt have licence so we just bought own wine which we bought in france especially for this.

Corkage not cockage!!!!!! Throwing ipad out of window now

OP Sorry if I missed it, does £100 include accommodation ?

if food only, what are the accommodation costs per person and are guests paying their own?

and what exactly is "all weekend " ? how many nights ?

Accommodation cost surely is down to each guest choice...cant be part of that £100. If part if that £100 its better value

London that s what I want clarified!

Thought so too. Wonder if op has to pay for venue too as well.

Are you paying for the accommodation for all your guests? If not what happens if your guests decide that they can't afford the rooms and you have unused rooms? Are you still responsible for paying for them? Also are you responsible for getting the money off your guests? That is a far bigger headache than chasing up RSVPs.

It's £100 pp for good & drink.
I'd be paying for accommodation for 3 nights.

And yes even after paying for accommodation at the venue if have to pay extra to get married there.
Me and do are paying for everything. Nobody else is contributing and I wouldn't ask them too either :)

Just worked out if I got married at a beautiful mill in Christchurch, hired out a converted barn that sleeps 38, provide my own alcohol with no corkage ( mill doesn't charge corkage), have canapés, a paella main and desert and a hog roast in the evening of save myself £12,500.
I'm not paying £100 pp for food :L

Are doing that kat? Sounds good

Yes, it was between very expensive venue and one other. The converted barn isn't as luxurious but it's having my family and dps family together for the weekend is what I care about.
And I save 12.5k
No brainier really, just needed to do the math!

I remember once looking at a London venue and the cheaper caterer worked out at £100 per person (not including venue costs). When I looked at the breakdown if the costs they included taxi fares for the catering staff!! That was it for me and we moved on from that venue.

We got married last year and it came in at around £10k for everything. We had exclusive use of a lovely gastro pub for the reception, with canapés, hot buffet meal then tapas in the evening. We had an entirely free bar in that cost too. We did get married in the register office which comfortably held 100 guests. I'd say food and drink cost around £45 a head.

Paying for everyone's accommodation is very generous.

Works out about £600 per person for 3 days and one meal. Assuming that a lot of the 34 people are room sharing, I would expect very good bedroom accomodation for that price.

hermione it was absolutely ridiculous accommodation, the rooms all had en suites with a steam room etc.
I love my family but not that much ;)

Ours was £65pp for welcome drink, canapés, three course meal with unlimited wine, toast drink and buffet. My parents paid for that which we were very grateful for. We booked exclusive use of venue fri-sun and if folk wanted to stay in one of the cottages I asked them to pay £60pp which people thought was very reasonable for 2 nights in lovely venue with hot tubs. We stocked cottages with food for breakfasts and put on a pizza and burger party on the Friday night. I thought it was worth the money for a lovely time with our family and close friends. But appreciate it's a lot of money and people may not be prepared or able to spend that much. Total cost of wedding was 24k including accommodation.

imme taxi fares for catering staff!?
Shocking!