I have had a startling conversation with a co-worker. Her daughter is getting married, and they have settled on a location and menu, and the invitations have gone out. My co-worker said they are still waiting on a number of uncertain RSVPs, and then she added, acting out her own inner monologue: “I mean, we’re spending $250 a plate, can you at least let me know if you’re coming??”
The first time she mentioned that number, I made the active decision to keep my face actively neutral. I don’t know who has what money, or what their priorities are, and no one is asking my face for its opinion. But the THIRD time she said that price, I decided that someone doesn’t say it three times in as many minutes unless they want to talk about it, so I said in a cautious, you-are-the-parent-who-is-slightly-further-down-the-road-than-me-and-I-learn-at-your-feet voice, “I didn’t know it COULD cost that much.” Which was at least theoretically untrue, because if you had told me that, say, George Clooney spent $250/plate for his wedding reception, I would not have said the same thing. But I mean I didn’t know it was possible for ORDINARY PEOPLE I WORK WITH to be semi-casually paying that much per plate for a wedding reception. Groceries for a family of four for a month, or one single dinner for that family at a wedding = the same price.
And she replied, “That is just the AVERAGE, BUDGET-FRIENDLY cost these days! We looked at several other possibilities that were MUCH more. We relocated the wedding to [nearby state] to bring it down as low as this!”
This is when I resolved to come to you. I feel we need to pool our Group Knowledge on this. IS $250/plate the average, budget-friendly cost of throwing a wedding? My co-worker is NOT WEALTHY. She works in a LIBRARY where, for example, I have been working for five years at an exemplary level and I make $17/hour, which for comparison is what McDonald’s and Target employees in my area START at, and in fact I recently saw Target is starting at $19. Her husband has a NORMAL JOB, and she works because she NEEDS TO as well as WANTS TO. We do not live in a particularly expensive area, and in fact they moved the wedding to be in an even less expensive area. If the average, budget-conscious wedding is $250/plate, then I would like to know NOW so that I can inform the children we are OPTING OUT. I mean it. We are OPTING. OUT. We will find other ways to get married that give us more bang for the buck.
We could have it in the yard, and we could pick up a dozen different pizzas from each of three different local pizzerias, and we could buy every single different variety of Bota boxed wine and line them up along a folding table for tasting purposes, and have two giant coolers full of ice and beer! We could go to one of the beautiful local parks, and hire food trucks! The happy couple could instead ELOPE TO ITALY FOR TWO WEEKS FOR THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME, and we’d still save money! I went to a lovely, lovely wedding where they got married in a church and then had cake and strawberries and champagne in the large beautifully-lit church foyer, and my guess is that it did not cost ANYWHERE EVEN REMOTELY APPROACHING $250/person. This is a loving family celebration! Are we suddenly a $250/plate family, when yesterday we were happy with store-brand ice cream?
My intention was to avoid sounding judgey, but clearly that is a lost cause. I don’t MEAN to sound judgey, but I think that is how it unmistakably comes across when someone is astonished by the amount of money someone else is spending on something. We have talked about this before, with Startling Expenses, and we have agreed it is Not Nice At All to express that astonishment to the person whose expenses are startling to us—especially not without first FULLY coming to terms with our own Startling Expenses. Which is why, with my co-worker, I first SUPPRESSED my astonishment, and then, when it seemed she WANTED a reaction, at least went with with MEEK IGNORANCE version of astonishment. But here, among friends, my hope is to PRIVATELY and SAFELY express the astonishment as a conversation-opener and attitude-adjuster: I am astonished, which is going to come across as judginess, but you are my friends; and you know I am prepared, in your company and under your counsel, to go from astonishment to resignation/understanding/enlightenment(/opting-out).
We should also recognize the challenge under these circumstances of presenting information without JUSTIFYING it. Let’s imagine a vastly exaggerated situation, exaggerated beyond all possible connection to actual reality, where someone has paid $250 per guest for a Lyft driver to pick up food at a Burger King drive-through for the reception. We know from studying psychology that humans are prone to mentally justifying their decisions after the fact, no matter how irrational those decisions actually were. That is, if they made that decision, it MUST by definition have been a smart and reasonable decision, and they will find evidence to defend that idea. Someone who, against all objective reason, has spent $250 per person for wedding guests to be fed room-temperature Burger King take-out that should have cost $12 per person, might be inclined to deliver impassioned arguments for why it is WORTH IT to SPEND MONEY on a SPECIAL DAY for WHAT YOU WANT. Before we begin our important work, let us all try to separate ourselves from that psychological inclination. If it is useful to put the financial information in an anonymous comment, in order not to feel the anticipatory gaze of judgement that activates that psychological shield of justification, let’s go ahead and do that.
Because here is what I would like us to do, if you are willing. I would like us to POOL what we know, as objectively as possible. Some of us know a little and some of us know a lot, some of us know specific things and some of us know general things, and it is all valuable in the pool. Maybe you can contribute how much it cost per plate to get married when YOU got married, and use an inflation calculator to figure out what that is in today’s dollars; that is to prevent us from boasting like old people that WE only spent TWENTY dollars a plate in 1965, when that would be the equivalent of TWO HUNDRED dollars a plate in 2025. Or maybe you can contribute how much it cost for your child’s reception—again, unless your child got married this year, we’ll need to use the inflation calculator to make sure we are talking about the same dollars. Or maybe you or your friend or your child is getting married SOON, and you have CURRENT ACTIVE PRICING for us to consider: maybe you know that you can spend as little as $30/plate, but only if you want bad cafeteria food (in which case I am going to really lean into my pizzas / food trucks ideas, which I suspect would please more guests, if pleasing guests is the goal), or maybe you know that everything is nuts right now because of the [reason the rest of us don’t know about], or maybe you have a friend who is a caterer and you know it varies considerably based on the RANGE of the number of people you want to feed (that is, perhaps it is VERY VERY DIFFERENT to feed 40-75 guests than to feed 150-200 guests). Or maybe you know that the real variable is not the food but the locale. All of this is very, very valuable.
Also valuable: information about the QUALITY OF FOOD. If you spent $50/plate in 1997, which is the equivalent of $100/plate in 2025, and your reception food was chicken breast, rice, and mixed vegetables that you would have been willing to pay mayyyybe a halfhearted $16 for in 2025 on a busy night when you can’t face making dinner, that matters TOO. We can see how it could be delightful to treat your friends and family to truly good dinner at a fair price, but less satisfying to treat your friends and family to a meal that cost you roughly six times as much as you would EVER have paid for the same food at a restaurant, if you follow me. VALUE: that is a concept that applies regardless of price-point.
My brother and his fiancé are planning a spring 2026 wedding and it will be $100 per plate. They are having between 75-100 people and from the menu they showed us it looks like it will be standard fare but a plated dinner not a buffet. I work in a school and we are currently planning prom for next year. Venues always mark up for weddings but we are having prom at a local venue that is very popular for weddings. We looked at a cheaper place with a buffet prom with gross food that would have been $58 per plate we went with the $75 per plate buffet for edible food at a different location and their plated dinner started at $95 which was bananas for a prom. In the last five years prices have truly skyrocketed with venues, in 2021 senior prom cost in the neighborhood of $45,000 and it will probably be more than $50,000+ when we host it in two years.
My sister just got married so I can answer this one! Your coworker is probably including the total cost of the wedding, not just the food to get to that $250 number. A $25,000 wedding with 100 guests would not be unusual at all these days, I’d even say below average.
Reddit has a TON of really interesting and detailed budget breakdowns. But roughly it’s probably $10k food & bar, 3k photography, 5k florals, 2k planner, plus dress and alterations, invites, signage, transportation, hair and makeup, other decorations. There are so many little expenses that really add up, it’s wild.
We’re in our early to mid 30, from normal middle/upper middle class backgrounds, and in our friend groups most parents give a number – we will gift you $X, you can use it on wedding/down payment/whatever.
I left out the VENUE FEE. +5-20k depending on venue. Also DJ ($$) or band ($$$$).
And I should add – this is for what I’d consider a pretty normal “nice” wedding. Open bar, passed appetizers, seated dinner, at a professional venue.
I agree that the coworker is likely taking the total cost of the wedding and dividing by number of guests, rather than serving a true $250/plate experience. I was married seven years ago, our costs were about $300 per person and it was honestly a FANCY wedding. Gorgeous venue, copious flowers, string quartet for the ceremony and cocktail hour, open bar and really top-notch food. We live in Toronto which is an expensive city, and we married in the downtown core (which is extra expensive).
Inflation would make these costs $369 per person and that feels reasonable to me, I would make the same decisions today.
This is what I was wondering, is $250 a head the total wedding budget divided by number of guests, or is it JUST dinner?
My parents did the same for my brother and I, giving us each $5k to be used towards our weddings (in 2009 and 2013). I don’t think my in laws contributed to the wedding costs, but I imagine they gave us a cash wedding gift. I personally did not expect anyone to pay for any part of my wedding, and felt that it was generous of my parents to offer such a large sum.
While I didn’t question her on exactly what she meant, I don’t think from context that she was dividing the entire cost of the wedding. She said “$250/plate,” and she was talking as if it made a difference to the cost if those people attended or not. If she was including other costs, such as the photography and flowers and dress and invitations, those wouldn’t change if people did or didn’t show.
Yea I don’t think she was including photo, video, flowers in that cost ..
I have never gotten married or been responsible for paying for a wedding, but I DID just do most of the cooking (for free!) for my friend’s wedding earlier this month. (Not a huge wedding—around 20-25 people—but still.) It was an enormous amount of work and I’d definitely want to be paid if I were to ever do it again, but definitely not $250 a plate. For context, I did sandwiches and finger foods for lunch, then three entrees for dinner (chicken, lasagna, stuffed peppers) plus side dishes. Nothing particularly fancy, but tasted pretty good if I do say so myself.
We spent about $800 on groceries (excluding alcohol), but we had such a ridiculous amount of leftovers that we probably could have gotten away with more like $500.
The day before the wedding, my friend’s mom paid for me to get my nails done. I was remarking to another guest about how nice that was, and they said something like, “Well, in fairness, you did just save her literal thousands of dollars.” (Said guest works in food service and has catered weddings in the past.)
To clarify, I’m not a professional chef, and although I can’t picture charging $250 a plate (or even, like, $50 a plate) for my *own* cooking, I can understand paying more for a professional.
Oh! Also! They did takeout from Chipotle for the rehearsal dinner: one tray each of basically every burrito filling on the menu, plus tortillas and chips. There were about twenty people at the rehearsal (almost everyone who came to the wedding), and we had at least twice as much food as we needed. I did not personally pay for it, but I’ve been told that it cost about $400.
We rented out our favorite restaurant and paid $150/head. This was “off hours” (11am!) to give us a deal, and in a major city, 15 years ago.
For comparison (because I love the idea of renting out a restaurant), do you remember approximately what it would cost to eat there as normal patrons on a regular night? I’m trying to gauge the difference between “what a restaurant costs per person” and “what renting out that same restaurant costs per person.”
We got married and had our reception in a very nice restaurant (and the food was SO GOOD). We got married on a Sunday morning so our reception was a brunch (but with heavier food, like coconut shrimp and cheesecake) and the only booze was a round of mimosas for toasting (my family was/is very conservative, so open bars are generally not a thing, so nobody felt like they were missing out on getting drunk at 11am on a Sunday). We had about 80 people and I believe our restaurant bill was about $3000 at the time and about $5000 now, so in todays dollars about $62. We actually just went back to that restaurant last night to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and spent $350 for apps, entrees, and drinks for seven people (and tip), so fairly comparable!
Not the OP but I had a restaurant wedding! We rented out a new location of a popular Brazilian barbecue AYCE spot. It was about $60 before tax and tip for an adult dinner there. I think we had to pay $100 x 220 (the max of people) plus tax and “service charge” (so tax got charged on it instead of a tip) so a total of about $27000. This included open bar and AYCE of four desserts as well though, which aren’t part of the base salad bar/endless grilled meats meal. Also, we benefited from it being a new location as the manager estimated their cost for closing for business that evening. I think the event manager said they use the number from the same date the year prior as the base cost. A friend of a friend heard about our reception and got a quote and it was double what we paid (for the same scenario, buyout on the Sunday of a holiday weekend).
Also forgot to include that my wedding was in September 2015, today’s dollars would be $36000 for the reception. I think we would do it again. I have no regrets about the wedding (except for part of the guest list) and am still thankful we did not have a dance floor and any documentation of our terrible dancing. Instead we had great unlimited food and drink, a fun photobooth, and people still get dreamy eyed when they mention our wedding.
We did a version of this. Had family style food at Maggianos upstairs in their banquet rooms. Can’t remember price, just that it was delicious. Entire wedding was 8k for about 100 people in 2007, organized in 3 months.
My niece is getting married at a wedding-only venue in a decent-sized Midwest(ish) city this fall. They are doing it on Sunday to reduce cost, it’s $14k minimum spend (Saturday is $22,000 minimum). It’s set pricing at $150 per person for food, which includes three hors d’oeuvres per person, salad, plated meal, beer & wine, and a champagne toast. The full liquor bar is extra, plus bartender fees. It could easily be $250 a person if a full bar is included (and you can add more to the meal for more cost)
I am HERE for the comments, thank you all for your contributions, this is extremely relevant to my interests. I have two daughters of marriageable age, both with a serious boyfriend, and I am increasingly nervous about the Cost of Weddings These Days. Their father and I married in 1991 with a budget of $3,000 ($7,200 in today’s prices, thank you for the calculator); our reception consisted of cake, nuts, and those little butter mints which my dad bought from Sam’s.
We married in April 1990, so our $5000 wedding, reception & honeymoon would have cost about $12,500 now. My mom gave us $2500 to help, & we kept it under 40 people (no kids). My husband had lost his job in Feb 1990 after all the deposits were paid, so all we could do, was downsize. The facility had a price for 40 people or 100, so we opted for 40 or less with just a cake & punch reception (we bought about 5 bottles of wine to have an optional wine punch along with the regular one). Our week honeymoon was a hotel about 1/2 hour from Yosemite & we drove in each day & back out each night.
In his family, there were lots of kids, so we invited our families & a couple close friends to a BBQ potluck that evening (at the MofH’s house). We supplied the meat & some of the alcohol which was included in our costs, & everyone else brought stuff like Salads, chips, buns, etc – depending on where they lived & if they could go home to pick up something or had to keep it in the car during the wedding. This idea gave the kids a chance to help celebrate our wedding & we didn’t have to pay for them at the venue
It wasn’t the wedding or reception I initially wanted, but after he was no longer working, no way could we justify putting more on the credit cards that we would be paying off, with just my salary. His unemployment paid for the gas to look for a job & make the minimum on his 2 credit cards. It took 6 months for him to get a permanent full time job & another 12 years for us to pay off all the credit cards (yes, we lived on them for awhile) & 2 cars, but we got it done & have never looked back.
It’s cheaper to marry off a son than a daughter, so you’ve got that going for you. Another wild card expense is plane tickets and other travel expenses; if your sons’ brides aren’t from your area, you’ll have that to consider. I would get to work now opposing the idea of a destination wedding, because those costs are so high. There are no bargains at destination venues.
I have come to cheer for the couples who Just Say No to the demands of the wedding industrial complex.
Are you sure the groom’s parents aren’t expected to pay these days? My local discussion board is full of complaints about hetero weddings in which the groom’s parents aren’t paying what the bride and/or her family think they should, which is generally half.
My wedding was in my small hometown nearly 30 years ago, and I admit I don’t remember what anything cost, but none of it inspired grumbling from my very thrifty parents.
I thought the same thing until my son married a girl whose parents would not contribute to the wedding and son and soon to be daughter in law asked us to pay for the large portion that they (college students) could not afford. Made for a very awkward situation. I learned to offer a set amount soonish after the engagement so there is no misunderstanding about what we can do for a wedding as we try to save for retirement as well. Wedding finances can get sticky very fast.
My parents – three daughters – did this as well. A set amount was offered shortly after our engagements and then we covered the rest if we went above that set amount. My in-laws also offered a set amount and then did not provide it, which was disappointing and confusing. Knowing what I know about their finances now (20 years later) they were in no position to offer anything and I would have preferred they were honest with us about that.
I just attended a friend’s wedding in April and she was very open with what things cost. I know she spent $75/head for a very standard buffet (salad, potatoes, veggies, a short rib dish and a chicken dish) and it included I think 3 or 4 different passed appetizers for a cocktail hour. $75 did not include the actual flatware and plates, that would have brought the cost up to $88/head. Instead she went to a party city that was going out of business and bought decent plastic stuff. I know the venue was $5k. So that brings the total to $138ish/head, $150 if you wanted real plates. And that doesn’t include the open bar, the desserts, t the decorations, dj, wedding attire, flowers and all that other stuff. This was my friend’s and her new husband’s second marriage and she said if she had to do it over again, she wouldn’t have had the wedding.
I suspect the commentator above is correct and the price per head is not just for the *plate* – but that might be how most people talk about wedding costings per head in your area? But maybe I’m just wildly out of sync with the wedding market!
I got married in March 2017 (in the UK though, to be fair) and according to the calculator our wedding would have been $21k (ish) in today money. I think around $9k of that would have been ceremony venue and my dress, we splurged on a very special ceremony location but our reception was in a pub with no hire fee. So let’s say $13k, 65 guests. That would have been exactly $200 per head for all food, included alcohol, wedding cake, the London bus that carried us from one venue to the other, etc?
TBH this is probably redundant as a comparison tool because our wedding was very DIY (although the main meal wasn’t and the food was excellent). but I’m committed now! We served snack bags (pretzels, popcorn etc ) instead of canapés, had a gin bike to serve cocktails after the ceremony, then ate a plated meal (served family style, some kind of beef, roast potatoes, lots of different vegetables), and a cheese course. And I made a dessert table with lots of homemade cookies and brownies, wedding cake, pastel de nata from a local food market.
Ok. So I would ignore my own cost comparison, but I would also say there is a lot to be saved in being creative and cutting the bits of a wedding you don’t care about. It doesn’t have to be a single venue, throw your money at them like confetti and come out with a mediocre meal and a cheesy Master of Ceremonies set-up… I would much rather have pizza in your garden!
Her concern seemed to be the money that would be wasted if the people said they would be there and then didn’t show up, so I do think she meant only the part that varies per guest.
We went to Scotland to get married 23 years ago. The whole shebang cost us $4500. Dress, tux, photographer, civil registry service, dinner, honeymoon for a week in the UK. My parents came, that was it. I have never regretted not having a traditional wedding. Hopefully my kids will be inspired by our unconventional choice because OMG the numbers are insane. The calculate said 4500 then would cost us 7200 now. STILL a bargain.
We got married in 2014 in the Pacific NW. Our dinner was $30 a plate, which would be $40 a plate today (thanks to the calculator!) for a wedding of 200 people. The food was served as a buffet from a catering business in town, and I am struggling to remember one single food item that was served…except the kale salad with beets. My mom (who was paying for the food, so absolutely got to have her way on this,) was adamant that it was the best looking thing on the menu and ordered it as a side. And when we had literally pounds of it left over, she insisted on freezing it and bringing it out at different family gatherings for a few years. Actually, now that I’m writing this, I’m having a little bit of nostalgia for the frozen wedding beet salad…
I should say that the $30 a plate did not include alcohol, as we purchased that on our own, and my bar-tending friend with an alcohol service license graciously manned the bar. This worked for us because we had our wedding reception in my parents’ 1-acre backyard, which honestly was so great. (There were a few unexpected costs to doing it that way…like renting a few porta-potties…since my parents’ house doesn’t have that many bathroons.) We paid good money for the things we really cared a lot about (photography, for instance, and having a catered dinner) and didn’t pay as much for things we cared less about (one of our friends DJ-ed for us.) We ended up really having a good time at the wedding. And we still had a little savings left over to put toward a house down payment. I think weddings can be many different styles a still be good fun! Food trucks sound amazing.
I got married in 2005, in Westchester, NY, and the dinner was $70/plate, $116 in today’s money. It included a nice cocktail hour, beer/wine open bar, and a plated dinner where guests could ask for seconds/ try the other entree. Total cost of the wedding was $21k, about $35k today.
My parents have contributed to 3 weddings in the last 10 years (not mine) and I think their contribution has been around $10,000-$15,000 each. I gathered that this covered around half for each wedding that probably was around 250 guests.
If I remember right, these types of numbers typically come wedding magazines, and leave out the very large number of people who do not have magazine weddings. But it is probably true that that is what it costs if you are going to have professional photography, professional florists, a professional venue, banquet style-food, etc.
We got married (16 years ago) at a municipal garden and then had the reception in my parents’ backyard, got catering from a Mexican restaurant instead of official “wedding” catering, and almost everything we had was not quite professional wedding level. It was quite a bit cheaper and a lot of fun – helped by easy going guests (my favorite wedding ever was a friend’s where the guests set out the tables and chairs and the DJ didn’t show up on time and we ended up singing the wedding march). But also we had no back-up plan for rain (it’s California, it doesn’t rain at all six months+ out of the year), and there was a massive storm a week or two later, so there are some reasons to actually pay the people who knows what they are doing.
I got married in 2012, in Canada, in an area where weddings are, say, more expensive than rural areas but less expensive than New York City. Our dinner cost about $87 per plate, which is $118 in today’s dollars. Canadian dollars. Our dinner was a beautiful buffet, VERY high quality and delicious, people still talk about it to this day. It felt very expensive to me at the time, but our parents generously covered most of our wedding costs.
I went to wedding a few weeks ago that used a taco catering service, and it was incredibly delicious and satisfying. They made fresh churros for dessert. It was LIKE a food truck but a little fancier.
A question I had about your coworker’s daughter’s wedding costs is whether that is all-inclusive, or some kind of package, or JUST dinner? Because our dinner cost was a wedding package that also included the ceremony venue, tables/cloths/chairs/dinnerware, and desserts but not a cake.
I’m afraid I don’t know what specifically is included. She just said $250/plate.
OMG what, that seems insane. I had a fairly pricey wedding at a hotel in Banff and I think the food was like $50-60/ plate, and of course there were venue costs and booze but I don’t really remember what the price tag was because I didn’t pay for it. Maybe it averaged $100/ plate, which would be expensive in 2002, and I certainly wouldn’t describe it as a budget option. I have nothing to offer except that $250/ plate does not feel like a budget option. But what do I know? All I can think of is that maybe $250 is the average cost with literally everything else: music, venue, booze, food. Because if it’s $250/ meal that seems like a lot.
I got married in 2007 in New Orleans. Ceremony, venue, signature cocktail (mojito!), open bar, buffet, and cake? At the Maisin Dupuy in the quarter was $75/head. The band was, uh, potentially $5k, flowers were $1k (gerber daisies), photos were like $2k?
Idk. It was like 70 people and the total was $18,000? I did the calculator for the meal but not everything. I’ll post that in a minute. (Per person venue — no dress, photos or music would be $120 today, which sounds reasonable still. Maybe I’ll check what they charge)
For comparison, and why we did it there: a friend in Massachusetts paid $30k the year before no open bar. Flights were like $140rt and the hotel was under $100/night (it was June in New Orleans). And I wanted a band! My dress was $300. Rehearsal was shrimp boil with a keg at a bar and cheap. Like $400? Know the bar owner and ask.
Food trucks and fairy lights and music in a backyard sounds DELIGHTFUL. I would still splurge on the band. Idk what they charge but there is a place in Exeter NH called the Word Barn, that would be a lovely wedding venue. They do weddings. They have a stage and a sound system.
Some places sounded cheaper but required renting tables and linens and plates and utensils and a caterer and and then it was the same or more.
The $18k is about $30k today. Imma ask my friend who works at a hotel in Salem, MA what weddings are running over there these days
My wedding today would have be $80 per plate. $250 is bonkers and we are judging, no shame.
Not exactly answering your question but I have 3 siblings and in our case our parents gave each of us about $7000 (that is the number using your calculator and allowing for a currency conversion) to spend as we wish on our respective weddings. I think it is a good approach when you have multiple children – keeps things fair, gives the parent a little distance from the decision making, makes things even between traditional expectations for sons/daughters, and each couple can choose to spend it on the type of thing most important to them (or put a chunk of it away if they want a super simple wedding). And if a child doesn’t marry, maybe you give it to them at some point for another purpose?
I don’t remember what we spent on our wedding: we had good food and venue, a string quartet for the pre-dinner part, and pretty simple on everything else (music, drink, friends did flowers etc). As nice as it was, I’d make it smaller and simpler if I had to do it over.
I’d be interested in your takeaways after reading all the comments!
Also, I thoroughly enjoyed the humorous way you wrote this post, Swistle! Brilliant as usual.
I LOVE this take. I have two daughters (21 and 19) and I can very easily see planning a potential wedding being stressful from the money side as a parent footing part of the bill. Flat donation! Do with it what you wish! sounds WAY better for everyone. Clear expectations! Pretty fair! Removes outside decision making unless it is asked for!
We had friends make our food, and later made the food for the next set of friends getting married. This was 10 years ago. It was $10/person for things like shepherd’s pie (plus a couple dietary restricted options), salad, chilled peach soup, one type of wine + a champagne toast. It was similarly priced for the people who did roast beef, gravy, roasted carrots, salad, and hard cider.
In both cases, we chose menus with main dishes that could be made well in advance and frozen, then gently reheated day-of. Salads and fruit were assembled the wedding weekend.
We spent $2,000 for 200 people. They were all fantastic meals, with tons and tons of leftovers.
I went to a food truck wedding reception. I enjoyed it. There were lines at times, but it really did work. It was in 2021 or 2022. The wedding was outside. The food trucks were outside (well, obv). There was outside seating for everyone with some indoor as well.
My wedding, on a Saturday night at a small city venue, was $114 per person for appetizers, a decent but not fancy buffet dinner, and cheesecakes for dessert, and an open beer and wine bar. The total cost including everything was $220 per person in today’s dollars.
I love the ideas of giving a flat amount per child, but I do want to add a cautionary warning. A major factor in my selected venue was making sure my only living grandparent could attend my wedding comfortably, and that meant a handicapped accessible venue with a handicapped accessible bathroom. No grass, no stairs, no port-a-potties, etc. That ruled out a lot of less formal venues and catering options that we enjoyed at friend’s weddings and substantially increased the costs over what we might have planned. I hesitate to judge or make sweeping decisions about how much I will contribute to my children’s weddings because I can easily imagine that getting married in an inexpensive venue like a park could be perfect for one child and completely unworkable for another based simply on family health and mobility, let alone other factors that I cannot anticipate.
Handy dandy inflation calculator, I think the equivalent amount for our wedding was about $200 a plate in today’s dollars… meaning per person when considering total event cost. This was DIY in some ways (I did my own flowers, I had a relatively inexpensive dress that was also gifted to me, I found my shoes on super clearance at DSW) and very much “paying for convenience and vibe” in other ways (open wine/beer bar, rented out the whole restaurant which is also a venue, the venue came with a day-of coordinator, we had a DJ, etc.). I might be wrong but I would safely say that we were around that ballpark? I might have overestimated somewhat, I can’t exactly recall the final amount.
My family has a lot of daughters and no sons, and the parents of said daughters contributed a flat amount to all daughters. In fact, because most of us happened to get married around the same time, I think my dad just gifted that amount at the same time to EVERYONE to do with what they wished.
My daughter’s didn’t do fancy weddings. One got married in her inlaws backyard, and they made the food. Only other expenses were tent/ chairs rental, and a bouncy house thing for the reception. She got her dress for $10 at a thrift store. I think they spent under $1500 total. Another married at a courthouse and had Chinese food and pizza back at their apartment. So maybe $5 per person? She got her dress from a vintage shop. Last daughter did a courthouse ceremony and had a lovely reception later at a tapas restaurant. The was probably $75-100 per person for 40 people. Lots of food leftover though. But my daughters paid for everything themselves as they all had been working for a while.
I eloped and spent $100 for the officiant and $50 for some rings many years ago, which is about $350 in today’s dollars.
This is very relevant to my interests!! My oldest son just got engaged over the weekend. They have decided on a small wedding (and using the $$ her parents put aside for her wedding on a down payment for a house). They have asked to have it in our backyard. And, they need a kosher caterer. Currently, I have no idea how much this will cost or what “small” means.
My husband and I eloped THIRTY ONE years ago (next week). But, my kids did have Bar Mitzvahs, which are similar to weddings in that there were venue or tent rentals, caterers, photographers, etc. They cost between $2,500 and $5,000 in today’s money. All this to say… I have no idea, but I find $250/pp outrageously expensive. I mean, like you said, if that is what people are comfortable spending, great. I am not one of those people.
I just have to say that I had a similar situation several years ago where a friend was bemoaning the costs of her daughter’s upcoming wedding in Italy. When I commented that perhaps they could do such and such to keep the costs down (since she was complaining about the price after all), she snapped at me because she thought I had insulted her by insinuated they didn’t have the money to cover said costs. It put a 25 year old friendship in the fridge.
I will never again touch that third rail!
I just Googled cost per plate wedding for our metro area (a generally expensive place to live) and it spat out $125-200. So there’s that.
I too believe she means “all in per guest” rather than “a $250 meal each”. I mean, I have to believe that’s what she means! We got married in August 2003. We had (I think) 150 guests. It was a morning ceremony followed by a great catered lunch in a very nice place in a small town. My parents, my in-laws, and my husband and I each paid a third and it was $9000, so $3000 each. In today’s money that seems to be $100 per person, for everything associated with the venue, flowers, food, cake. But that did NOT include my dress, bridal party wear, a jazz band my dad paid for and an after-party of sorts back at my parents’ place, which had booze and more food. My parents paid for that part entirely as it was important to them (not so much us, although definitely added to the day). So I guess, yeah, I can kinda see how the TOTAL cost divided by guests could get there pretty fast these days. 10 years later my brother had a very small “rent out a restaurant” wedding and it was lovely and easy – fingers crossed my kids want that!
I don’t think she can possibly mean this, much as we might wish to think so! She was talking as if the four people who were waffling about rsvp-ing would cost her $1000 more if they came vs. if they did not. That wouldn’t be the case if she were including the band and the flowers.
My partner (40) and I (36) tried to plan a small wedding celebration after our elopement this year in the Catskills, Hudson Valley or NYC. Granted we are in an expensive area, but we looked at all the “affordable” options that show up on all the lists online. It was MINIMUM $150 a plate, plus 25% in fees and 8% sales tax on top of that. If you wanted bar packages etc, the avg we saw was $250 a plate (plus 33% for those fees). Venue fees were 10-15K for a weekday to 20/25K on a Saturday. Costs were often 30-50%+ what they were 5 years ago when I compared to friends old notes. My fiance and I both do well financially, but would get zero help from our parents and we have large extended family and friends. Even with only 50 people invited, which could potentially cause family rifts and hurt feelings, we couldn’t stomach the price.
If you wanted a ceremony you had to add on a ceremony fee, hair and makeup, extended photographer hours etc. Almost all my friends (regular people with a small amount of family help) have gone over budget by $20Kish. I have NO IDEA how you loose track of $20K, but these are smart, frugal, educated people. I think the fees and hidden costs add up. My rich friends with trust funds have spent $150K-200K on their weddings.
As others have mentioned a restaurant buy out is definitely the cheaper way to go, but that often means no dance floor. An “after party” at a local bar, this can add up if you want to pay for everyones drinks.
The only wedding that made sense to me was a party in a loved ones backyard, but we don’t have a house we can use in the right location/size. You can rent/buy tables and chairs. Thrift/borrow plates/cups/silverware. There are pretty big facebook marketplace groups here of people buying and selling these wedding items. Sometimes the cost of renting a plate is the same price as buying it from Ikea or a thrift store.
A layer of this for us is our family is spread across north america, and I would be embarrassed to ask people to travel at great expense to have a more casual backyard bbq vibe. If most of my family was in one area, I would do the casual backyard thing. I have been a bridesmaid in 10 weddings, and the cost of flights, hotels, dresses, bachelorette parties, ubers, showers etc adds up. If I am asking my family and friends to spend thousands to travel there is a minimum threshold I would feel we had to provide. And we cannot stomach that cost.
We are now eloping in NYC with two family members each and this alone will cost around $10K.
-Outfit 1 – $1000
-Outfit 2 – $750
-Hair and Makeup for 2 people – $800
-3 Hotel rooms for family for 2 nights – $3200
-Photographer for 2 hours – $1500
-Dinner drinks and tip – $3000
-Not included flights for my 2 family members
$10K seems insane! Insane! And these are nontraditional wedding outfits. I bought a non wedding dress from Jcrew for $250. It needs slight alterations which I know costs $100-250 in my area. Add in new spanx, $200 shoes etc. It all adds up so quickly. If I was super thin I would thrift an old dress from Goodwill for $25.
I also wanted to add, I have a friend who is one of 4 kids. Her parents had this very close knit group of friends and they all had 3-5 kids each. When the first kid got married every family bought something for the wedding. This was then used by all 20ish kids over the next ten years.
For example one family bought DJ equipment and speakers and the father learned how it worked. Another family bought a bunch of folding chairs and kept them in a shed on their large property, etc. One family bought basic table decor that could be customized with colored items, etc. Whenever someone got married this community would come together and use all these items to save lots of money.
If the bride chose to get married at the church hall, the cost of the wedding would be just food/alcohol and photography. Some of the kids chose to get married at more traditional venues for a fee, but saved on rental fees, dj costs etc.
When I started planning a wedding I was stunned at quotes for $50/plate ($77.50 today). I opted for a local BBQ restaurant’s catering hall for $17/plate ($26 today). The restaurant was/is somewhat of an institution in the college town where I got married – somewhere you always go when visiting, so I felt like I was giving my guests a meal they would probably want on their visit to town anyway. At minimum, nostalgia for people who went to college there.
The costs for using the building were baked into that (and non-alcoholic beverages – it was a dry wedding), but not the rest of my wedding. I find it odd that people are assuming your co-worker might mean everything?? Costs like photography, dress, etc, are not on a per-attendee basis! If fewer people RSVP, you’re not saving money on that stuff.
It looks like the restaurant’s catering venue has closed and they now charge $23/plate for the same meal, before beverages, in take-out catering. I probably should start talking up my wedding to my kids so they might do the same thing, haha!
Ok I just dug out the spreadsheet from our 2002 wedding! Our “all in” cost was $35K for 150 guests which is in the zone of your coworker but that is truly ALL IN and includes our clothes, rings (well not my engagement ring but our wedding rings), food, venue fee, flowers, photographer, hotel for us, etc etc. The food itself was $77 per person.
it was what I would call a pretty “fancy” wedding (out of town, at a vineyard, sit down meal) and very very nice but not one of those weddings you read about that is CRAZY over the top, you know? No ice sculptures or…whatever else would be at a Hollywood type wedding.
My husband and I were a bit older (29 & 35), had been working a number of years and mostly paid for it ourselves (a very little help from parents). We paid very close attention to cost but didn’t scrimp iykwim. It was a WONDERFUL wedding and I don’t regret a single dollar spent, I still think about it sometimes and look at the pictures!! (Maybe this is the “decision justification” of which you spoke!! But I am still so so happy with our wedding.)
I’m going to post this out-in-left-field suggestion because no one else has mentioned this : is there any possibility she meant $2.50 / head vs $250/head??
If she said, “Two-fifty a person” and you interpreted it without the decimal??
I ask because we just hosted a casual wedding reception for 200 friends and fam of my young son and his young bride and .. that’s about what we spent on a casual meal (skewers with meatballs and potato, watermelon wedge, Caesar salad and chocolate chip cookie ice cream sammies) it was delicious and laid back and we did all the prep and cleanup but the food itself was actually not very expensive!!
It’s a good thought but I don’t think it’s possible in the context.
I got married in 2014 and paid a little under $200/person in today’s money. We paid about $110/head for food, and it was passed small plates that guests said were delicious but a few people felt like they didn’t get enough food overall. That number includes dessert but not drinks – we prebought wine, prosecco, beer, and one signature cocktail. The bar was unlimited but not a full bar. We saved a lot on alcohol that way.
I did get married in a city with a 10% meals & entertainment tax, which drove those numbers up quite a lot. The venue was a flat $5k but it was an empty hall so we had to rent furniture, linens, and dishes/cups. The photographer was $5500 and worth every penny. We didn’t have a wedding party and went very basic with flowers (they still cost over $1k, though – again, the venue was an empty hall so it needed some decor.
$250/head for food and an open bar is a lot but honestly, not unthinkable (that it exists as an option – I’m not spending that on my kids!) It’s also possible that it’s the all-in price and your coworker is just exaggerating the impact of people standing her up because she wants to sound wealthier than she is? Or the venue is an all-in-one package deal and they actually change per head, not piece by piece?
(Best part of our wedding: we skipped a cake and did a make-your-own cookie/gelato sandwich bar instead. With little Lego cookie toppers just for us.)
That $110/head is in today’s money, btw. It was $80 in 2014.
I’m FIRSTLY stunned by how much inflation we’ve seen since my wedding, just 11 years ago!! 36%!?!?! WHAT!?
Our per-plate cost is a little hard to tease out, as we had it at a nice hotel so the food, bev, and space was all one consolidated fee. (And we did get some sort of a discount, as my FiL had worked there for many years!) But, ours priced out to $30k ($40.8k today WHAATT) which included cocktail hour with passed apps, open bar for both cocktail hour + dinner, venue space for both the ceremony & reception, and dinner for 150 people, which was buffet but “upscaled” because my mom is a food writer and restaurant reviewer so we needed good food, ha. It was all quite good, no complaints that I’m aware of. And still, all together that comes out to $272/head in inflation-adjusted dollars. INCLUSIVE OF THE VENUE! So yeah $250/plate seems egregious to me.
We rented out a restaurant in a high cost of living area 13 years ago. In today’s dollars, our 75 person wedding would be about $276/plate. This number includes the space/tables/open bar.
After reading comments here, I also want to add–my husband and I worked modest jobs and were still able to pay for a majority of our wedding ourselves. Both sets of parents contributed a flat amount. We chose the HCOL area (not where we lived) because I am from there originally and the majority of my extended family would not have been able to travel if I had my wedding elsewhere and it was important for them to be there. My husband grew up vacationing in the area, so it was nostalgic for him and his parents.
On the flip side, we had our rehearsal dinner at the dive Chinese restaurant that his family frequented on their trips–it was a hit!
This is such a fun (and alarming) topic.
The dinner at my wedding in 2008 cost $82 per person ($126 adjusted). The food included five appetizers, a beef tenderloin carving station, a make-your-own-pasta station, and a mashed potato bar. We added another appetizer for an additional $143 ($220 adjusted). The wedding took place in a restaurant at a resort, and was held on a Friday in December to keep costs down. The $82 per person did not include any alcohol, nor did it include any rentals (like special cups for the soup, linens, pub tables, dance floor, votive candles, and barstools). The rentals cost an additional $1,500 ($2,300 adjusted). Nor did the $82 per person include the candy bar we set up or the wedding cake or the flowers/decor, or the entertainment, or the photography, or anything related to the ceremony, which took place elsewhere and required hiring transportation. Since it was a destination wedding (although the destination was my home state), only about 75 guests attended.
My parents, bless them, paid for the whole thing. (Including lodging for our family and all of the members of the wedding party.) It was an amazing experience and I loved it, although it is very, very difficult as an adult to contemplate paying for such an extravagant wedding for my own kid.
If she did mean $250/plate – not counting in the other costs and open bar – that seems excessively high to me. For my son’s rehearsal dinner nearly two years ago, I think we paid somewhere between $50 – $75 per plate, not counting the bar tab.
We got married in New Hampshire, September 2023 and paid for it ourselves, so definitely wanted something low-key. We ended up going with a BBQ theme and it worked out to just over $100/per plate for 50 people. Adding in an 18% chef/service fee, State meals and room tax, waitstaff, and gratuity bumped it up another 2k, which raised the price per plate to around $147.00. This amount does not include the open bar, or the ice cream truck we brought in. For reference, this is what was included in that price:
-Cocktail Hour-
shrimp cocktail with lemon zest cocktail sauce
charcuterie board-various meats and cheeses, nuts, fruit, olives, crackers, bread
veggie crudites with aoli and hummus
caprese skewers
-Mains-
pulled pork sandwiches
smoked chicken
hoisin tofu skewers
brats with sauerkraut, peppers/onions, spicy mustart
-Sides-
veggie kabobs
roasted potato salad
jalepeno sour cream corn bread with honey butter
green garden salad with lemon or balsamic vinigrette
grilled whole corn with butter
-Dessert-
make your own strawberry shortcake
-Misc-
lemonade- two types
We definitely had too much food, but it meant that we could send everyone home with leftovers, so it worked out!
I plan a black-tie gala each year, so I’m super familiar with the costs per person for similar events. I agree that the cost probably doesn’t include things like wedding attire, flowers, or the band, because as you said, those wouldn’t change based on the number of guests. However, for $250 per person, it’s very likely more than just food and drink. That price sounds average to me if it includes the following: all rentals (tableware, linens, chairs, etc.). I imagine it also includes an open bar, which is incredibly expensive because in addition to the actual alcohol, by law in most states you typically need specially trained catering staff to serve legally. Also, for that price, I would assume passed hors d’oeuvres and a seated three-course meal with choice of protein, including a nicer beef option—definitely not a buffet. It could also include things like valet parking, since venues often charge per head for this as well. The really unfortunate part is that if you want a particular venue, you usually can’t opt out of these services. For example, if you said “I’ll bring my own cloth napkins” or “Uncle Joe can park the cars,” that typically wouldn’t be allowed. It’s maddening! Also, tax and tips for the catering staff adds to the final bill. Most weddings I’ve attended recently cost between $30,000 to $40,000 total with ~100 guests. So $25,000 per person and another $10,000 for flowers, dress, photographers … yeah, that tracks. Now if it’s “worth it” …. that’s a whole different question, but not what you asked. ;-)
I was wondering about linen and tableware rental as well. My nephew got married in Dec. 2022. My brother and SIL paid for almost everything. From what they said, they not only paid a venue fee but also had to rent the tables, chairs, linens, tableware, table decorations. They rented the tables, chairs, tablecloths and chargers (fancy plates) from the venue and the venues taller candlesticks. But then went to Party City and Dollar Tree for fancy plastic plates, goblets, cutlery, paper napkins and smaller votives to save money on those costs. They had a food truck from my nephew’s favorite BBQ restaurant for food and only had the wedding cake and groom’s cake for dessert. They had a bar with beer and wine and then a champagne toast.
I only know the total cost for the wedding. Because my SIL was furious that they had about 30 people who RSVPd yes and then not show up. They had so much food, cake and alcohol leftover. My brother made a joke about how his student meetings were now going to be so much more fancy to use up the plates, etc. that didn’t get used.
We had a Big Fancy Wedding in 2006- not huge head-count wise, just under 100 people- but we did the whole thing with plated meal, flowers, photographer, videographer, fancy venue, DJ for the reception, string quartet for the ceremony, favors, fancy invites, etc etc. All in we (my parents, that is) spent about $27,000. Inflation calculator puts that at $43,000 today. (Yikes.)
If I remember correctly, the actual meal was $50-ish per plate, but the total cost per guest all- in was about $270 each?
I hope for the State of the World that your coworker was just being dramatic about the plate cost and was calculating based on total cost, but obviously you were the one in the conversation and know better than me! In that case, oof. Ooooooof. I hope the food is like two lobsters per person and champagne followed by a dessert covered in gold leaf. And maybe an appetizer consisting of a crisp $100 bill to take home.
Super interesting discussion! We are still around the corner of wedding seasons for our kids and their cousins and friends. But, I do work in the event field (think, conference lunches and dinners rather than weddings) and we tried very hard to stay between $40-65/plate for served lunches at decent restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. But when prices rose above $80/plate, we switched up our event timing to lower food and beverage costs and moved away from restaurant venues. I’m positive that there’s a higher rate for wedding events than conference events, but $250/plate feels high (even for dinner) to me even on the West Coast.
For my own college student budget wedding 25 years ago, a friend did all the appetizers and my aunt did the cake as their wedding gifts to us. And, while I am extremely grateful to this day, I also feel wildly guilty that we didn’t pay them for their materials let alone their time and energy – they both came from out of state! I hope I’ll be able to pay it forward somehow.
Ours was $100 per person for just food in 2003 which the calculator says is $175 now. We paid $5000 for booze. That was for 100 people.
This was on a Saturday in June in Chicago, and it was delicious, it was passed hors doevres or however you spell that and then summery plated barbeque food.
My daughter is getting married next September in a small New England capitol city, at a public library. The per plate cost for the venue, which does include an open bar, linens, chairs, and a lighting package, starts at $223 per person. The venue only has one vendor allowed in the library, so they were our only option. This does not include the DJ/band, flowers, or any other decor, or photographer.
I must know the following: venue, menu, and whether decorations are included.
My wedding in 2004 cost ~$12,000, which is about $20,000 today. We had a traditional-ish large-ish wedding with a buffet.
All I can think of is Steve Martin/Martin Short in Father of the Bride and that wedding was indeed priced at “$250 a head”, covering everything from the food to the flowers to the tents, etc. Ol’ Steve was shocked then but that was in 1991. What I’m saying is, I don’t doubt her story if they are doing to whole, big traditional wedding and it’s TODAY’S dollars. Might actually be a “bargain”. We spent about $7,000 on our wedding in 1999 (40ish guests but that included my dress, tux rental, food, venue, all of it) and have no regrets:) But when I just checked that’s $335 per person in today’s dollars so HOLY SHIT! Anyway, in that movie they were charged per person based on RSVPs so your friend may indeed be correct, though insane to invite a lot of people.
I thought the same thing!! Haha
We got married in Oct 2016 and ours was also about $250/person (plate + open bar). Today that’s calculated to $334/person. I will say for our area this was a VERY FANCY wedding and I definitely could’ve done it for half that amount.
The $250/person was just food & beverage. Other expenses I can break down if there is interest: bridal shower, rehearsal venue, rehearsal dinner, gifts for everyone in the wedding party & parents, flowers, paper products (invitations, stamps, save the dates, ceremony bulletins, etc), DJ, photographer, videographer, church fee, rings, dress/shoes/veil/headpiece for me, suit/tie/socks for groom, table linens.
All in I think we had 150 attend and it was $60,000 ($80,000 in today’s dollars). I definitely regret spending this much on a wedding and advise anyone that asks me not to do it. There are all kinds of cool alternatives out there now.
Wedding inflation has gone up more than regular inflation, and it’s gone up more steeply since Covid. It’s tough out there!
I did some math and was briefly quite embarrassed, then read a few comments, and I don’t know, I might still be embarrassed, but when I did the inflation calculator I think our wedding comes out to $277 a plate, but that IS adding all the other costs in – hall rental, photographer, food, open bar. There were 135 people, it was a really nice dinner (I think there was a choice between chicken or beef, and a vegetarian option). I have no idea what a wedding costs these days, and it doesn’t look like any are on my horizon. I enjoyed reading this very much, though, and love the “let me tell them now that we are OPTING OUT”. I wouldn’t change much about how we did our wedding – tried not to sweat the small stuff, had a wonderful time with our family and friends – but totally agree there are many, many ways weddings can be done well.
I’d say DON’T factor in anything that wouldn’t vary based on guest list. Like, photographer definitely shouldn’t be included.
I don’t know the current average cost of a wedding, but I do know that in the area where I live, that price is absolutely possible. It would mean the reception is at a beautiful location, at a preferred time, with phenomenal food, and an open bar. If it is an all-exclusive venue, it is possible the per plate price could include lots of extras such as a Photo Booth, generous favors, some other fun activities (an artist live painting a portrait, stilt walkers, dry ice that creates a cloud effect, bounce houses for kids, etc). There are also lots of seemingly inconsequential ways to run up the costs on a wedding ($10 extra per table for the fancier tablecloths or the cloth-covered chairs, etc.).
The wedding industry is serious business especially because, ‘you only get married once; why not make it unforgettable’ can feel like a compelling argument.
I definitely remember feeling a lot of pressure around my wedding and how much I wanted the day to be special. I remember one point where I was stressing about which napkin color to choose to complement the bridesmaid dresses even as I knew how ridiculous I was being.
A middle ground between it being just the food and all in–my sister’s wedding was last year, and when we looked at many venues, they were priced per plate but included the food, all rented place settings/tables/linens, alcohol, venue, cake, dance floor, etc. Photographer and centerpieces beyond basic were separate as were other things like dress, DJ, etc. But the per plate cost was more than just the food. I will say prices at local places varied between 90-300 per plate (varying by fanciness and day of the week–sunday much cheaper). Many caterers offered per plate options for various not fancy food at between 75-100 per plate, but after factoring in finding a venue and the necessary rentals to go in that venue didn’t always save to be doing it separate (though it could for cheaper venues like the local VFW for example). I think it would be hard to be under 100 per plate for venue and all food and drink currently and easy to fall into the $250 category for the traditional plated meal at an event space. For context, we live in a metropolitain area but looked in the suburbs/far reaches because in the city was too much.
Fully expecting to be judged.
I had a very fancy wedding in 2022 at Disney World EPCOT. We paid 250$ per person (270$ today – thanks inflation) that covered: cocktail hour refreshments, dinner, cake, & full bar. That price was ONLY for food & drinks. Venue fee, event coordinators, transportation, entertainment, photography, wedding favors, flowers, etc etc was NOT part of that fee.
It’s crazy to me that your co-worker is paying the same cost per person for an ‘average wedding’ as I did for a Disney Fairytale Wedding. We looked at several venues which were cheaper, however, almost all of them required us to source & coordinate everything else OR required us to use specific vendors that we did not like. We wanted a unique wedding experience and ultimately it was worth the cost to negate the headaches that would have come with a different venue.
Oh my darling, if someone said to me they were paying $250/plate for a DISNEY wedding, I would say “ONLY $250/plate???”
Definitely!
And I don’t think Swistle’s lovely readers will send any hate your way. Your wedding, your call, and surely we’re all familiar with Disney’s ability to leave a princess-y impression on the minds of of little girls.
There was an AITA (I assume fake) in which a couple were planning a Disney wedding that did not include feeding their guests. All the judgment on that couple. None for you!
My youngest is getting married in October. We are giving her $7k (derived from inflation from other daughter’s wedding) and his parents are also giving them a lump sum but it’s a lot more $$ . No strings attached to any of the money from all the parents. Do whatever with it, wedding or no.
They decided to have a micro-wedding at a newly-opened tiny wedding chapel in their city — it only holds 20 people so it’s immediate family only which is great and prevents a lot of hurt feelings–“immediate family only due to fire regulations!” and then are renting a private room at a favorite restaurant. They did hire a professional photographer to documents it all. The rest of their wedding gift money will go towards their down-payment fund for their first house purchase.
This is what I’m hoping will happen for my kids. My daughter definitely has marriage and kids in her future plans, so I love this whole idea: a fixed contribution from parents, a savvy decision on how to spend it from the kids.
I have nothing really meaningful to contribute on this topic since a) my parents eloped, b) i’ve never been married, c) wedding planning sounds extremely stressful and expensive, d) every wedding i’ve been to made me anxious just being there and i did not actually enjoy it (i have a lot of anxiety about everything all the time even on meds and it completely sucks), e) i just realized we paid $45 per ‘plate’ for doordashed chinese food last night, f) i’m ok with it because otherwise all the planning, buying and cooking of food falls to me and I just CANNOT DEAL ANYMORE, g) i tip doordashers and other delivery drivers really well because they are lifesavers, h) if i could take a pill to get my nutrients for the day and not have to think about food ever again it would be amazing
Also, money and spending is so weird these days in general, must vary so much by location and habits and preferences (and unfortunately, impact of trade and tariffs) – I admit, when you said $1000 could be groceries for a family of four for a month, I felt startled! We definitely spend more than that for my fam of four (two adults and two teens in a big-ish city in Canada). Impressed by the thirftiness which must come with feeding seven people for so long!
This has sent me down a rabbit hole to try and find out the wedding prices at the venue where I was married in 2000 vs today. I had what would be considered a traditional, nice wedding – but it was definitely not an over the top affair. It was on a Saturday evening, held in the ballroom at golf club. It was in the “fancy” part of town – in a state with average cost of living – and we chose the golf club because it was considerably less expensive than the upscale hotels nearby. Our package included cocktail hour with passed hors-d’oeuvres, seated dinner with beef/chicken options and the cake. It also may have included one glass of champagne for a toast? My memory is that it was about $85 per plate and I’m sure that was after ++. This did not include the alcohol package bc my in-laws paid for that as their contribution to the wedding.
According to The Knot the cost per plate at that venue now ranges between $100-180 before ++ ($125-230 after ++) and the alcohol packages START at $60 per person! Whoa!
While the price your co-worker is paying per plate seems absolutely insane, I can now see how it could be the going rate. Now I am curious to know if the $250 per person includes the alcohol package. If it does, she could be getting a downright bargain by today’s standards.
Not the person from Swistles library, but this is how ours was.
The bar had 3 tiers and FIL picked the top tier which was $90 pp. so the food was $160 pp + $90 pp = $250 per head.
Oh. No. That’s nuts. We paid around $50 a plate 10 years ago plus the open bar. Now we had maybe 20 people just our nearest and dearest. Choices were steak or crab cakes. It was delicious. So maybe $75 now? Unless Gordon Ramsey himself is showing up just no. But I am from Pennsylvania the land of the good old fire hall wedding. Fried chicken rigatoni and meatballs and pierogi are all fair game and everyone leaves fat and happy.
My wedding in NJ in 2016 was $200 per plate and that was a deal because we ended up marrying on a less desirable day- meaning it was a holiday of sorts. I can’t even imagine what the prices are per plate nowadays. I would guess at least $300 a plate in the NY/NJ areas.
Wow! All of these replies are FASCINATING!! We were married in 2009 in the absolute boonies (as I am from the absolute boonies). We had probably 150-200 people there and it all cost less than 10k, about 15k in 2025. A local small state university dining staff catered a huge bbq buffet (vegetarian and meat), lots of veggies and sides. It was $15/ head and tons of food. They brought giant grills and just kept cooking. Kind of amazing, actually. We bought the cheapest red and white wine possible in bulk from a local grocery store and one keg of beer. The caterers provided an official bartender, but it was kind of a free for all. My brother in law was the MC. I rented speakers and used my iPod as the DJ. We splurged on a giant tent and dance floor. We paid $250 to rent our venue! Kind of like a hunting sports club on a river. My dad was so worried that it might rain for our outdoor wedding, but it all worked out. I did all my own flower arrangements (thanks Sam’s Club flower delivery) and I picked my bridal bouquet from my childhood neighbor’s hydrangea bush. We had a photography who was extremely new to the business and her prices were affordable. She wasn’t amazing, but she was kind and gor some great family shots. Honestly, we spent most of the budget on the tent and chair rentals. All my my decorations were hand me downs. Perks of being the last kid in the family to get married. We had been to so many weddings our main goal was lots of food and booze to keep people happy. No complaints! I can’t believe I wrote all that out and I’m so late to the conversation! I’ve been to potluck weddings, breakfast pancake weddings, church with no booze weddings- there are ways to make it affordable, but it takes some work and luck. I can not wrap my head around some of these prices I’m reading. I would have been openly shocked, Swistle.
We got married in 2007 in the SF Bay Area, so a HCOL area.
The cost of all catering fees (bartender, event manager, unlimited glassware, cake cutting fee, 2 entrees – filet & vegetarian) was $83.23 in 2025 dollars (not including wine or venue fee). This is a bit high since there were 10 kids under 10y who we were charged 80% of the entree price and I only divided by the full price attendees.
If you want strictly entree pricing that was 66.31 per person in 2025 dollars.
Catering + wine costs (we had 5+ cases leftover so this will be high) = 101.92 per person in 2025 dollars
Venue + catering + wine = $127.84 per person in 2025 dollars.
Is she using a wedding venue? Near us there are two venues that describe themselves as turn key. You hire them and they provide everything but the dress. The one has photographer and officiant as optional add ons the other have them included. Both charge per person. Both have extensive grounds so your party moves around (cocktails on the patio, dinner in the ball room kind of thing.) I understand an acquaintance paid $250 per head
If I was your friend I’d count the no RSVPs as a no, the caterer will have extra because someone always forgets what they selected
Yes this! Always undercount.
We had TEN people not show up.
10 x $250 = $2,500 down the drain.
The venue actually felt so bad for us they boxed up 5 dinners for us to take home even though they’re technically not supposed to.
It’s maddening: we had a few people not show up, but I’ve also been to weddings where people without a plus one invitation brought a date without adding them to the RSVP, and I’ve also seen people bring their kids to adults-only weddings.
There’s a lot of good comments here, so I apologize if I missed someone else saying this, but the venues in my state tend to have a minimum number of guests required. When my BFF got married, she and her husband-to-be had a list of 110 guests whom they wanted to invite. The venue they selected had a minimum of 150 guests for a Saturday night wedding. Since they had to pay for them no matter what, they decided to add 40 more people to their guest list.
It definitely didn’t seem right to me since they had intended from the start to do the fanciest package, which at 110 guests put them pretty close to the cost of a 150 guest minimum.
I don’t have any input on cost per plate, but I thought a buffet was cheaper than a plated dinner? Maybe not?
At my wedding, our venue offered a family style meal, where guests scooped out pasta, salad, etc. and passed around plates. It was in our city’s little Italy, so it was part of the charm. If you bought pretty bowls from T.J. Maxx and catered in from a favorite Italian restaurant, this would be a way to keep costs down and make it seem intentionally cozy.
My wedding anniversary is tomorrow and in 2003 we spent about $12K for absolutely everything, with the most expensive part being the food which was about $7K for 100 people, including rental of dishes, linens, etc. and a buffet dinner. The average at the time was closer to $20K (which is apparently about $35K in today’s dollars). $250/plate sounds expensive to me, but I’ve always been on the frugal side.
I attended a morning wedding with brunch as well. It was delightful. The cost was prob more in line with what it costs to throw a very nice baby shower. It didn’t take up my whole day.m so the commitment from me was way less. No dance or dj.
I got married less than 10 years ago, had a pretty fancy wedding in one of the most expensive cities in the country. My in laws are wealthy and from a culture where weddings are a Very Big Deal; they had set aside lots of money for this and we had 3 days of events at our main wedding, and then 2 additional receptions in other parts of the world. So what I’m saying is, while not at George Clooney level, this was definitely more than the Average, Reasonable, Budget-Friendly wedding you are talking about.
The food and drink costs of the main reception were the equivalent of $134 per person according to the inflation calculator. This covered appetizers and dinner from quite a nice restaurant (in one of the most expensive cities in the country) and drinks, including an open bar (and that was the top of the line option for drinks!)
I really can’t imagine how your coworker is getting to $250 per plate – maybe she’s including the cost of renting plates, cutlery, glasses, tables, chairs, linens? If I try to include those, I get to about $173. Our total spend was about $281,600 for 3 days of events for over 200 guests in a very expensive city.
I do not think that your coworker is accurately reporting the expected budget for the kind of average wedding you are imagining. All of my friends, cousins, and siblings who have gotten married in the last several years have had perfectly nice weddings for way less (more like $20k-60k total budget).
I got married in December of 2011 and it was $57 per person which is $81.60 in July 2025. I splurged for the $2 more person for mini cakes for dessert (not cupcakes, everyone got their own mini two tiered cake in either chocolate or vanilla). It was a plated sit down meal with passed appetizers prior. However, the ceremony was at 11am so it was an afternoon reception (cheaper) and it was winter so we didn’t have to pay the fee to prevent them from renting the lawn adjoining the hall. Other savings were found by getting our flowers from Stop N Shop, using pine garlands to decorate the pews in the chapel, skipping things like chair seat covers and sashes, and making my own table centerpieces (hurricane lamps with a circle of garland, sprinkled with cranberries and some glitter).
Gosh, this is a fun topic. It inspired me to look in my email and find my wedding invoices. I got married in New Orleans in 2018, and I did a ton of research to find a venue we liked where we could either bring in our own catering (I assumed that’s what we’d have to do to keep prices down) or that offered reasonable catering. We got super lucky and found a gorgeous venue that contracted with a local restaurant for catering. Our prices were $39 per person, $50 in 2025 dollars, for food (3 passed appetizers and a buffet dinner) and $25 per person for alcohol (4 hours of an open bar). Those were the only prices that fully depended on the number of guests. Then we paid a venue rental fee, and a fee for waitstaff, tablecloths, chairs, silverware, etc — but those aren’t broken down by person on the invoice. I imagine they would have been higher if we’d had 200 people instead of 80, but they wouldn’t change if we had, say, 75 people instead of 80. The whole venue fee — venue rental, catering, alcohol, waitstaff, plates, silverware etc — was about $8500 ($10,860 in today’s dollars) which didn’t include cake, DJ, photographer, or flowers. (Got the best deals I could on those and did the flowers myself.)
Anyway, $250 would certainly be a Startling Expense to me, but I also feel bad for this person because she clearly did not pick this for herself, and it seems to have been presented to her as just What This Costs.