Weddingbee Blog

This may seem like obvious advice, but I had noooo idea of the extent to which it mattered, so listen up anyway!

ADVICE:
Even if two quotes you receive are vastly different, calculate out what the actual price to pay would be before making any assumptions!

SUPPORTING ANECDOTE:
Of the two caterers we were deciding between* one had the per person price of X dollars and the other had the per person price of X+$63 which was, you know, way way more. We knew that the latter package involved a lot more “stuff,” but still made the (FALSE) assumption that in the end it would be the more expensive of the two. Needless to say, it actually ended up being cheaper.

The “cheaper” per person price was for food only. With extra charges for service, travel, alcohol, non-alcoholic beverages, taxes, gratuity, and not including, well, anything else! The “expensive” quote included all of the above, plus all linens and decorations (flowers & candles) for the buffet area. It also included talks with any other vendors which they may have on our behalf, whereas the other one would charge a 10% “coordination fee” for any vendors (tent/rentals/cake/florist) that we used them to orchestrate.

So, to summarize, what looked like an obscenely cheap quote ended up costing MORE than the $63 per person higher price. We might never have realized that if we hadn’t had random reasons for preferring that caterer, which caused me to try some “well, let’s think more about this” tactics with Mr. Bluebell. And one more-complicated-than-it-should-have-been spreadsheet later, we made the happy discovery!

So no matter how much more expensive one quote may seem than another, spreadsheet it out before making any decisions!!

End of Obvious Advice.

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*We have decided!!! But I will save the final verdict until after we sign a contract because I am sporadically supersticious like that.