The Bay Bride

So out of 188 guests that RSVP’d yes, we had 5 people not show up for various reasons.  This means we had to pay for 5 dinners even though the 5 plates of food were not served.  That is over $550 spent on empty seats.  I asked the banquet manager if they could wrap up the food and bring it up to our hotel rooms but they said for food safety/health reasons they didn’t allow this.  (Sadness because I could totally see myself happily pigging out the next day with these 5 plates of food…I heart leftovers!)

Anyway, I had a friend underestimate her final head count by 4-5 guests and little did she know 4 guests ended up not attending the wedding.  Her logic is that she could always ask the caterer to provide 5 additional meals if she did have 100% attendance and the caterer will have no problem adding the cost to the final bill, but if guests don’t show then caterers won’t deduct the cost of meals to the final bill.  Is this smart? or just plain risky?  This could have seriously saved us some serious cash.

Maybe discuss your options with your banquet/catering manager before finalizing the head count.  See if leftovers can be bagged up to go and I’m sure it’ll be enjoyed by either you or your hungover buddies the next morning.

Darn it!  Just found out that the 20% service fee which most venues charge for food and beverages is taxed.  That is a few hundred extra dollars to take into consideration when calculating your wedding budget.  This is of course dependent on where your wedding is so you should double check with your venue and local tax board.

Basically for our Northern California wedding, our total for food was $15,436 with an additional $3,087 for the required 20% service charge.  But instead of getting taxed on just $15,436, we got taxed on both the $15,436 and the $3,087.  OUCH!!!!

———————————-

Current Sales Tax % = 8.25%

Cost of Food = $15,436

Sales Tax for Food = 15,436 x 0.825 = $1273

20% Service Charge for Food = 15,436 x 0.20 = $3087

SALES TAX on Service Charge = $3087 x 0.825 = $255

A GRAND TOTAL OF $1528 on SALES TAX for FOOD & SERVICE CHARGE!!!!   INSANE!!!!

———————————-

Here’s a link to a forum post with some helpful information on this matter:

http://www.projectwedding.com/post/list/service-charge-and-sales-tax

———————————-

We ended up getting married in Monterey so the sales tax is 1.25% lower which probably saved us a few hundred bucks, but it probably evens out with all the parking/gas/travel costs.