Many of those can be rolled up into a venue (i.e. the venue supplies food, DJ, Cake, etc.), and personally, my fiancé nor I want to spend a lot of money on it.
So it feels like where they are disrupting are the "nice to haves" (expensive dress, cards, etc.) and not focusing on the "need to haves" (Food, venue, etc.)
And, if you come right down to it, the bulk of costs comes down to cultural/family expectations for a traditional formal wedding with a couple hundred of your closest friends of the sort I used to work part-time for a (old-line Main Line Philadelphia) caterer as a teenager.
I've attended a wide gamut of weddings over the years. Some are in the above vein, others are much more informal affairs, still others make the wedding a small family affair and have a bigger casual party as a separate event.
Sure. But I'd argue that's heavily flavored by cultural expectations in many/most cases.
Put another way: If the norm was to have a casual catered party/BBQ at your (or a friend's/relative's) house for a wedding, how many people would consider planning a $50K reception and dinner?
> (i.e. the venue supplies food, DJ, Cake, etc.), and personally, my fiancé nor I want to spend a lot of money on it
That's where we were at - we ended up renting out a restaurant for the evening - as long as they made what they normally make for an evening they were happy to have less people come in. They went all out on the food as they were feeding 30 people with it instead of the usual restaurant crowd. Our wedding cake was a nicer version of their regular chocolate cake (again, included in the food cost). Our music was the restaurants usual music. It was an excellent.
In regards to the dress, if you're non-traditional there's a ton of off-white non-wedding dresses that look perfectly acceptable and cost a tenth of the wedding varieties.
>as long as they made what they normally make for an evening they were happy to have less people come in
I will echo the truth behind this. My food truck usually does food service for 3-4 weddings a year and we don't charge much more than our usual prices unless they're asking for something outside standard offerings. We greatly enjoy doing them since we know exactly what we're doing that day, they're a guaranteed income, and we can focus on good quality. Plus it's great fun to be a part of things like weddings, even on the business end of things.
I am leaving it up to the person wearing the dress. She was looking at used, but I do ultimately want her to be happy with it too. Thank you for the suggestion though!
We considered the restaurant option as well. But I think we are going to work with one event space that is actually very reasonable and fairly inclusive with everything.
The pricing variance between venues was insane (some charged to rent the space, come charged a price minimum, some charged for things other did not, some just had some different requirements).
>I am leaving it up to the person wearing the dress. She was looking at used, but I do ultimately want her to be happy with it too. Thank you for the suggestion though!
I'd never suggest otherwise. My wife couldn't stomach the thought of spending thousands of dollars on a dress, so she went for a cheaper alternative.
We were married directly in the restaurant (like I said, we're non-traditional), so it was just the one venue for us. The restaurant was incredibly helpful the whole time - they seemed to really enjoy being able to provide fine dining and change up their menu and venue as well.
Just thought I'd offer up my experience. Best of luck with your wedding, and I hope it's the start of a long and happy marriage.
How much a plate will it cost for food? $125, $150 more?
If the typical mobile, prepared in advance, reduced menu restaurant with no real physical footprint can charge per plate what the finest tradition restaurants charge then there is clearly room for disruption.
Just as a comparison, the most expensive group dining option at Ruth Chris (selected for no reason other than I like their food) is $115 a plate. That is less than 2/3rds what we paid per plate at our wedding for something called "beaph" and looked like an old shoe.
I think you're underestimating the costs associated with event catering, especially for a sit-down meal, that have nothing to do with weddings specifically for meals that are prepared on-site. You're loading a truck or more full of gear. Paying for cook and wait staff. Breakdown. Tents/chairs/etc. (Unless you're using an event space which has its own costs.)
[As someone else alluded to, sure you can bring in a couple of food trucks, which I see more and more at conference events. But that's not what a lot of people have in mind for a wedding meal.]
The location was not part of the price per plate we were charged for "catering". Perhaps that is not always the case. What is though is that all restaurants pay for cooks and wait staff and that sit down restaurant prices do include the cost of the "location".
For me, the question is does the caliber of the cook staff, the wait staff, the food at the typical catered event come anywhere near the caliber of what is offered at the very best sit down restaurants?
This post has lots of other noting that telling your service provider that the event is a wedding instantly doubles or triples the price.
Just my opinion, but it seems that there is plenty of room for "disruption" here. I think the same is true for "realtors" and "funerals" and "tour guides".
On the flip side, the forces working to keep these industries protected are basically fear and tradition. Both powerful motivators.
There might be greater inefficiency in weddings compared to restaurants, due to the requirement to serve every diner's main course within ~15 minutes. Higher kitchen door peak bandwidth, but lower average utilisation.
Of course, you've got to balance that against the efficiency gains from the much shorter menu.
Based on N of several hundred, restaurants can generally do a pretty good job of banquet-style serving for large groups by using a limited menu and keeping things simple. It's probably not quite as good or as customized as ordering off the menu, but it can definitely be serviceable or better.
Catering a meal for a large group is tougher without a local kitchen. If you're imaginative about meal choices (e.g. optimize around BBQ of some sort) or if you're willing to tolerate lines for e.g. food trucks you can do better. But in my experience you have to make some choices to serve a large meal where there's no permanent kitchen. (I did work for a caterer once upon a time.)
No, they don't, not really, hence, tipping culture. But for catering, unlike menu price at a restaurant, you are paying full freight for service. You are also (compared to a restaurant) paying for the lack of upsell opportunities. (Particularly, if you are supplying drinks separately and don't have a cash bar operated by the caterer: the bar is disproportionately where restaurants make their money.)
I wish. Wedding vendors, especially catering, are also tip driven and its generally expected to tip individuals (coordinators, bar tenders, wait staff etc).
Food was by far the biggest expense of our wedding. My wife and her family did want to go all out, and it came to about $100 a head for food/drink (I forget if I rolled out the venue price out of that exact number). For a nice meal for a bunch of people in New England that's not even that bad of a price
The venue was the next most expensive coming in at a flat rate of a few thousand
Everything else was pretty inexpensive by comparison although it does add up
You can't put a website in front of it and call it disruption. Every one of those things you mentioned gets bought after you have physically spoken with someone to give yourself the confidence they are legit.
It's such an important day, people want to make sure they'll be taken care of as special, unlike say, a cleaning service.
I would say it would be nice for a "Zillow" type thing for it though? We only found half of these venues through word of mouth or by going to wedding shows. I was not convinced on a few of them they try provided the total upfront cost as well, or when you talked to them you found limitations.
I would've assumed the venue would be the #1 cost (especially so if you factor in anything facilities-related you'd need, like chairs or pop-up tents or whatever, plus decorations).
Well full disclosure we paid 90€/guest for a largish menu, there's plenty factor that are involved including head count and menu size, but average venues here were between 1k and 5k so even in a smallish wedding like ours food escalated quickly and reached over that cost.
We also ended up moving the wedding sunday which was weird but cut off some costs dramatically, we paid the stay for our international guests etc, so, as before, ymmv
I kept an Excel somewhere if people are interested in that sort of thing.
> I would've assumed the venue would be the #1 cost
If it's a signature venue, maybe, but for most weddings food is going to be a bigger expense, IME and from everything I've heard from everyone else whose been through the exercise.
- Rings - Dress (wedding dress/men's dress) - Venue - Food - Cake - Photographer - Music/"DJ"/MC - "extras"
Many of those can be rolled up into a venue (i.e. the venue supplies food, DJ, Cake, etc.), and personally, my fiancé nor I want to spend a lot of money on it.
So it feels like where they are disrupting are the "nice to haves" (expensive dress, cards, etc.) and not focusing on the "need to haves" (Food, venue, etc.)