Did you barter with caterers at your wedding?
Discussion
Treat it like your car insurance and play suppliers off against one another. Worked for us, and as others have suggested the "wedding tax" thing is mostly scare-mongering b
ks spread by people who did get ripped off.
And boring though they may appear to be, get along to some wedding fayres (although most have come and gone for this year) and be prepared to book stuff there and then and use that to your advantage in haggling. We got some first class entertainment this way.
Overall we kept the outgoings low enough that I had enough left over to hire a Vanquish for the weekend
ks spread by people who did get ripped off.And boring though they may appear to be, get along to some wedding fayres (although most have come and gone for this year) and be prepared to book stuff there and then and use that to your advantage in haggling. We got some first class entertainment this way.
Overall we kept the outgoings low enough that I had enough left over to hire a Vanquish for the weekend
Ari said:
tenfour said:
If you ask the proposed caterer to see his unit prices for food etc and the profit margin your caterer has built in, then you'll be able to work from there. If he refuses to give you this, then you have your answer!
Surely if you asked any business you were purchasing from to give you a breakdown of their costs and profit margins you'd 'have your answer' (ie, a refusal)?TEKNOPUG said:
I'm getting married in September but we have a private venue, so were able to choose all the companies we needed. Anything with "wedding" incurs a tax I'm afraid. Biggest haggle was with the band. We told them we could only afford half the price they quoted for and accpeted - half the fee is better than no fee! I think we haggled the price down on pretty much everyting accept the church, which I didn't think was very christian spirited of them 
With the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
More fool the band. Most bands would have just said no. Hope they don't fWith the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
k it up :-)thebraketester said:
TEKNOPUG said:
I'm getting married in September but we have a private venue, so were able to choose all the companies we needed. Anything with "wedding" incurs a tax I'm afraid. Biggest haggle was with the band. We told them we could only afford half the price they quoted for and accpeted - half the fee is better than no fee! I think we haggled the price down on pretty much everyting accept the church, which I didn't think was very christian spirited of them
With the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
More fool the band. Most bands would have just said no. Hope they don't fWith the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
k it up :-)tenfour said:
Ari said:
tenfour said:
If you ask the proposed caterer to see his unit prices for food etc and the profit margin your caterer has built in, then you'll be able to work from there. If he refuses to give you this, then you have your answer!
Surely if you asked any business you were purchasing from to give you a breakdown of their costs and profit margins you'd 'have your answer' (ie, a refusal)?arfursleep said:
tenfour said:
Why?
Because their margins are their business! if you don't like the total price then shop elsewhere.Do you give anyone who asks a breakdown of your household income and expenditure as that's effectively what you're asking for?
If somebody asked me for a prime cost/margin breakdown for our business, I'd tell them to p
s off. The only time we do this is when we are entering into a 'joint venture' which requires open book accounting; these are rare though and not undertaken lightly.Asking for a schedule of rates or cost breakdown is a far more sensible suggestion and one that most businesses would be fine with supplying.
tenfour said:
Well, given that I do this for a living...
The question you need to ask yourself instead is, how good a negotiator are you?
I'm sorry but I would also tell you where to go. As a business you provide a price you are happy to do the work for and if the clients dont like it they can either change the requirements or go elsewhere. There is no middle ground where the clients see what you buy for and your profit margins - it's none of their business.The question you need to ask yourself instead is, how good a negotiator are you?
supercommuter said:
I wish somebody would tell the DJ's around here that. Mention its a wedding and the price goes up.
Just to offer a bit of insight into this- as somebody who owns & runs a mobile DJ company.A typical evening event (birthday party etc), we will be playing from around 7pm to 12am. So with an hour to setup & soundcheck, and similar to pack up and load the vehicles, that's 6pm to 1am at the venue, around 7 hours. In terms of the actual DJing side of it, these are also as straight-forward as they come- occasionally we might get asked to do an announcement for the arrival of a birthday cake, but that's about it, the rest of the evening is playing music, taking requests etc.
For our typical weddings, we have to be setup at the venue before any guests arrive- very few venues appreciate the DJs carting sack trucks of equipment through a venue and setting up whilst guests are mingling. In most venues, the disco happens in the same room as the meal/wedding breakfast. Again, very few venues will allow an hour to setup & soundcheck after the meal, and in any case almost all want the use of the PA system/wireless mics for the speeches.
On top of this, we typically provide background ambient music during the wedding breakfast- not live DJing, but a pre-prepared playlist of typically piano covers of love songs etc. Not very loud, just enough to provide background music. Whilst we don't need to do too much for this, it still requires us to be setup in time for the start of the wedding breakfast. However, the guests typically arrive an hour or so beforehand, say 2pm- which means we need to be setup and sound-checked by 1.30pm. Which means arrival at 12.30pm absolute latest. Given the amount of other people arriving and preparing stuff at these venues at this time, there is a good chance we have to wait for space to unload vehicles, wait for other services to finish etc- therefore we typically allow ourselves 2 hours.
Therefore we are now arriving at the venue at 11.30am. We won't be leaving until 1am, so 13 and a half hours.
If the venue is also housing the ceremony as well, it often means we have to be setup by 11.30am- meaning 9.30am arrival, which makes it 15 and a half hours total. Yes we might be spending a chunk of the day sitting around waiting, but we still have to be there.
In addition to the time aspect, we also usually have all of our lighting programmed to suit the couple's colour schemes. This is often done a few weeks in advance so that they can see what to expect, not a huge amount of work but another hour or two. Then, once setup we also prepare a custom lighting scene for the couple's first dance- this we cannot do until we are setup at the venue so that we can accurately position our moving head fixtures onto the correct spot on the dance floor.
Other preparation time includes discussing music tastes with the couple (usually a face-to-face meeting where we also cover colour schemes, timings etc), discuss the choice of first dance song, how they want it to go, whether they want us to encourage others onto the dance floor during or after the dance etc. We then tweak our playlists based upon their tastes so we have easy to access 'crates' of songs for each genre. We also update our library for any current chart stuff- essential these days where everyone has heard songs before they've officially even been released.
Other aspects during the evening include going through with those doing speeches how to hold the mics etc, and then during the speeches constantly monitoring the level to keep a consistent volume as they completely ignore what you said and move the mic all over the place! There is also the various announcements, gathering people round for the cake-cutting, the first dance etc. Food announcements etc.
On top of all of this is the pressure that if anything goes wrong, it has a far bigger impact than at a birthday party where everyone is hammered and 99% of the time the guests wouldn't even notice. As a result our system has multiple redundancies/backups, which whilst we've never had to use them, it's extra stuff that needs carrying/setting up, because anything failing at a critical moment is not an option- even if it's only <1% chance.
-So to sum up, a 'normal' birthday party involves around 7 hours work with minimal prep.
-A wedding involves around 13-15 hours work on the day, with more kit, and several hours prep time in the weeks leading up to the day. With the added pressure of coordinating everything with brides / bride's family / venue organizers, all of whom want everything exact, preferably yesterday- regardless of whether it's completely different to what they had asked for 2 weeks previous.
Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love DJing weddings- they are by far my favourite type of gig, particularly once the first dance etc is complete, the evening is always huge fun to play.
But it does make me laugh on the (admittedly rare) occasions when, in light of all of the above, someone questions why we charge £100-£150 more for a wedding than we would for a birthday party. I am always more than happy to explain, as I've done here, and I've yet to receive any objections.
I'm not saying it's true for all wedding services and I know the OP was discussing catering in particular, but there is invariably a lot more going on behind the scenes than you expect.
£700 for cheese strings is mental though!
I negotiated on everything, weddings are a competitive business and as such there are a lot of providers available.
It is in my nature not to accept the first price and it saved us many hundreds of pounds across ALL suppliers.
We got a quote for a cake in the region of £400 - we ended up with a cheesecake made from complete wheels of cheese for £112 as it was a simple case of them supplying the cheese in a pile :-)
Flowers can be quite a big expense, but we ended up spending less than we had budgeted through keen negotiation.
The illusionist did his longer "set" for the price of his cheapest and the caricaturist knocked £50 off. We actually had money left out of our budget in the end :-)
It is in my nature not to accept the first price and it saved us many hundreds of pounds across ALL suppliers.
We got a quote for a cake in the region of £400 - we ended up with a cheesecake made from complete wheels of cheese for £112 as it was a simple case of them supplying the cheese in a pile :-)
Flowers can be quite a big expense, but we ended up spending less than we had budgeted through keen negotiation.
The illusionist did his longer "set" for the price of his cheapest and the caricaturist knocked £50 off. We actually had money left out of our budget in the end :-)
thebraketester said:
TEKNOPUG said:
I'm getting married in September but we have a private venue, so were able to choose all the companies we needed. Anything with "wedding" incurs a tax I'm afraid. Biggest haggle was with the band. We told them we could only afford half the price they quoted for and accpeted - half the fee is better than no fee! I think we haggled the price down on pretty much everyting accept the church, which I didn't think was very christian spirited of them
With the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
More fool the band. Most bands would have just said no. Hope they don't fWith the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
k it up :-)Sheepshanks said:
Which did a survey on this a few years ago and got the results you'd expect but I know someone in the hotel trade and he reckons a wedding is wholly different event to a birthday party.
Some brides and their mothers will want meeting after meeting and will be incredibly demanding. He tries to meet them before quoting and bases his prices on gut feel, but admits he doesn't always get it right. For a party people just turn up, have a party and go home.
For Saturdays and Bank Holidays they're booked out 2 years anyway. Based on watching Don't Tell the Bride I reckon the best way to get a deal would be to turn up at short notice with a film crew - venue owners etc seem to capitulate almost every time.
Luckily my wife is pretty straightforward and she sorted and agreed everything with the wedding co-ordinator in 30mins no further visits required. We both just wanted a simple do where our friends celebrated with us and had a good time.Some brides and their mothers will want meeting after meeting and will be incredibly demanding. He tries to meet them before quoting and bases his prices on gut feel, but admits he doesn't always get it right. For a party people just turn up, have a party and go home.
For Saturdays and Bank Holidays they're booked out 2 years anyway. Based on watching Don't Tell the Bride I reckon the best way to get a deal would be to turn up at short notice with a film crew - venue owners etc seem to capitulate almost every time.
Interestingly I first used that hotel for a film shoot.
tenfour said:
Issi said:
How naive are you?
Well, given that I do this for a living...The question you need to ask yourself instead is, how good a negotiator are you?
TEKNOPUG said:
thebraketester said:
TEKNOPUG said:
I'm getting married in September but we have a private venue, so were able to choose all the companies we needed. Anything with "wedding" incurs a tax I'm afraid. Biggest haggle was with the band. We told them we could only afford half the price they quoted for and accpeted - half the fee is better than no fee! I think we haggled the price down on pretty much everyting accept the church, which I didn't think was very christian spirited of them
With the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
More fool the band. Most bands would have just said no. Hope they don't fWith the cateres, they had a set price for the number of people - so equipment hire, crockery, number of staff required etc. Then after that, it was just down to either what we wanted on the menu or they would design a menu based on our budget - so £20 per head or £60 per head or whatever.
k it up :-)Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff