Most of it is normal for the industry. But your budget is wrong by a wide margin, and the reason is a mechanism nobody explained to you. Let me show you the arithmetic before anything else. ## What This Will Actually Cost **You budgeted $20,000. The realistic floor is well above that.** Start with the thing you have misread. **$18,000 is not what your dinner will cost — it is the minimum you are obliged to spend.** Your actual food and beverage at 120 guests: - 120 × $95 = **$11,400** That is **$6,600 short of your minimum.** You owe the difference anyway, typically as a shortfall or room charge. So your food and beverage line is **$18,000 regardless**, unless you add bar, upgrades, or guests to genuinely reach it. Now apply the mandatory additions: - F&B minimum: **$18,000** - Service charge at 24%: **$4,320** - Subtotal: **$22,320**, before sales tax Add your sales tax rate to that subtotal — and check whether your jurisdiction taxes the service charge as well, because many do and it changes the figure. Then add the outside vendor fee (**$750**) and cake cutting (120 × $4 = **$480**). **You are realistically at $23,500–$25,000 before flowers, music, attire, or anything else.** That is the single most important output of this review: the gap is roughly $4,000–$5,000 against your budget, and it exists before anyone has done anything wrong. ## The Minimum You Owe Regardless Since you owe $18,000 either way, the useful question changes from "how do we spend less" to **"how do we get $18,000 of value?"** You are currently set to pay $6,600 for nothing. Ask the venue, in writing, **what counts toward the minimum**: does a bar package count, do upgraded menu selections, passed appetizers, a late-night snack, or a champagne toast count? Do service charge and tax count toward the minimum, or only the food and beverage subtotal? That last one is worth real money and the answer varies. Then note the **14-day final count**. Confirm it is a **floor** — you can usually add guests, sometimes at a premium, but reducing below your guaranteed number generally will not reduce your bill. Give a number you are confident in, not an optimistic one. ## Service Charge vs. Gratuity **$4,320 is going somewhere and your contract does not say where.** A mandatory service charge is a charge by the house. It does not automatically mean the staff has been tipped. Ask directly, in writing: **does the 24% service charge include gratuity for the service staff, and are we expected to tip on top of it?** Couples routinely pay this twice, adding hundreds or thousands in cash tips on top of a charge that already covered it — or, worse, assume it was covered when it was not. One email settles it. ## If The Date Changes Or The Plan Changes Your cancellation ladder is aggressive but not unusual: **50% within 180 days, 100% within 90 days.** Next October means the 180-day mark arrives around April. Put that date in your calendar — after it, cancelling costs roughly $9,000+ of contract value. **What is missing is any postponement right.** Cancellation and postponement are different clauses, and yours appears to only have the first. Ask for a date-change provision in writing: whether a move is permitted at all, what fee applies, how far out the new date may be, and — the detail that catches people — **whether moving from a peak to an off-peak date re-prices the whole event**. An October Saturday is peak; a March Friday may carry a different minimum entirely. ## Force Majeure **Read what yours actually does: it excuses the venue.** It says nothing about returning your money. That is common and I am not going to tell you whether it would hold up — that depends on the event and your state's law, and it is a lawyer's question. But understand the position it leaves you in: if something makes the event impossible, the venue may be excused from performing while your payments remain governed by the cancellation schedule. This is the reason to price **event insurance** now rather than later. It is a separate product covering cancellation and liability, it is inexpensive relative to your total, and it exists precisely because the contract does not protect your money. ## Fees That Arrive Later - **$750 outside vendor fee** for your photographer. Ask whether it is charged per outside vendor or once — if per vendor, and your florist and band are also off-list, this multiplies fast. - **$480 cake cutting.** Ask whether it is waived if you order dessert through the venue; it frequently is. - Ask what is **included versus rented**: tables, linens, chairs, setup and breakdown, and whether there is an **overtime charge** and what time the room must be cleared. ## Ask Before You Pay The Retainer - What counts toward the $18,000 minimum — bar, upgrades, service charge, tax? - Does the 24% service charge include staff gratuity? - Is a **date change** permitted, at what fee, and does peak/off-peak re-price the event? - Is the $750 outside vendor fee per vendor or per event? - Is cake cutting waived if we order dessert in-house? - What is included versus rented, and what is the overtime charge? **Verdict: GET THESE TERMS IN WRITING FIRST.** The one thing to resolve first: confirm what counts toward the $18,000 minimum. You are currently on track to pay $6,600 for food you will not receive, and the answer to that one question either recovers most of it or tells you this venue is a poor fit for a 120-guest wedding. Get it answered before the retainer, because $6,000 becomes non-refundable the moment you pay it.