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Food Cost Calculator For Wedding

Last Updated: Jun 5, 2025

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Whether you're a caterer, restaurant owner, planner or couple, estimating the cost for a wedding event can be challenging, and even cause overspending due to poor planning. We have built a Food Cost Calculator specifically for weddings, a simple tool that helps you accurately estimate the real cost of wedding catering.

What Is a Food Cost Calculator for Wedding?

A Wedding Food Cost Calculator is an online tool that determines the total cost of a wedding by including all expected expenses such as total food cost, staff, beverages, venue, cake, decorations, and other hidden costs involved in catering. This calculator primarily helps planners, caterers, and restaurant owners plan desired profit margin, and see both the final total cost per guest (with or without profit) and the overall wedding package price.

Wedding catering staff preparing for wedding event

What is the Food Cost at a Wedding?

Food cost at a wedding refers to how much you pay per guest for meals. It mainly depends on the meal type, location, quality and overall wedding protocol. On average:

  • Buffet:  30–60 dollars per guest
  • Plated: 45–100 dollars per guest
  • Family Style: 40–80 dollars per guest

🛈 Note: The above costs cover only meals, not beverages, staff, or additional services.

Who can find this calculator useful?

  • For Caterers: Estimate all catering-related wedding costs to set pricing and profitability confidently.
  • For Planners: Quickly calculate and present accurate quotes to clients.
  • For couples: Plan the budget in advance, avoid unexpected costs, and reduce stress.
  • For Others: Bussines man, restaurant startups, or anyone looking to check industry benchmarks can find this calculator useful and helpful.

How to use this Wedding Food Cost Calculator?

Imagine you’re catering a wedding with 100 guests. Here is how you can use this calculator to estimate with following costs:

  • Number of guests: 100
  • Select Meal Service Type: Buffet
  • Food cost per guest:  50 dollars
  • Beverage cost per guest: 20 dollars
  • Staff cost: 1,000 dollars
  • Venue cost: 2,500 dollars
  • Cake cost: 500 dollars
  • Decor cost: 1,000 dollars
  • Additional costs: 500 dollars
  • Profit margin: 25%

The calculator will instantly compute and show the results within milliseconds:

Calculator Output:

  • Total Wedding Catering Price: 16,666 dollars
  • Price per Guest: 166.67 dollars
  • Profit: 4,166.67 dollars (25%)

👤 Per-Guest Analysis

  • Cost per Guest (your expense): 125 dollars
  • Price per Guest (you charge): 166.67 dollars
  • Profit per Guest: 41.67 dollars

📏 Industry Benchmark Comparison
 

MetricYour WeddingStandard RangeAssessment
Profit Margin25%10–30%✓ Good
Food per Guest50 dollars30–60 dollars✓ Good
Beverage per Guest20 dollars15–60 dollars✓ Good
Cake per Guest5 dollars5–15 dollars✓ Good

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should food cost at a wedding?

The food cost at a wedding can vary, but here is the average cost per guest:

  • Buffet: 30–60 dollars per guest
  • Plated: 45–100 dollars per guest
  • Family Style: 40–80 dollars per guest

Use the calculator to estimate total expenses including other costs.

What is the average cost of food for a wedding?

Average food cost can be vary in different countries, but in the United States, average wedding food costs fall between 4,000 dollars and 10,000 dollars. It widely depends on the number of guests, service type, and menu complexity.

How much does it cost to feed 100 wedding guests?

Let's use a mid range buffet to perform the calculation to see how much it costs to feed 100 wedding guests:

  • Food: 100 x 50 dollars = 5,000 dollars
  • Beverage: 100 x 20 dollars = 2,000 dollars
  • Add venue, staff, and other costs = Total: ~12,500 dollars
  • Add 25% profit = Total Catering Price: ~16,667 dollars
How much does it cost to feed 200 wedding guests?

Let's compute the calculation for 200 wedding guests:

  • Food: 200 × 50 dollars = 10,000 dollars
  • Beverage: 200 × 20 dollars = 4,000 dollars
  • Double staff and other services = Total: ~25,000 dollars
  • Add profit margin = Catering Price: ~33,333 dollars
How much does food and drinks cost at a wedding?

Food and drinks take up most of the wedding budget. Both typically make up 50% to 70% cost of your total catering bill.

Assume for 100 guests, let's calculate both food and drink cost:

  • Food: 50 dollars per guest = 5,000 dollars
  • Drinks: 20 dollars per guest = 2,000 dollars
  • Combined = 7,000 dollars