In-house, approved list, or free choice
Published
Catering is the largest line in most wedding budgets, and the venue you choose usually decides who supplies it.
The three models
In-house. The venue has a kitchen and a brigade, and they cater your wedding. Common in hotels, inns and colleges.
Approved list. The venue does not cook but nominates a set of caterers permitted to work in its kitchen. You choose from the list. Common in barns and estates.
Free choice, or dry hire. You appoint whoever you like, subject to insurance and hygiene requirements. Common at marquee sites and unserviced barns.
Each model changes not just the food but the price structure, the flexibility and where the risk sits.
In-house catering
The advantage is coherence. The kitchen knows the building, the service staff know the room, and the timing between courses and speeches is something they do every week. Complaints about in-house catering are rarely about coordination.
The cost structure is different too. A venue with in-house catering typically has a low or absent hire fee and a minimum spend, because the catering is how it earns. That is not a trick — it is a different way of pricing the same thing — but it makes direct comparison with a barn's hire fee misleading. Where the money sits works through the arithmetic.
Watch for: limited menu flexibility, a hard position on dietary requirements, and per-head supplements that accumulate. Ask what is included in the quoted per-head figure and what is a supplement: canapés, a cheese course, the evening food, tea and coffee.
The approved list
Venues maintain lists for reasonable reasons. A caterer who has worked in that kitchen before knows where the power is, knows the access, knows how long the walk from the prep tent to the room takes, and does not leave the place in a state. Venues that have been burned by an unknown caterer become strict quickly.
The unreasonable version exists too: lists that are short, closed, and generate a commission for the venue on every booking.
The questions that separate them:
- How many caterers are on the list, and when was it last opened to new entrants?
- Do you receive any commission or fee from listed caterers?
- May we use a caterer not on the list, and what is the charge for doing so?
- What does that charge cover?
A modest fee to cover a site visit and a kitchen induction is defensible. A large one is a mechanism to keep you on the list. Either way, know the number.
Get more than one quote from the list. Prices between caterers on the same list vary considerably, and there is no reason to assume the one the venue mentions first is the cheapest.
Free choice and dry hire
Maximum flexibility, maximum responsibility. The things to establish before appointing anybody:
What exists in the kitchen. "Catering facilities" ranges from a fully fitted commercial kitchen to a concrete floor and a three-pin socket. Send the caterer to see it. Caterers ask better questions about a kitchen than you can.
Power and water. A caterer running combi ovens needs serious power. At a marquee site that means generator capacity specified for the catering load, not just the lights and the band. See marquees on private land.
Waste. Somebody removes the food waste, the packaging and the used oil. Establish who, and whether it is priced.
Insurance and hygiene. Venues will require public liability cover and will want to see a food hygiene rating. Ask for both from any caterer before you engage them — the rating is a matter of public record and takes a minute to check.
Tasting, and what it does and does not prove
A tasting for two people in a quiet room in February is a useful test of the food and a poor test of the operation. What you want to know is whether a hundred and forty plates arrive hot and simultaneously, and a tasting cannot show you that.
Ask instead:
- What is the maximum number of covers you have served at this venue?
- How many chefs and how many front-of-house staff will be on site for our numbers?
- How is the food finished — plated in the kitchen, or regenerated in a prep tent?
- What is the service style, and how long does the meal take end to end?
Service style has consequences beyond the food. Plated service is fast and controlled. Family-style sharing platters need more table space and more staff. A buffet moves a hundred and fifty people through a queue and needs a room shape that permits it. All three interact with how many guests you have, which is the subject of how guest numbers change everything.
Dietary requirements
Ask how the caterer handles them, and specifically how they handle a serious allergy. Good caterers have a documented process, brief the service staff, and know which plate goes to which seat. Weak ones improvise on the day.
Collect requirements with the RSVPs rather than chasing them later, and pass the final list to the caterer at the same time as the table plan.
The drinks question is separate
Catering and drink are often supplied by different parties even when they arrive together. Whether the venue's licence covers your caterer's bar, and what corkage applies if you supply the wine, is a distinct negotiation set out in alcohol licensing and corkage.
Settle the catering model before you fall in love with a venue. It is the constraint least likely to be visible on a tour and most likely to shape the budget.