Food is the largest line on almost every wedding budget, and it is the one where published figures exist. This record holds per-head bands from a London caterer and from a mobile caterer, and the gap between them is the single biggest decision an organiser makes: not what the food is, but how it is served.
Format decides the number
The published bands in this record show it plainly. A canape reception, a buffet and a formal plated dinner are priced in ascending order, and mobile catering sits below all of them. The difference is labour rather than ingredients: plated service needs staff on the floor for the whole meal and a kitchen able to send a hundred plates at once, while a van or a stall needs neither. Multiply the gap across a hundred guests and it exceeds most couples' entire entertainment budget, which is why this decision should be made early and deliberately rather than defaulted to whatever the venue suggests.
The lines that sit outside the per-head figure
A per-head catering figure usually covers the meal and its service and nothing else. Drinks are separate, evening food is a separate order at its own per-head rate, cake cutting can carry a fee, staff travel and accommodation appear for remote venues, and equipment hire appears whenever the venue has no kitchen. Ask for each as its own line. The commonest catering surprise is not the meal price, it is discovering that the evening food for the same hundred guests is a second four figure sum nobody had counted.
Where the venue's rules change everything
Many venues hold an exclusive caterer or a list you must choose from, and some charge a fee to bring in your own. That single fact can move the food budget more than any menu decision, so establish it before you fall in love with a venue rather than after. Corkage works the same way for drinks. Where you do have a free choice, tell every caterer the same guest count, the same format and the same dietary requirements, and ask what they would do with your per-head budget rather than what your menu would cost, since the first question gets you their expertise and the second gets you a quote.
Questions people ask about wedding food
How much should wedding food cost per head?
The published figures in this record run from a mobile caterer's low per-head band to a London formal sit-down band several times higher. Which one applies to you is decided by service format far more than by menu.
Is a buffet cheaper than a sit-down?
Usually, because it needs fewer staff for less time. The published bands here put buffets between canapes and plated service, and the saving is real at a hundred guests.
What about dietary requirements?
Tell caterers the numbers at quote stage, not at the final headcount. A third of a room needing an alternative changes the kitchen plan and sometimes the price, and caterers price it fairly when they know early.
Do we have to use the venue's caterer?
At many venues, yes, or you pay a fee to bring your own. Ask before booking the venue, because it can be the largest single constraint on your food budget.