There are basically 3 types of minimum expenditures for a Wishes event:
1)
Overall expenditure of $10,000/$12,000/$15,000/$20,000, depending on when you hold your event
2)
Food and beverage minimum of $100/$125/$150 per person over age 21, depending on the time of day of your event. All food
and beverage served on the day of your event counts, whether it's a catered ladies' brunch, the wedding reception, or a dessert party. The cake also counts. Which means your reception meal doesn't have to cost the full $100/$125/$150 per person.
3)
Venue-specific food and beverage minimums at certain locations that overlap the per-person food and beverage minimums. If your reception is in a ballroom, you don't have to worry about these. But if it's at, say, Atlantic Dance Hall, which has a $9,600 minimum for plated meals, you must spend at least that amount on food and beverage in that location alone. Which means that if you have only 64 guests, you WILL be spending $150/person on food and beverage for just the reception.
Drinks can either be paid for in
packages, which cost a set amount per person for unlimited drinks, or
bill-on-consumption, which means you pay an estimate up front but only actually end up paying for exactly what guests drinkyou get a refund or a bill after the fact. Usually it's a refund.
...And don't forget
service charges (21%) on all food and beverage, plus
tax (6.5%) on the food, beverage AND service charges. Neither of these count toward your minimum expenditure, and they add thousands to the cost of a Wishes event.
Hope this helps!
I am trying to find though what people normally would pay for water/soda, the entree's and cake costs. I can't seem to find what that would be typically for a cake slice per person or each persons food platter that goes towards that minimum.
