If you are planning a wedding and reviewing catering quotes, you might be wondering what a service charge is and if it’s the same thing as gratuity.
There is a lot of confusion about this term in general and we get questions about it all of the time. Most people assume that the service charge is a gratuity but in fact it is not. In order to thoroughly explain this, we reached out to some of the well known caterers in the Milwaukee area to ask what their service charge covers.
A service charge is a percentage of your total bill that covers the cost for various expenses such as:
purchasing and maintenance on all serving items, equipment and trucks and gas
overhead costs and standard labor (both for meetings leading up to the wedding as well as on the wedding day - culinary, service, bar, dishwashers)
breakage of items that may occur during an event such as glassware, missing flatware, etc.
A service charge is typically around 20% of the total catering invoice. While the service charge is an industry standard, some caterers do not include one and that is because they list all of these charges as separate line items instead.
While gratuity is often not required by most caterers (always make sure to double check your contract), if you’d like to show your appreciation to the staff, we recommend $25-50 per person (servers and kitchen staff). Make sure to check with your catering manager prior to the event to find out how many people will be on staff that day.
It is always important to review your vendor contracts to see if there is a service charge and/or gratuity included. If you have questions, you can always ask your planner, catering manager, or whoever else may be the point of contact for a specific vendor.