How much did you spend on your AHR?

We're having our celebration for appx. 80 (still have to send out invites and get the rsvp's back - this is an estimate) at a restaurant. We'll have appetizers, entrees, dessert, sangria, beer, wine, soda, juice, and a dj. The total cost for that is $5100. We're also bringing in cupcakes for $300, and floral for about $600, and we're doing custom hot sauce bottles with our pictures on them for about $200. Total cost is appx. $6500. Not too bad, especially for a NYC restaurant.

Hi Everyone, It's been really interesting to read everyone's responses! I think you're right and we may have to rethink our AHR budget. But I'm hoping I can still keep it close to the original budget. We have a friend who works for a food distributor and so he said he can get us a huge deal on the food. Liquor might cost a bit, but none of our friends are really big drinkers so I'll have to really think about that. As for soda/drinks, plates, and utensils, we plan to get in bulk at BJ's. I can get a 200 fork box for about $10-15. I can buy 8 boxes of pasta in bulk for a total of about the same price or less which should easily cover 200 people. I'll have to see how good of a deal our friend can get us on the rest of the food. I plan to prepare most of the food myself and then we'll hire someone to man the grills for 3-4 hrs so our friends and family won't be working/cooking during the party. I guess I'll figure out more as I get closer to the date.

Hi Everyone, It's been really interesting to read everyone's responses! I think you're right and we may have to rethink our AHR budget. But I'm hoping I can still keep it close to the original budget. We have a friend who works for a food distributor and so he said he can get us a huge deal on the food. Liquor might cost a bit, but none of our friends are really big drinkers so I'll have to really think about that. As for soda/drinks, plates, and utensils, we plan to get in bulk at BJ's. I can get a 200 fork box for about $10-15. I can buy 8 boxes of pasta in bulk for a total of about the same price or less which should easily cover 200 people. I'll have to see how good of a deal our friend can get us on the rest of the food. I plan to prepare most of the food myself and then we'll hire someone to man the grills for 3-4 hrs so our friends and family won't be working/cooking during the party. I guess I'll figure out more as I get closer to the date.

What a great post! I think some of the responses are comparing apples to oranges though, formal reception vs. informal party. I think a budget of around $1000 would work for something very informal without hard liquor, beer and wine only. When you add hard liquor things really start to add up as you have to buy mixers, etc.

We are doing 130-150 people. We are budgeting around $2000.

What a great post! I think some of the responses are comparing apples to oranges though, formal reception vs. informal party. I think a budget of around $1000 would work for something very informal without hard liquor, beer and wine only. When you add hard liquor things really start to add up as you have to buy mixers, etc.

We are doing 130-150 people. We are budgeting around $2000.

To be honest, I still don't think this budget will work serving any type of alcohol. (I'm going through my own budget planning and food lists now, which is why I've done all this research)

As a guideline for planning parties, for cocktails, you should have enough to provide 2 drinks per hour per guest for the first 2 hours, and 1 drink per hour thereafter. For a 4 hour party, that's 6 drinks per person, or 1200 drinks. If you use keg beer as the lowest possible alcoholic benchmark at .50 cents a drink (really, really cheap), that's already $600, leaving only $200 for food and other party necessities.

Also as a benchmark, at the minimum you should plan on having at least 1 lb of food per guest if it's appetizers only, or 1.5 lbs if it's intended to be a meal. This is considered the bare minimum. Keep in mind that there will be some waste. People getting a drink and forgetting it somewhere, etc. So you need to provide some percentage more for inevitable waste, not just enough to cover one per person. (IE, I think you will need to buy more than one box of 200 forks) One guideline for cups, for example, is at least double the amount of guests - because most people invetiably will get a new cup at least once during the party.

If you can pull this off on 1k, I would totally be interested in how it turns out! I think it will help us all to find ways to cut costs.

Keep us posted and good luck with the planning! :-)

I think $1k is pushing it, but if you can swing it, more power to you!

We spent over $20k, probably closer to $25k-$27k, but I am not really sure. We had just over 300 people though (super large families) and we had it kinda formal like a regular weddign reception. We actually spent not alot of money considering the amount of people that we had!

Yes, lolkitten-the alcohol really adds up! Most of our expenses are on the food though. We are having around 250 people-yikes!

we spent around $19k for 200 people. this included a 10 course meal (asian banquet with lobster, crab, peking duck, suckling pig) and open bar.

if you break down the numbers you have about $800 for 200 people so about $4 per person...i don't know about you but $4 is pretty tight for alcohol and food.

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Originally Posted by GracieBebe Hi All,   We are also currently planning an AHR and I was just curious on how much people spent on theirs. FH gave me a strict budget of $1000 for approx. 150-200 people (depending on if we invite his extended family, i.e. cousins, etc.). We already spent $200 on the picnic/park location, and we're getting the wedding cake as a gift from one of our friends. So I'm wondering if I can do booze and food for $800 for that many people. I'm thinking just burgers, hotdogs, chicken, ribs, salads, slaw, rolls, and wedding cake for dessert. Tons of beer and some liquor for margaritas and mixed drinks.   What do you think girls?   TIA!

I organized a casual BBQ for my department for 2 years. I was surprised how cheaply we were able to feed so many people when buying in bulk.

Sams has boxes of burgers for around $9 for 40. They were really good, too. Everything was packaged for restaurants & really easy to cook fast because there wasn't a lot of wrapping.

Then we have a keg of beer & large bottles of yellowtail for the alcohol.