How much does wedding catering cost per person in the Hamptons?

The number people quote, and the number you pay

Ask a Hamptons host what catering cost and you will hear the per-person food-and-service figure, because that is the number on the first page of the proposal. It is real: a 2025 regional survey of Hamptons wedding costs puts food and service at $150 to $400+ per person, or $15,000–40,000+ for a hundred guests. It is also incomplete. The invoice adds the bar, the rentals the caterer supplies, the administrative fee, the gratuity where one is charged, and sales tax on all of it.

The range, with its sources (2026)

Line	Range	Source type
Food and service, Hamptons	$150–400+ per person	regional magazine survey, 2025
Food and service, national average	$80 per guest; $62 Midwest to $123 Mid-Atlantic	The Knot 2026 Real Weddings Study, 10,474 couples
Plated dinner	$70–150 per person; one platform's average of $40 likely excludes service	national aggregators
Buffet	$40–90 per person	national aggregators
Stations	$35–65 budget; $175–350+ chef-driven	national aggregators
Family-style	sources conflict ($60–120 in one place; $50–70 or $120–150 in others)	national aggregators
Bar, Hamptons	premium open bar $75–150 a guest; beer and wine $40–75	regional magazine, 2025
Bar, national	beer and wine $25–45; full open bar $40–90 or $45–100	national aggregators

The three lines at the bottom

Administrative fee. Fifteen to twenty-five percent across the market; two Hamptons caterers publish 20%. One, in Bridgehampton, states in writing that the 20% covers menu design, insurance, coordination, vehicles, benefits and kitchen staff and is not a gratuity for the service staff. Read the definition in your proposal, because it varies.

Gratuity. Separate from the fee. One East Hampton caterer adds 15% to the bill; another leaves it to you and says so. National guidance is $20–50 per server if the contract's "service charge" is not a tip.

Sales tax. New York taxes a caterer's entire charge, food, beverage and service alike, and a mandatory gratuity escapes tax only if it is separately stated, called a gratuity, and paid entirely to the staff; a "service charge" by any other name is taxable. In Suffolk County the rate is 8.75%.

Worked through: $200 a head in food and service, plus a 20% fee ($40), plus 8.75% tax on the $240 ($21), is $261 a head before the bar and the rentals. Plus a $75–150 open bar and $12–20 of basic rentals per guest, a Hamptons wedding dinner for 150 lands between $50,000 and $65,000 at the lower end of the local range and well past $100,000 at the top of it.

What moves the number

• Format. Plated costs more in staff than buffet (one server per 10–12 guests against one per 20–25); stations cost more in chefs.
• Month and day. July 4, the August weekends and Labor Day carry surcharges at some companies; September is the same price with better weather.
• The house. A private house with no catering kitchen means a kitchen tent, a generator and more staff hours than a venue with a kitchen.
• The bar. Premium open bar against beer and wine is the single largest swing after the format.
• Minimums. Two Hamptons caterers publish floors, $1,500 in food and beverage at one and $3,250 in food at another; below those the per-person number is academic.

Where these numbers come from

The Hamptons range is one regional magazine's 2025 survey, not a sample of contracts, and we treat it as the local order of magnitude. The named-caterer figures are from those companies' own published terms in 2026. The national numbers are The Knot's study of 2025 weddings and the large cost aggregators, and they are here so the local premium is visible: on those figures a Hamptons wedding dinner costs two to three times the Mid-Atlantic average per guest. When the sources disagree, we print the disagreement rather than an average.