25 questions to ask your wedding caterer (from a caterer)

We answer these questions for a living, and honestly, most couples ask too few of them. The uncomfortable ones are the useful ones. Here are the 25 we would ask any caterer in Portugal, ours included, with what a good answer sounds like for each.

Money and contract

1. What exactly is included in the per-guest price? A good answer itemises: food, staff, tableware, setup, cleanup. A bad answer is a number followed by silence. Our own wedding catering cost guide shows what full 2026 ranges look like when nothing is hidden.

2. Is the price fixed once we sign, or can it change? You want a fixed per-guest price in writing, with any indexation clause named and capped. "Prices may be adjusted" with no cap is a blank cheque.

3. What is the deposit and payment schedule? Normal in Portugal: 20 to 30% to secure the date, a mid payment, and the balance tied to the final headcount before the wedding. All of it dated, in the contract.

4. What happens if our guest count drops after the final headcount? The honest answer explains the cutoff (usually 10 to 14 days out) and what is still refundable after it. Nobody serious refunds day-before cancellations in full; anybody serious tells you that upfront.

5. What is your cancellation and postponement policy? Listen for concrete tiers by date, and for how a date change is treated differently from a cancellation. "We will work something out" is not a policy.

6. Are staff, service hours, and cleanup included, or billed on top? Overtime is where budgets die. Ask what hour service ends and the cost per extra hour, in writing.

Kitchen and logistics

7. How do you handle a villa or quinta with no usable kitchen? This is the filter question. Event operators answer instantly: field kitchen, generators if needed, done monthly. Cooks improvise in yours. If the answer includes a pause, keep shopping.

8. Have you worked at our venue before? A yes is nice, not necessary. The good answer to a no is "we do a site visit and a technical check before we quote final logistics."

9. What do you need from the venue? Power, water, access hours, prep space. A caterer who cannot list their own requirements has not thought about your venue yet.

10. How many events do you run on our date? There is a right answer for their size, not one universal number, but you want to hear that your wedding has a dedicated team and a named lead, not a share of one.

11. What time does the team arrive and leave? The answer shows whether they have actually built a run sheet for weddings like yours.

12. Who supplies tables, linen, glassware and rentals? Either they handle it, or they coordinate it, or it is yours. Any of the three works; discovering it in the final month does not.

Food and tasting

13. Is a menu tasting included, and when does it happen? Standard for weddings. Planning from abroad? The good answer offers to schedule it around your trip, which is how we run it for destination weddings in Portugal.

14. Can the menu be adapted, or are these fixed packages? Fixed packages are fine at the volume end of the market. In the premium segment, the menu should be built with you.

15. How do you handle allergies and dietary requirements at scale? Listen for a system: a dietary matrix per guest, plated alternatives, kitchen separation for severe allergies. "We always have a vegetarian option" is not a system.

16. Where does the food actually come from? You are not auditing suppliers; you are checking they can answer. Fish from where, produce from where, what changes with the season.

17. Can you handle the wedding cake, or coordinate with whoever does? Either answer is fine. Silence on cutting fees is not; ask if there is one.

Staff and the day itself

18. What is your staff-to-guest ratio for our format? Seated dinners need roughly one server per 10 to 12 guests plus kitchen; stations and cocktails differ. The point is they should have a number and a reason.

19. Who is our single point of contact on the day, by name? One name, present at the venue, empowered to decide. If coordination is "the office," problems will queue behind a phone.

20. How are children's and supplier meals priced? Standard practice: reduced price for both. Forgotten surprisingly often.

21. When does service officially end, and what does an extra hour cost? Same as question 6, asked again on purpose, because the two answers should match.

Portugal and destination-specific

22. Can we plan everything remotely and do the tasting in one trip? For destination couples this is the whole game. The good answer describes video calls, written proposals, and a tasting scheduled to your visit.

23. Do you carry public liability insurance, and is the team HACCP certified? The only acceptable answer is yes, with paperwork available on request. This one question removes most of the market.

24. How does the menu handle an August wedding in full heat? Listen for cold-chain logistics, course choices that survive 35 degrees, and shade plans for stations. Heat is the number one food risk at Portuguese summer weddings.

25. What is the rain plan for an outdoor dinner? Not the venue's plan, theirs: how service flow changes, what moves indoors, who decides and by when. A caterer with no rain answer has never had it rain, which means they have not done many weddings here.

How to use this list

Send it, do not perform it. Email the shortlist all 25 and watch what comes back: how fast, how concrete, how comfortable they are with the money questions. The caterer whose written answers are boring and precise is the one you want; excitement is for the food.