How to read a banquet quote, line by line

Most people book a banquet hall two or three times in their life. Venues write quotes every day. That asymmetry is the whole problem: the document is written in a shorthand that is completely obvious to the person sending it and quietly ambiguous to the person receiving it.

This is a walk through a banquet quote, line by line, with the questions each line should prompt. It applies to ours and to everyone else's.

The rate line

Vegetarian — ₹599 per plate

The number everyone reads first, and the number that decides the least. Three things are missing from it, and all three are worth more than the difference between one venue's rate and another's.

Is it inclusive of tax? Ours is not; GST at 18% sits on top. Some venues quote inclusive. A ₹700 inclusive rate and a ₹599 exclusive rate are within a rupee of each other, and they look a hundred rupees apart.

What menu is it priced against? A per-plate rate is only meaningful attached to a specific menu with a specific number of items. Ask for the menu on the same page as the rate.

How many plates? Which brings us to the line people skip.

The minimum line

Grand Hall — minimum 100 guests

If your quote does not have this line, it is incomplete, and you should ask for it in writing before anything else. The minimum is the headcount you are billed for regardless of how many people arrive.

Our floors are fifty for Pearl Hall, a hundred for Grand Hall, a hundred and eighty for Royal Hall. Your real cost is the higher of your actual headcount and this number — so a ninety-guest function in Grand Hall is a hundred-plate bill.

The comparison that matters is not rate against rate. It is rate × minimum against rate × minimum. A lower rate with a higher floor is frequently the more expensive room.

The hall rent line

Hall rent — billed separately, hourly slot

Food and room are priced separately here. If your quote shows only a per-plate figure, the room is either bundled or missing, and you need to know which.

Ask for the slot in hours with a start and end time written down, and ask what happens after the end time. Events overrun. It is worth knowing the cost of that before it is happening around you.

The tax line

GST @ 18%

Check what it is being applied to. Food, hall rent and rooms are not automatically treated identically on an invoice, and a quote that shows one blended tax figure at the bottom is hiding arithmetic you are entitled to see. Ask for the tax shown against each line rather than as a single number at the end.

The beverage line, or its absence

If the quote is silent on alcohol, that silence is the most expensive thing on the page.

Here, outside liquor is not permitted, and the bar runs in-house under the venue's excise permit. That is a firm answer you can plan against. What you want to avoid is a quote that does not mention it at all, because the assumption you make now becomes a five-figure difference later.

Get the format in writing: whether there is a bar, what it costs, whether it is per head or on consumption, and what the minimum spend is if there is one.

The lines that are not there

The hardest part of reading a quote is noticing what has not been written. Four things belong on the page and frequently are not.

Vendor access and setup time

Your decorator needs the room before your guests do. If your slot begins at seven and the decor team needs three hours, someone is paying for those three hours or the decor is not finished. Ask when your vendors can get in, and whether that time is inside or outside your booked slot.

What you may bring

Ours: outside decor is allowed with no fee, and an outside cake is allowed with no cutting charge. Outside catering is considered case by case and requires written approval in advance, because in-house catering is the default and it is what holds the quoted per-plate price.

Those are three separate policies and they are answered separately. A venue that says "yes, you can bring things" without specifying which things has not answered.

Advance, payment schedule and cancellation

How much to hold the date, when the balance falls due, and what happens if you cancel or move. Ask for all three in writing, from every venue, before any money moves. A verbal cancellation policy is not a cancellation policy.

Who your contact is on the day

The person who sells you the hall is often not the person running your event. Ask for the name and number of whoever will be on the floor, and try to speak to them before the day rather than meeting them during it.

Rooms, if people are staying

We have fifty-two rooms on site at ₹2,500 to ₹3,000 a night. If you have outstation family, put this in the budget at the start rather than treating it as a detail to sort out later — on a wedding date, rooms are the first thing to run out.

A quote worth signing

By the time you sign, one page should tell you: the hall, the date, the slot with a start and end time, the menu, the per-plate rate, the minimum headcount, the hall rent, the tax on each line, the beverage arrangement, the payment schedule, the cancellation terms and a name to call.

That is thirteen things. Most quotes carry four or five of them. The gap is not usually dishonesty — it is the shorthand of people who do this daily writing for people who don't.

You are allowed to ask for the rest. If you have a quote from us that is missing any of it, send it back and we will complete it: +91 88843 31096, or events@theveloriagrand.com.