Plastic

brittanyk32

With the caterer we are going with, they offer both plastic and china. The china, is $4.00 a person, which breaks down to roughly $600.00. To me, that is insane. They offer a white heavy duty plastic that is included in the cost per head that we are comfortable with. Is it crazy to do the white plastic? I just feel like that $600 could be better used else where.

maryandkirk0909

Yep.  At the last wedding I attended the plastic plates were pretty crappy despite being the "china quality" kind and broke or were warped by the hot food.  Some things, like weddings, are probably worth the extra expense.

tucktuckpartyof2

I disagree.  I think the white plastic is fine, but I wouldn't hesitate to ask the caterer if you could have 1-3 of the plastic plates, then go cook dinner at home and use them.  You'll see for yourself if they do warp, bend, crack, or otherwise don't seem sturdy.
If I went to a wedding and they served the food on those plates, I wouldn't think anything of it. In the end though, the choice is yours.  You may find that something else is worth cutting back on so that you can do the china.  You may decide $600 is VERY well spent elsewhere.

Good luck!!

manateehugger

Make sure you see/touch the plastic before you rent it. There are some good ones and some bad ones. Also, check out Weinhardt - their prices seem more reasonable. 

http://www.weinhardtpartyrentals.com/

aurianna

Definitely ask to see it first. To touch it. To hold it. See if you can see it with food on it.

Because $600 seems like a lot... but if you put that $600 towards something else, like fancier lighting or florals... it could be for naught if all people really member is the crappy plates.

This is kind of judgy... but if the place settings look cheap, the whole wedding looks cheap. So make sure of the caliber first.

amalama

I would definitely see exactly what you would be using. Our caterer (Russo's, I think $4 is what our china costs so maybe it's the same one?) offers plastic in some of their packages. I saw it at their open house and didn't think it looked cheap. We are doing china though because we still wanted it to look nicer, but if I saw it at someone else's wedding I wouldn't automatically think cheap. It also depends on the rest of the wedding though. If you are going super fancy on other things it will look out of place and weird.

And as far as looking at Weinhardt, if you went that route you would probably either still have to pay the caterer at least some of the difference for them to do the set up and clean up, or you would have to have someone else responsible for that. I haven't priced that out but I would guess it wouldn't be worth it.

amalama

Oh and what I saw was plastic plates but real silverware and linens, up close you could still tell, but it looked okay. I definitely would not do plastic cutlery though, cutting meat with plastic knives is annoying!