I have to make a shameless plug for the company that catered our wedding in May - Saucy Salamander in Annapolis. We were on a tight budget but wanted our guests to be fed a lot and fed well. We also wanted the flexibility to BYOB and throw in our own dessert (cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake). That's nearly impossible to do for less than $10K in DC. Thankfully, two years ago, we attended a wedding that was catered by Saucy. We called the owner - Rhonda Falcon - and she met with us for several hours to get acquainted and pick our menu. We got what we wanted - amazing food for about 140 guests for ~$7K. You can see some pictures of the food here:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=caterer&w=21759421%40N04 (photo credit: Balance Photography in Baltimore, also awesome to work with).I suppose the big lesson is to look outside city walls for good deals. But if your city is DC, then the best game in town is Saucy, an unassuming cafe-by-day in an Annapolis business park. You can get Rhonda's number at
www.saucysalamander.com.