Bartending Service

The main thing I can think of is that if people are serving themselves you're likely going to go through alcohol faster/risk running out faster than if there are professionals serving. People will probably fill their glasses fuller than a bartender would.

Also who would be responsible for fixing it if something happens to the keg and it stops working properly, who will set it up, etc.?

I initially was looking to hire a bar tending service where all they do is supply supplies such as the cups and tools and set up and the certified bartenders. And you just give them the alcohol and drinks to serve but then they told me if I just want to restrict to wine and beer only then it might be more cost effective for me to just put bottles of wine at each table. So in the end I just put bottles of wine and cognac at every table. In my culture though that’s extremely common to do, as well. I guess you could just do a premixed drink in a dispenser but you might need a lot of it and for it to be refilled.

1.) You will go through more alcohol faster.
2.) You will be liable for any underage drinking, excessive drinking, DUI’s, accidents, etc.

We didn't have a bartender because it just wasn't in our budget. We supplied our own bottled beer and wine, no liquor. We bought enough for 1 drink per hour per guests and we had a lot leftover. Our wedding was also on a Sunday, so I like to think that kept some guests from overdoing it too much. We didn't have any issues with our method and we saved hundreds!

We are kind of doing the in between because our venue prohibits self-serve...

We are hiring a bartender (he bartends at our favorite happy hour spot) and providing all of our own alcohol. I think this has been a great compromise..we are saving money but don't have the responsibility/concerns that may come with self-serve.

I think the biggest pro is that bartenders are trained and know what they're doing. At my wedding we had beer in bottles (Ultra), wine (2 kinds), tons of liquor, mixers and beer in a keg (Miller Lite), along with other non-alcoholic beverages. Because we had so many options, and because we had a keg, it was important to me to have a bartender that knew what they were doing. We wanted someone who would be able to handle having numerous options and could make the drinks quickly to keep our line down. Another pro of having a bartender is they know when to cut someone off if they have to. Now, my bartender did not have to do this, but I have been to weddings where the bartender had to cut people off.

A con to having self-serve without a bartender is that not everyone knows how to use a keg if they wanted beer. With the liquor, it would make it harder to monitor how much you have. By having guests serve themselves you will run through liquor a lot faster than if you had a bartender serving guests.

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This is exactly what I'm doing. How did you serve the wine? We were thinking to have the bottles on ice and a few wine openers on a table with cups.

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I didn't pay very close attention, but I believe our DOC had a bottle of white and a bottle of red out at all times and once one ran out, she'd grab a chilled one from the fridge to replace it. I'm assuming everyone poured their own glasses; we had a ton of wine leftover.