Bring your own alcohol to venue

Hire a licensed bartender who will monitor how much people are drinking. Don’t make your guests pay for alcohol.

I don’t think it’s rude to make guests pay for alcohol as long as they know to come prepared ahead of time

I’ve never seen a cash bar when the people getting married are the ones supplying the alcohol. That would be you profiting off of or being reimbursed for your own wedding. Hire a licensed bartender to cut people off and keep it to beer and wine only if you’re worried about people getting too drunk.

Read the rules of the venue carefully. Most will state if you supply your own alcohol you cannot charge for it.
One way to lessen the drinking, if you are having a cocktail hour, is to not serve alcohol then. Call it "refreshments and hors d'oeuvres" hour. Give your guests a few minutes before dinner to grab their drinks.
If there is going to be a cash bar then I would let guests know ahead of time for sure. I've been caught without $$ in my pocket for both dollar dance and bar before. Sadly (jk!) I gave my money to the newlyweds....but wished I had a drink too!

First I want to say it’s your day and you can do whatever you want and it you want your guests to pay then that’s what you will do! Secondly I want to warn you to be careful I have learned a lot of people on WW hate the idea of a cash bar and you might get some rude comments from people here and your guests. As long as your guests know ahead of time to bring cash they should be fine. Have you considered telling everyone to BYOB? it’s basically the same at the end of the day they are paying for their own drinks. I feel like if this were me my family would judge me or call me cheap for Having a cash bar but if I were to tell everyone “i won’t supply any alcohol but you are welcome to bring some for yourself if you want” them they will be less judgmental but you know your crowd better than I do

View Quoted Comment I love this comment... we have a bar tab for our venue and we can't bring anything outside except for the cake... everything else is through them even the decor. After the cash that we have to put on the bar runs out or is used they will then have to pay for their drinks... in not limiting anyone but when its done its done. I would hooe that b
People will be respectful and allow others to get drinks as well.

If you’re the ones supplying the alcohol can you even charge your guests? Venues are usually allowed to do this because they hold licenses to SELL, not just distribute, alcohol. A licensed bartender can serve alcohol, but wouldn’t have a license to sell. I don’t think individuals can actually obtain that licensing, although that may vary by state.

Hire a outside company to distribute the alcohol. Their liable that way for making sure everyone is 21 and it prevents grabby hands

I agree with PPs that you should be sure that under your venue's guidelines and your state's laws that you are able to sell alcohol that you have purchased. I think it's totally acceptable to have a cash bar, I wouldn't do it, but it's not in poor taste imo. However, I think its dicey to charge for alcohol you have purchased. How would you come up with prices? Would you sell it at cost or a markup? I like a PP comment about making the event BYOB. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would frown upon that, but I don't think it's a bad option given the situation. Regardless of what you choose, make sure your guests have advance notice and all will be well.

No way. If you’re buying all the alcohol, then guests paying for “drinks” are paying YOU directly which is....poor form. As a PP mentioned, you’re probably going to have some legal issues with most venues selling alcohol on their property (for you to sell alcohol you are likely to need proper licensing , and you’ll certainly need insurance).

Buying your own alcohol is a great way to save money. You can buy sales and with coupons, you can buy in bulk to get a discount (many liquor stores will discount 10-20% if you purchase a case). You can stick to beer and wine only to save some money. Look around for liquor stores that all returns for unopen bottles, then you don’t have to worry about extras. Stores like Costco sell alcohol. Many deals to be found.

View Quoted Comment There’s a big difference between a cash bar and charging people for beverages you’ve already purchased, not the least of which being the likelihood of the couple making profits from the bar. The wine I bought, with a discount, probably came to about $10 per bottle, maybe a little under. So each glass of wine served only cost me $2. So to charge anything above $2 would be money in my pocket — that’s the issue here: not guests paying for their own drinks, gets paying the couple. I suppose it’s one thing if they did carefully calculate exactly the cost of the beverage to them and go with that, but, there’s still largely some legal issues to work out. The ‘your day your way’ mentality is dangerous when there may actually be legal ramifications that can get your event shut down or you sued. I do agree that a BYOB event would be a better option than selling pre-purchased alcohol, for those reasons— normally not up my alley but certainly a better look than pocketing money from guests. IF you want a cash bar thats okay, but the ONLY way to do that would be to hire an outside bar tending service that provides the alcohol; then you pay for the service, guests pay for their drinks.

I would read the rules and make sure you don’t have to hire a bar tender. Plus about the reselling thing. People can still drink you dry even if they have to pay. So you could still run out.

Check your venue rules, state laws, and insurance about selling alcohol. I called my insurance agent and he told me that there were different rules for providing vs selling. But didnt tell me what they were since I didnt ask.

Cash bars are totally normal where I'm from, with the exception of beer.

We also have to provide our own alcohol at the venue. We're getting a couple kegs of beer and an undetermined amount of wine.

We chose not to do liquor. We also chose not to sell, as it seemed like a headache.

We also hired licensed bartenders thru our facility.

I also asked if since we provide the alcohol, if we're allowed a BYOB situation. I'm supposed to call and talk to her about the particulars of that, but I decided it's not super important yet, and I'll just leave it til our meeting the month of the wedding to discuss.

Our venus also offers Bring Your Own, so FH and I used several alcohol calculators on Pinterest to figure out how much liquor to buy so we don't run out. And we will also have a bartender to make the drinks to ensure we will not run out. Safe to say we bought a little over what we needed, be confident we will have what we nees for the day.