Champagne

Alcohol is alcohol. If you don’t have any one with a license pouring, your venue doesn’t have a liquor license you are asking for trouble. You could very well be fined by the control board or your venue can cancel your contract. If anything happens you will be held personally liable because doing this would violate any event insurance

The venue stated in our contract we can have a bar and alcohol. We just can’t sell it. The bartender can take tips but we can’t require quests to pay for their drinks. But when everyone leaves we’re responsible if they drink and drive and get in an accident and such. Which is why we’re only doing champagne for the toast.

I would double check with your venue if it's okay to serve alcohol yourself WITHOUT use of a professional bartender. I want to say that even if your venue has no liquor license, bartenders might have their own set of different licenses, and the last thing you want is to get in trouble for serving alcohol without a professional around.

If it ends up being okay to serve alcohol yourselves without hiring outside barstaff, you could maybe have a trusted friend pour and set glasses on trays per table right before guests come in to the reception? Or put a bottle on each table for them to pour? At my own wedding, we actually served sparkling cider (which the waitstaff poured and served) because not many of our guests actually like champagne or are big drinkers, lol.

View Quoted Comment They don’t have to be licensed, however he’s very strict about knowing everyone is 21. Which is understandable. I love the idea of having them on the table, I don’t think they’ll allow it due to different ages at the tables. We got champagne and sparkling white grape juice. My man of honor is a bartender.. do you think having him and a bridesmaid pour would be tacky?

View Quoted Comment I think it would depend on how big your wedding is (so they aren't stuck forever pouring for a million people)? Mine was small (34 people) so it was pretty lowkey and we were very upfront about doing things ourselves our way, lol. I personally don't think it's tacky and could definitely be something to be lighthearted about too. If you have place cards, they could set the glasses at each place in advance - I've been to weddings where the champagne is already at my seat, haha.

Escort cards

we had our venue pour glasses of champagne then I had table escort cards made that hung off the lip of the glass.

Another Idea would be a champagne wall or passed as people take their seats