Did your venue have a bar tab minimum?

I personally don’t think that’s expensive. We spent close to 10 grand on similar numbers. Is it a per person price or a consumption bar? What are the prices of drinks at your venue?

That’s a lot compared to what we’re paying. Our venue has a minimum of $5,000 for catering which includes food and bar. Bar for us will be about $2,000.

Our bar tab (beer and wine only) was about $10k, and we had 220 guests. I don't think $5000 is unreasonable. The drinks at our venue were $6-8 and we had a consumption bar so we paid for however many the guests ordered.

I had 165 at my wedding. We had put $5,000 down towards a bar tab (our bar was based on consumption) and the final total at a little over $7,000. It's definitely a know your audience thing. My family is an Irish stereotype and I got married on St. Patrick's Day, so it was easy to hit $5,000. If your crowd aren't big drinkers than it is probably high and you would probably be overpaying.

Our venue is A La Carte and we are providing our own alcohol. Some of the other venues we looked at had minimums but they were no where near $5000.

Our food/beverage minimum was 6.5k. If we had not done an all inclusive package with our venue, we would have spent almost 4K for 120 people. I don’t this it’s unreasonable.

The venue we chose to book with doesn't have a minimum as far as I'm aware. Ours has several wedding packages to choose from but with a minimum of 40 guest. Each package includes an open bar for a certain time frame and alcoholic beverages (both of which depends on the package you decide on). The we are with though is 4.5hours of open bar with a 5 hour reception (ceremony included but we are pretty set on a different venue for this). With gratuities and tax added in (as well as cost of plate per person and their own doc!) she said our total would be $4200 and change.

Can you tell us more about your wedding. How many people are you having that they require those numbers. If it’s smaller can see your concern but for a larger wedding I don’t think that’s totally unreasonable. We are having around 230 and the bar tab will come to about 15,000

Doesn't sound too bad. My venue minimum is 13k for food and beverage. They charge $40+ per person for open bar with liquor and wine for 4 hours.

Our venue doesn’t have a bar minimum, but the package we’re choosing (beer, wine, middle shelf liquor) will be about $8000 for 150 guests.

That doesnt seem too bad, honestly. Our venue did not have a minimum. We did a consumption bar, and our bar tab came to around $1950. About 80 guests, but not everyone drank, but the people who did drink, DRANK haha. Alcohol was also very reasonably priced. If we paid per head it would have been around $2800 for 5 hours.

Sorry I just saw your numbers. That comes to about 33 dollars a person. Depending on your type of venue that isn’t too unreasonable. If you think about a night out (depending where you live) that’s 3-4 drinks.

We're from NYC and the average per person rate for an open bar is $35 per person plus tax and gratuity. So that's about right. Do ask if the price is for "top shelf" liquor. You may as well serve the best if you are budgeting for that amount. Some venues give you a deal with a full dinner, but that varies from state to state.