Alcohol- No great story started with a salad

We are providing our own alcohol and it will be sooo much cheaper than if a bar-tending service provides the booze. We hired someone that is a licensed bartender for $25 per hour and will be spending probably around $500 on booze and mixers and stuff so overall about $650 ish. Not bad when most places for a service came to $1200 and up for the same selection. With that much alcohol we will probably have tons left over to either return or to give as gifts.

I'm doing full open bar and it's 20 per person so it comes out to 1k for all adults. It was about the same if I wanted to bring my own alcohol but I would still have to pay a bartender

BYOB should never be done after college. No way in hell would I attend a BYOB wedding.

Wow two double rings bumping their heads together with bad ideas...Who would of thunk it! Gee Willickers!

Sign up for bevmo sales, that saved my roommate tons on her wedding

@Amanda I have plenty of real world adult things to worry about. I was still offering an open bar to guests.

OP, when I had a venue that was going to allow it, FH and I were going to offer 2 kinds of beer and 3 kinds of booze (vodka, whiskey, and..gin i think?) since our guests don't drink wine. It would have worked out to way less.

I would fully expect outside alcohol to be more affordable if your venue allows it. We are providing a beer and a cider option on draft as well as providing growlers for guests to take home what's remaining for around $200 (we ordered way more than necessary for a party of 40). We'll also supply a choice of wines for guests who prefer, but that shouldn't be more than another $100. You would have to make sure you have a bartender though, some places require they have insurance for liability purposes.

We are having a non alcoholic reception just for this very instance. Even if we saved every nickle and dime until the wedding we wouldn't be able to provide for our guest lists plus like previously stated some people are picky about their alcohol and BYOB can get a little dicey. However after the reception we are having an adult only party with our wedding party and whoever else would like to attend and it is BYOB we made separate invitations to that gathering so it saves the issue on what to drink at the reception

Jesus Mary and Joseph.

Save us.

@Jessica, no.

If you can't afford to host guests, you're trying to host too many people.

"Hey come get dressed up and buy me a present! oh but no drinks for you. But wait, you can come to the after party if you want! where you'll buy/bring your own drinks of course!! hee hee!!"

Our venue is byob, it's stressful figuring out how much and what. I used three or four calculators and used the highest number for each item. I also am probably going to get stuff that I will use if there is left overs because we ate collecting them during sales returning doesn't work. If you find a store that refunds unopened bottles that will work to.

This discussion always comes down to, "my guests will bring their own alcohol, food, and chairs because they love us that much, and everyone here does their wedding that way."

Which is patently not true.

@Jessica, you've managed to combine almost every tacking idea in one evening. I betcha you're having a honeyfund too. Just a wild guess.

My cousin had a BYOB wedding as in asked their guests to bring the alcohol & said "just bring it up to the bar, the bartender will serve it for you" AKA use your alcohol to serve other guests too. Our venue is BYOB but we are bringing all of the alcohol to create a full bar, not asking our guests.

I'm jealous of all these bring your own venues! I'm getting married in NY and it's an open bar but they won't let us bring anything we want additional or special in, we'd have to order through them.

Cassandra I couldn't imagine the prices of NY. I think it's all small town vs big city. Things are very different from place to place.

Depends on the venue. I had a non-wedding event space venue in the NYC area ready to go with me bringing in my own stuff.

Stephannie, that doesn't sound like a wedding that sounds like the house parties I'd attend at 18.

I'm not going to serve alcohol for more reasons then the money. There will be children present. I don't even have a registry..I don't care about gifts...most of my time is spent taking care of my special needs child I don't have time to calculate how much wine we need and what kind of alcohol everyone is into...we are having a get together of close friends after the reception the option is BYOB if you feel like drinking...I didn't know there was some wedding Bible I should be following but not everyone fits in the same little box and not everyone's wedding is the same...its a shame to see so much negativity towards other brides when we could be supporting each other...OP do whatever you want because I'm sure someone out there is going to think your doing it wrong anyway

For our venue we had to bring in our own alcohol and drinks besides water and tea. We served beer, wine, vodka and Hennessy along with sodas, juices, mixers, etc. We spent about $1000 on everything for 300 people. I think bringing it in saved us money.

We're also in the early stages. But if we come across a venue that doesn't provide alcohol, we're doing beer, wine and signature drinks. My mom and FMIL said they would help provide some of the alcohol.

We are bring ours in to our venue. We budgeted $3500 for beer/liquor/wine (we have to buy the venues wine which is little spendy) for 100-125 people. It's cheaper but not every venue allows it.

We are overbuying so we don't run out. We are also getting good beer and liquor. Bevmo said we can return what we don't open. Bevmo will deliver and the catering company is providing a bartender (or two).