Drinks budget

Beer and wine only. Most people don't like champagne.

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How much do they charge per drink? If it's $10, then if everyone has a glass that'll be $1000 real fast. Perhaps one glass for a champagne would be ok. If $5-$7 a glass, maybe a bubbly bar because some folks won't drink champagne at all and most folks won't have more than 2 glasses, so you should be fine on your budget.

For dinner, I say "open bar!" But for brunch, I think one glass for a toast or a bubbly bar is fine. If you had a bigger budget beer/wine would be nice but I don't think required for this time of day.

View Quoted Comment I totally agree. There’s no way we’re putting ourselves into debt so people can get trashed in the middle of the afternoon lol. But we can afford 2k into the budget, so I’m really just trying to figure out the best way to use that 2k

View Quoted Comment It is $10 per glass of wine and I think $9 for a beer. Ugh. Totally overpriced for drinks, I know, it was the one downside of this venue but we decided to book it despite that, since everything else was perfect!

You'll probably be ok with a champagne bar because some people won't drink it. And people who like bubbly might drink 2 glasses max at a brunch.

But...if you're really worried about going over budget, everyone can get one glass for a toast.

View Quoted Comment Do you think we should then also allow people to buy other drinks from the bar, or should we make champagne the only thing that can be served?

I just ask because I am not crazy about asking people to pay for their own drinks, but it also seems silly for us to have access to a full service bar and not allow people to buy their own drinks if they want...

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I just wouldn't do cash bar. It's sooo rude to guests.

Would the venue consider "per person" fee instead? Our reception venue charged $19 PP and we had 50 adults, evening reception with dinner & dancing, at a winery. People drank a LOT but our wine/beer total cost was set/capped.

I didn't read all of the posts...are you having music/dancing or other activities? If just brunch/lunch then you *might* be ok with an open bar serving just champagne & wine (don't pour a champagne toast because it'll go to waste, make it a bar people need to go to and get drinks only if they want them). Because brunch events are generally shorter I don't think people will drink as much.

Can you sign the venue contract now to get the drink prices in writing but then decide what you want to do when it's time to sign the final banquet order (usually the week before). For example, if only 75 guests RSVP maybe you'll be more comfortable serving beer, wine & champagne as open bar.

For the next year, perhaps see where you can save extra money and put it towards an open bar. If you don't use it, then SCORE.

View Quoted Comment Yeah for open bar our venue charges $20 per person PER HOUR. So for a 1 hour cocktail hour plus 4 hour reception for 100 people that comes to $10,000. Definitely not worth it since that’s assuming that everyone has 2+ drinks per hour, and also our total budget is 15k, we literally don’t have 10k to spend on an open bar.

We are having music and dancing. Idk I’m leaning towards just putting a $2000 cap on the bar and hoping we don’t hit it, which honestly a likely possibility.

View Quoted Comment Also yes we can do that, the venue said they don’t even need our decision until 72 hours before the wedding! So we can wait to decide. But either way the “open bar” makes no sense due to the $20 per person per hour thing. So if anything we’d still do a consumption bar but not put a cap on it (which is risky to our bank account if people drink more than expected...) but maybe we could raise the cap from 2k to 3k if we can afford it.

As for the number of guests, we’re actually inviting 113 right now even though we wanted to keep it down to 100 (venue can accommodate up to 150 so it’s not a space issue, just a money issue) but if we get below 100 people coming, my mom has an extensive B list of her friends who she’d like to come if we get enough “no”s, so I doubt we’ll end up with fewer than 100

View Quoted Comment The thing is also, my family is paying for the majority of the wedding and FH and I are kicking in what we can afford (I’m going to be 1 year out of college at the time of the wedding and FH will be 2 years out, so we don’t have much savings accumulated, but we are very grateful that my family is contributing for most of it).

FH’s father and grandfather are combined kicking in 4k, which we have decided to put towards the rehearsal dinner, and towards alcohol at the reception since that’s what the groom’s family traditionally pays for. We’re estimating actually that our rehearsal dinner will end up being about 1k. So if that’s actually the case, we can use the remaining 3k from my in-laws for the bar. But depends on how much we end up spending at the rehearsal dinner. If it ends up being less than we expect, we can use whatever is left from the 4K to cover drinks the next day

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Okay - on to another issue: Cut the B List with your mom's friends. It is rude and you clearly can't afford it. Any money towards the B List guests (food) should go towards your original invited guests. This is gonna be hard to break to her as she is helping to pay but it is rude to do this to people. Who wants to be an afterthought?

Is there any way to host a consumption bar? For a lunch this might be a good option, it worked for us.

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That's ridiculous!

Hmm...5 hour total reception plus music/dancing? Uh oh, people might drink. Not sure what to suggest besides a limited open bar then: beer, wine, champagne. The only thing I can think of to save budget is open bar from cocktail hour--cake cutting (maybe 2 hours into reception?) then turning the bar into a coffee/tea/water bar as a hint/transition. But that might kill dancing and end the reception early. Tough call. Feels like when there's music/dancing, there will be more drinking. Maybe save up the next 12 months for another $1,000????

View Quoted Comment I don’t want to make her cut the B list since she is paying for the majority of the wedding and is only inviting like 3 of her friends, but she did ask that if people say “no” she could invite more so of course we have to do that for her, it’s really the least we can give her when she has the financial right to the majority of our guest list but is only asking for a few guests if her own.

We can do a consumption bar but if we did that we would have to put some sort of cap on it. We aren’t in a financial position to take the risk that a few people get 10 drinks and the bill ends up being 5k or something. I really doubt that would happen, but if it did, we literally can’t afford that, so we’d have to put a limit on it just in case.

View Quoted Comment Well the reception is 4 hours long but we have an hour cocktail hour preceding it.

We may be able to raise the cap to 3k but I don’t want to plan on doing that since I’m afraid I’m forgetting things when I’m budgeting, and I’d rather save an extra 1k for miscellaneous expenses that I may not be thinking of. If we end up under budget though we’d raise the limit for alcohol

I would say just serve beer and wine. It's affordable and you can check out boxed wines for more bang for your buck.

Are you sure that's really what the open bar costs? That seems beyond insane to me. I got married at an extremely nice venue and our inclusive cost was around $200 for passed, apps, 4 course meal, and premium open bar for 6 hours, in a high COL area. Did you do a lot of research about bar costs in your area? Is this normal?

Also agree with PP, please don't B-list. Cash bar plus a b-list is just faux pas central.

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I meant "open bar" for your guests (limited to beer, wine, champagne-or cutting beer might help too) but "consumption" for you. Sorry. Wasn't clear.

If you're going to cap it, just figure out what happens next. I feel like if you hit that cap two hours into reception then people go to the bar, what does the bartender tell them? Sorry, we ran out? But a cash bar would be a slap in the face to guests.

Yauh, you've got a year. Maybe you'll find another $1K as "just in case" booze budget.

View Quoted Comment Ah gotcha on that first part.

And yeah to avoid that, I’m thinking maybe we set a 2k cap to begin with and have them notify us once it’s reached. If it happens very early on then maybe we’ll close the bar for during dinner and then re-open it afterwards and use the spare 1k.

I do hate the idea of it turning into a cash bar, but I feel like that’s better than just closing the bar altogether since at least it gives people the option to get more drinks. If they don’t want to buy it then they just don’t have to, so doesn’t make sense to just “close” it to everyone if some people wouldn’t mind buying themselves an extra drink. If we did this we could just put a sign up to begin with letting people know that it’s a “limited open bar” so they’ll know we are paying per drink and won’t assume it’s a 100% open bar and drink excessively since it’s “free.”

I know pps have said that if people know there’s a limit on the open bar then they’ll drink excessively to begin with while it’s free for them, but I’m hoping I know my guest list well enough to hope that people would understand our situation and respect us enough to not do that

I am not under the impression that there are very many champagne drinkers. Most prefer other drinks. We're not including it at our wedding (evening dinner/dance). I would go with #2 or #1 (not 3 or 4).