Estimating cost of open bar

Does your venue provide alcohol? If so, you should be checking with them for what their package costs.

This is really dependent on if you can bring your own vs the venue supplying and what region you live in.

Our venue does not supply alcohol and is totally fine with us bringing our own. We live in central Missouri area

Hi there Kayley!!! Welcome to WeddingWire!!!

Every area is different in terms of pricing, and that's not just for bar services. That goes for all vendors. I can tell you that the national average starting price for alcohol at a wedding is about $15 per person. It will be cheaper if you're only offering wine and beer, but you can ask your venue or catering for other ways to make the total cost estimate go down.

(You could also put your wedding location into the WeddingWire catering cost guide and it might give you a better idea. It also explains the differences in bar types - cash, limited, open, etc. - and gives you some hints on how to make the bill decrease. )

In the end, it's your wedding, so if you don't want to pay for alcohol and a bar at your wedding, don't. Your guests should understand and be there to celebrate your marriage.

If you have a Costco membership or a Trader Joes nearby, I would get wine and beer there. Costco has craft beer for around $20/case and you can get a case of TJs two buck Chuck for around $30. Costco's wine is also pretty reasonably priced, but I don't have exact numbers. We have about the same numbers and a BYOB venue. We're providing wine and beer and telling people that ask that they can bring in liquor if they want it. There are lots of online calculators that can help out. Most say one serving per person per hour. I feel that's very dependant on your crowd. I think you can reasonably plan for 3 drinks per person for that amount of time.

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I used a beverage calculator and for 90 people for 5 hours, the suggestion was:

65 bottles of wine and 216 12 oz. bottles of beer. You're probably looking at anywhere from $1,000 - $1,500 for the beer and wine, although you might be able to get a bigger volume discount. If you belong to Costco, check and see what the costs are at their Costco-owned liquor stores or other discount distributors.

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This is great advise except for the 2 buck Chuck (which is $3 now). It's really, really bad. Trader Joes does have a $5 wine that's great by Grifone.

Every venue/bar vendor is different. For us, we are budgeting for 175 people for 5.5 of open bar beer & wine. It'll cost us $6,000.

Think about a keg, because i believe that's cheaper, although i don't know if the beer tastes better than one in bottles.

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To each their own. I don't drink it regularly, but I guarantee most people wouldn't know if it was given to them in a glass. It's budget friendly if money is tight.

Definitely talk about this with your venue. The venue we are booking for our reception for 40 people includes 3.5hour open bar of beer and wine included in our overall total of $4000 (counting gratuity and taxes).

Maybe do a sangria punch with fresh fruits? You can buy large drink dispensers that cut fruit looks beautiful in! There are tons of recipies on pinterest! See if maybe any relatives have booze that thet would give for your wedding? Check for a supermarket style liquor store too! Stock up on reasonable sale booze! Get a keg? Your bartenders could fill cups, oriental trading has cute wedding cups. My sister had her wedding at a fire hall: they rented glass decanters and used box wine; one each of red and white wine on each table. Inwould also reccomend getting a blush as well on hand. I also have seen little mini champagne bottles on sale at our liquor store for 1.99! You could have minis on ice!

I’m personally buying a set amount of alcohol for the wedding and that’s it. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. I’m not sure exactly how much of everything I’m buying yet, but that’s my plan. I’m on a tight budget, so in my opinion, they should be lucky they got “free” alcohol at all. Especially since fh and I don’t drink.

Our open bar had 2 beers (on tap), 4 wines (2 reds 2 whites), and all liquors (top shelf and house) and mixers available. We did a consumption bar for 48 people for 5.5 hours. Our total was $2800. Hope this helps!

I'd probably budget around 2K for that. Hopefully you can find it cheaper than that but it's always good to save more and not use it for that than to not budget enough!

I really think as long as you have plenty of beer & wine you’ll be fine. No need to deal with liquor. You can pretty easily get 2 kegs and several cases of wine for about $600-$800 if not less.