How is an open bar billed?

You can pay per person in advance or consumption, meaning you get the bill at the end. I paid per person.

Mine is also by consumption. I'm being billed afterwards for the wine. But, we are paying in advance for two kegs of beer.

Our venue only charges by consumption. For most guests, I think that'll be a good thing - 90 year grandma and grandpa won't be drinking much, and a few guests don't drink at all.

Mine is a per person charge. Our guests better set our money's worth!

They will bill you or refund you the difference.

Mine is included.

Ours gives us the option of putting down a deposit and going by consumption, paying any overages (or being refunded the difference!), or paying a per-person package price, which is a set amount for the first 3 hours, and an additional amount for every hour after that.

Ours is billed per person and factored in to be included in the meal price.

Consumption is not technically open bar. Like it is because your guests aren't paying. But you will pay different rates for a true open bar than you will a consumption bar.

We are doing full open. But if you don't have a whole lot of drinkers sometimes it is way more cost affective to do consumption. You will get billed at the end of the night for the amount of drinks served.

Mine is included in the venue price so it's already paid off. Have you spoken with your venue about how they typically do this?

I wish we could pay pp. it'd make it sooo much cheaper.

Talk to your venue. Mine was included in the catering.

For my venue, it is a certain amount, per person, for 5 hours of open bar. Then you can add additional hours for anow extra amount per person per hour.

We are paying per person and it is included in our contract. So we just pay it with our quarterly bills for the venue because it is averaged in to the final price.

Depending on the venue, there are a few choices. We could have done a total open bar for $36/person. Since, we're expecting 100-130 people, it would have been at least $3600.

Secondly, you can be billed by consumption. I found that this way we will have more control over our final bill, seeing as we can set limits on the bar, such as no shots unless ordered by the bride and groom, or do only beer and wine, or only liquor during cocktail hour and switch to beer and wine after.... as well, our venue offers premade 3L batches of sangria or mojitos. Consumption will almost always be cheaper, unless you know you have heavy drinkers attending.

ETA: our estimate in our proposal was $2500 for 130 people based on consumption, and considering a lot of FH family doesn't drink and we're only inviting about 30 people that are friends and not family, we highly doubt we will reach that. As well, most venues should offer the option for a "limit" and will let you know when you're about $200 away from that.

Ours is included in the per person cost set forth by the venue. So I believe we're paying $175-ish per person for the night, which includes the open bar - 4 varieties of wine, 4 types of beer, top shelf liquor, and 2 signature drinks.

We did look at some other venues that did consumption options but a large portion of our guests are big drinkers (sounds bad to say, but hey, whatever!), so we're pretty sure doing a set price is going to save us money in the end. Or at least the sticker shock at the end of the night

We paid a pp amount, the wedding venue I used to work at did consumption bar, the bartenders would measure the amounts of alcohol at the beginning and then the end of the wedding. Would keep track of the bottle beer and glasses of wine poured.