How long will an "open" bar be "open"?

Depends on how heavy your drinkers are and what they're drinking.

My venue also gave us an option of giving each guest a "2 drink coupon" of sorts.

But we opted for a cash bar.

Mostly it would be beer and wine I think, maybe making it just hosted beer and wine?

It depends on a couple of things..You can also ask the people you are having it at. One how long is your wedding? 4 hours - 5 hours? What will they charge you for the drinks? Beer, wine, soda? etc. Everyone is different with their drinking. You probably have an idea with your friends what they drink...For example let's say 2 drinks per person per hour, then times 100 people, times $5.00 per drink. That is $400 for four hours. Two things to also think about is...You can just have wine and beer and maybe one other cocktail drink...That should help cut costs...$2500 sounds pretty good to me!!

Competely depends on the drinks ordered, how many, the price the bar is charging for the drinks each guests want ie. simply cocktail vs. rum&coke vs brandy. does that make sense? we're only having 70ish people, not many of them drink so we did the 1 hour open bar (cocktail hour) & then cash bar after that but will provide top beer & wine.

I went to a wedding once where they had stations set up around the room and had carafes of red and white wine and then 2 diff types of beer. Once it was gone, it was gone.

Well, with a $2500 budget, assuming drinks are $4 each, you will serve 625 drinks! YIKES!!!

I can tell you that open bars can become deadly, so it is great that you have a cap. My former boss told me, on Friday, that his sisters bar tab, with an open bar, came to $20,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are doing wine and sparkling wine...as well as coffee, tea and sparkling water at no fee...but if anyone (read that the grooms family and friends) want liquor, they will need to fork over their own dough.

His family will only spend $500 on this wedding...we are spending over $8k. Let 'em buy their own drinks! LOL! Oh, and my former boss is giving us a case of his wine (he owns a Napa winery) for the wedding! How cool is that????!!!!!

We are having an open bar and the reception time is 4pm-9pm with 54 of legal age, but bar closes at 8 (its on a sunday) we have set the tab at 1,000 and after that will be cash bar. I am hoping that will be enough!

Mine is 4 hrs 7-11....venue says we gotta do last call one hour before we shut it down.

Ours will be a beer, wine, and champagne bar for 5 hours and it costs $3800. We are in Dallas. Not sure if that helps but based on that I would say probably about 3 hours

We will have beer and wine, and champagne. I've purchased 5 cases of wine and we'll have 1 or 2 kegs. I'm not sure how many 12 oz glasses are in a keg of beer, but when it's gone, it's gone! Ours will be from 5-10 and we'll have about 80-90 people that are of age.

We are having a cash bar,

we are supplying the wine both red and white for dinner,

people are on their own for cocktail hour as well as reception.

here in ontario, most times when you have a stag n doe, you have a free open bar, however we are not going with a stag n doe.........

I figured at almsot 70 dollars a plate, plus the hors d'oeuvres during cocktail hour, then the lunch at 10pm we are providing, they can buy their own drinks.........

I find IMO people tend to drink a little more responsibly when it's coming out of their own pocket.........

We thought about putting a cap on it like say 500 on us the after that cash bar. Then also serve wine and beer though the night.

Now i think we are just doing wine and beer then a cash bar as well

I agree with suzanne about ppl drinking more responsibly if its out of there pocket

One keg will serve 80 or so...depending on the size of the glasses.

I think $2500 is not bad cap for ~100 ppl. I guess it really depends on how much each drink costs.

We brought in our own liquor for $600. Sorry I'm not much help.

Although we had hard liquor available, everyone was very happy with bottled beer and red wine!

So I did a little research and we can purchase kegs for around $325 a piece (average of cheap and nicer beers) and wine at around $20 a bottle. I would like to keep the total for liquor around $2100 to allow the other to go for tax and gratuity. What about a specialty drink? Any fabulous ideas for reasonable priced cocktails for a winter wedding? Would that be a compromise for a full open bar?

Does your venue have a price per person for open bar? One venue I looked at had 16.00 pp for top shelp open bar for 5 hrs. That would be under your budget. Your budget comes out to 20.83 per person and if drinks are 4.00 each that's 5 drinks each. In my family that would last aroung 3 hours. Like most people are saying it depends on the people you have and how they drink. Personally I don't think having a cap on the bar is tacky. It may be easier just to have beer and wine with cash liquor. That way people will know to bring money.

We are having an open bar during cocktail hour and providing champagne for the toast. Besides that, they are on their own.

I'm having a beer and wine open bar, anything topshelf or mixed they have to pay for themselves. We're also doing a champagne toast at dinner.

Our venue worked out very well. I believe it cost us $65 per person for an open bar and plated meal for the guests above 21. It is less for the younger people. We only have a 4 hour bar though and we have the venue from 6-1AM. We are cutting it short and having the reception from 6:30-11:30 and closing the bar during the dinner hour (7-8) since most people will be sitting in their seat eating and won't be going to the bar. Ice Tea and water will be served during dinner, that way they guests can have a little break from alcohol and my guests won't be passed out before 9...

If you think you are going to run out think about closing the bar during dinner. But with 2500 I don't think that will be much of a problem.