How much did you spend on alcohol?

Can you negotiate an upgrade/ selection change with the caterer? Seems so much easier to let them take care of it.

Our venue included the open bar in our PP price but depending on your area that seems very reasonable to me. In my area (south jersey/philly) Open bar prices ranged from 20-30$ depending on the alcohol brands and whatnot.

The pro of bringing in your own liquor is that anything unopened you can return and get your money back for usually (make sure you buy from a liquor store that allows this). But with open bar you would have less stress about buy all the alcohol, making sure you have a good range of items for people to drink, buying the mixers ETC. I would just price out what it would cost to host the open bar VS providing your own and see if the price difference is worth it. You may decide that even if you don't LOVE the alcohol choices the price/stress it will save you might be worth it.

No one can tell you which way will ultimately save you money or not. You need to estimate the prices yourself and see what seems like the better option

That sounds on par for where we are in DC. Does you venue allow you to bring your own? Just bear in mind that with that, comes the added responsibility of getting it there and returning what isn't used. You'll likely still have to buy cups, setups and mixers... and bring all of it with you.

We are bringing our own alcohol in (beer and wine only) and we figure 2-3 drinks per person would be about $6-8 pp. Not bad at all. I would definitely go with that route as you could buy a case of beer or 2-3 bottles of wine for what your caterer is charging you. In my opinion it's a way better deal to bring your own in.

We are paying $5 for the bar set up and about $20pp for booze from an outside delivery service. Our stuff is a full top shelf bar (patron, grey goose, etc), but that didn’t greatly change the price, maybe just a dollar or two a person. I would work with catering on their offerings. I can’t see you getting everything you want under $15pp.

View Quoted Comment It may be in your benefit to price the cost of purchasing your own liquor and mixers to compare with the cost of the open bar. While the difference may be immense, you may find that the difference is negligible with the added necessity of transportation and setup. Ultimately, you and your partner must determine what will best fit your budget.

We brought our own alcohol. We way overbought but Total wine accepts unopened bottles with no problems. I based this off 65 Drinkers.

This is what we bought, I can't remember the exact price but I think it was about $300 for booze and about $150 for wine.

2 x 1.75 L Summuns Vodka (we returned 1)

2x 1.75 L 1800 Tequila (had 1.25 bottles left, but we kept the unopened bottle)

2x 1.75 L Bacardi Rum (we returned 1)

1 x 1.75L Jack Daniels

1 x 1.75L Captain Morgan

1 x 750mL Rumchata & Fireball (For a signature drink..that was all gone)

36 Bottles of Miller Light (24 left, apparently no one likes miller light)

36 Bottles of Stella (Ran out)

36 Bottles Bud light (had about 5 left)

And 4 Large Bottles of Pinot Grigio (had 2 unopened left), 4 large of Pinio Nior (1 Left) and 2 Bottles of Chardonay, 2 Bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, and 2 bottles I forgot and we had a ton of wine left over.

You can go to total wines website and add things that you'd want to your cart and then do the math and see if it would be worth it, ours broke down to about $7PP but bartender and mixers was +$250. We had to drop off the booze the night before but it wasn't a big deal.

Our venue includes it in our package and the alcohol is pretty expensive... but it was important to us to include it. Prices can range all over the place depending on the types, open vs consumption, length of time, etc.

We are looking at $55-75PP depending on a few factors such as how long they stay so I think $18 PP may be reasonable depending on what that includes. Once you add on buying alcohol yourself it could come out to be the same but with more hassle. With that said many places will allow you to over purchase your alcohol and you can return the extra at the end. So it would really depend on your crowd and how much you plan on them drinking.

Our caterer is going by gallon. So our margaritas are $65/gallon and sangria is $55/gallon

It all depends on where you stay honestly, the venue I’m at charges $46 pp for open bar (4 wines, 6 beers) for a 5 hour reception. It seems to me that it would be more reasonable to bring your own alcohol long term wise since the alcohol selection wasn’t satisfying, but also see if vendor does have an upgraded selection like suggested above before making final decisions.

That sounds affordable to me. We are in Denver, and our venue (which is a little more expensive) is charging between $29-$38 per person for an open bar. This depends if we do 4 hours or 5, and if we do just beer & wine or beer, wine, and signature cocktail. They both include soda. We have 150 guests, so we are budgeting $6,000 for alcohol. If you don't like the selection, bring in your own! You could have more unique options that reflect what you both like to drink. I think the rule of thumb is 1 drink per person every hour, obviously that changes depending on your crowd. I'd just do the math like that!

We have a 6-hour open premium bar with two signature drinks (unlimited) for $35 pp.

$18 pp for open bar is a really good deal. We are going to be paying $18 pp just for 2 beer selections and wine.

I'm being charged $35/pp for a beer & wine package for a 3 hour reception (from the time the ceremony starts until we have to leave at 8) The wine selection was rather ... sparse. There will be 25 of us.

My FH and I are expecting to pay about $500 for 76 guests (7 of which are children). We plan to have 7 tables with 10 people per table, and then one head table with 6 people. Our breakdown is: 1 case of beer (24 pack) per 2 tables, 1 case of cider (12 pack) per table, 4 bottles of wine (2 white, 2 red) per table, and then we are also doing margaritas and figure we will need 10 bottles of tequila. The rest will be pop, water and the margarita mix.

My venue charges $36 PP.... PER HOUR!

We're still working this out.. We are supplying the alcohol and we hired bartenders through the caterer. I know we want beer, wine, and a reasonable selection of liquor, for 135 adult guests. This is the next item on our to-do list, hope to sort it out this week or next... Online tools like this seem helpful - https://apracticalwedding.com/wedding-alcohol-calculator/