How to serve drinks

You know your crowd; if you think your guests might be apt to over-serve themselves, I'd go with a bartender. If an ice trough of drinks is more your crowd's speed, go with that. I think either would be nice, considering your overall feel. Unless you also spring for waitstaff, either way your guests are going to have to get up during dinner to go to the bar, I don't think that's a big deal.

You could take the middle-ground approach and just hire one or two bartenders depending on the size of your wedding. I wouldn’t do self-serve. I bought all of my alcohol, mixers, and ice, rented glassware and a bar, and then hired two bartenders. They brought bartending supplies, set up, served drinks, and cleaned up. They were really affordable and great to work with.

As a side note, get a few cases of different types of beers instead of kegs. Kegs aren’t as cheap as you think, and any leftovers get wasted. Plus, you don’t want to have just one beer option. I got my beer and wine from Total Wine. They give you a case discount, and you can return any unopened bottles as long as the label is intact. This allowed me to overbuy so I was sure I wouldn’t run out, but I also didn’t have to keep more leftovers than I wanted.

I went to a wedding where the beer and bottles of wine were just chilled in those large tin buckets/containers and people self poured. It really wasn't a problem. It was also a laid back and casual setting at a large plantation home but everything was outside. This worked really well for their crowd and someone just always made sure there was bottles in the tins for people.

Some might frown on this but honestly for such a casual setting, I don't think people really expect much. If I went to a park wedding but was still served with bartenders and what not thats definitely a little fancier than what I'd be expecting.

I've been to self-serve wine and beer weddings and it's kind of a mess. People spill, they take too much, they are too slow, etc.

I went to a wedding where they had super cute pitchers of Sangria labeled and just sat on the bar edge. They also had one bartender who served beer and wine.

The sangria glasses for the guests were mason jars with their name written on them. It was cute and super simple.

I had a similar decision to make between self-serve and hiring a bartender. In the end, I didn't want to think about all of the logistics of DIY drinks. I'm buying the just the alcohol and hiring a bartender who will bring juice, soda, ice, water, cups, etc. Obviously it will vary by location and other factors but for services 3-11 for 80 people its like $1200.

I think the DIY certainly could be done, but I'm moving out of state and starting a new job 3 weeks before the wedding so I'm trying to cut back on anything that could cause me stress. Good luck!

I'd do the self serve. If they wanted another drink during dinner they'd still have to get up to go to the bartender anyways. My cousin did self serve and it went really well.

No self-serve, hire the bartender. Do you have a date yet?

We are having canned sodas and bottled water because we did Koozies (which I know a lot of people aren't a fan of on here). We are having 3 servers to help assist our 130 guests. We have separate catering for our dinner and for our appetizers. So the servers will not be occupied by these services. The 3 servers are there to help guests if needed with getting the drinks, assist to clear items from tables (not guest plates, but any empty bottles), and help keep our drink station stocked. It may not seem like a lot of help for a wedding of our size, but after discussing with the company how much help we needed and what we wanted their servers to do, the company suggested to us 3 servers.

I would definitely go the bartender route. A self service table can get messy. It will also require supervision to make sure things are replenished and being kept cold (if necessary). The nice thing about a professional bartender is that they can refuse to serve someone who is too intoxicated just in case that is an issue.