liquor Help!!

Is that unlimited drinks??? How much per drink?
I think it depends on your crowd and your budget... $8,900 is a lot too.. my whole wedding is gonna be about 12K... but your guestlist is way bigger..

I meant a lot to me*

I would look at the cost breakdown of each type of drink and which drink will most people like. Also consider if there is a beer and wine package and add a signature cocktail or two to it. How many are heavy drinkers as opposed to ones that will stop at 2 or none. Can you set a bar limit and add to it if necessary?
How much are they charging for a beer?
How much for a mixed drink?
How much for a glass of wine?

I have about 230. Drinks range from $5-8.75. I just can’t decide because that bill looks huge at 8,900!! I just don’t want to pay per drink and end up even higher!

So if you consider 230 people at say $8.75 a drink (highest price), each person would have to drink 4.4 drinks to add up to the $8,900 so I would look at how many “drinkers” you think you have out of the 230 people. Also consider that so many people leave their drinks laying around and just go get another one so lots to think about. Our price was like $59/pp for 4 hours of open bar....very expensive.

View Quoted Comment Thanks for the tip! Yeah it’s almost more than the food!

I just did the math and that amounts to 4.4 drinks (at $8.75) per person. For daughter's wedding, the per person charge for premium open bar was $35 pp (plus tax and service charge, and tip, so it ended up being $47.15 pp). Toward the end of the night, I asked the bartender if we'd "gotten our money's worth," compared with if we'd done a consumption bar. He laughed, HARD, and said, "Yes! We had a hard drinking crowd and we definitely 'got our money's worth'!" If you have a guests who will enjoy a beverage (or 6...), and a reception of 4 hours or more (daughter's was 6, including cocktail hour), it's quite likely the package will be better -- and, at least you know up front what your costs will be. You have a large guest list, and a $39 cost suggests you have a fairly high-end venue. If that's the case, then $8900 probably makes sense. For 100 people, our total for the venue (including ceremony, food, beverage, furnishings, etc.) was just under $20,000, and the beverage portion was about $4,700.

View Quoted Comment Thanks! I have some Mormon family and older family and am struggling justifying paying per person when I have people who won’t drink any. But at the same time, we have friends who would drink like 10 drinks easily through the night.

View Quoted Comment

We had some non-drinkers (probably at least 15), and some who were light drinkers, but with an open bar and a lot of dancing, I think there are a lot of drinks that get set down, not finished and replaced. Daughter, the bride, hardly drinks at all, and she's sure people handed her at least 10 drinks over the course of the night. Even if not everyone is drinking, I think the total number of drinks goes up pretty quickly.

Thanks for the help!

I assume soda is included with the meal or is it part of the drink package? If you have to pay per soft drink, get the package. If not maybe setting a 7k bar tab might be a good idea. Everyone would be able to have 3 highest price drinks, 4 mid range, or 5 lowest price drinks. Like you said not everyone drinks and some may have 2 and quit. That will free up more drinks for everyone else.

Unless you have a lot of kids or non-drinkers, you’ll probably save money with a “per person.” People seem to drink more than you think. Or set a 1/2 glass down and forget it, then get another.

But $39 PP seems steep. If you did beer & winer only, would they cut it to $20 or $25 PP?

It only cuts it by $5 so I might as well do well drinks too. Thanks for the advice!

Many people drink more at weddings that they normally do