Open bar or Consumption Based bar?

My venue is providing a 2 hours open wine and beer bar. All coctails will be cash bar (i think they take card too) but after the 2 hours they'll charge.

if they REALLY want a mix drink they can buy one is my look on it i guess.

I am a tad closed minded on this topic. I always go for the open bar for the entire night, as I view it as part of the duties of a hostess. But then again, if you came to my house for dinner, I would offer you whatever you drank, even if it is Captain and Diet, as I keep the staples in the house. I don't judge others who don't, but an open bar is part of my culture.

You know your crowd. If they are beer and wine drinkers, than that is cool for them. If you opt out of open bar after the 1.5 hours, and are going consumption based, find out how much drinks are, if they charge for soda, and if there is a difference in price between call names and premium...i.e. Gray Goose Vodka and Kettel One, are more expensive and are premium or top shelf; Absolute and Stoli Vodkas are considered call names, and are less expensive. Of course, this too varies by region of the country.

Good luck!

I am an open bar person as well....and I totally agree with carole b....you have to think about your crowd drinks and what the cost would be if you go consumption based vs open bar...

We did a spreadsheet based on what we thought each person would drink which was kind of a funny night because we'd call 1 friend an 8 and another a 15 lol. We ended up going with consumption which saved us a LOT of money. Because some people that we thought were going to be light drinkers ended up getting sloshed and others that are our typical party friends ended up being tame. Our open bar package was $4k and we ended up spending only $3k on drinks.

@Fins - That's where we are thinking about rolling the dice & why we call the guests -"cats".

Imagine trying to game what "cats" will do! Herding cats.

Based on my experience working with other brides the average consumption per adult is 2.5 drinks and hour our more depending on how much a drinker they really are we are having an full open bar for 6 hours for 150 guest and our venue is charging 1 hour for cocktail hour and 5 for the reception and is charging us $1875.00 total. and we can reduce that amount and turn it into a cash bar. So there are options out there I would definitely suggest having the open bar for a certain period of time and then turn it into a cash bar you will definitely save yourself money.

I don't like the cash bar option. Fortunately for me, I get to supply my own liquor so I don't have to pay per person. If I were in this situation, I would definitely do The open bar. My guests drink and I know some of them can drink about 10 drinks easy. With that said, I would be afraid of going over. I would see if they would allow you to get the open bar price if your consumption gets up there.

Wow, only 2.5 an hour? I know I can kill more beers than that in an hour of dancing.

We are also providing our own bar, and the thing that bothers me the most is that we are going to run out of booze, forget the food.

Well Carole B thats one of the perks of supplying your own liquor you can aways have someone run out and get more. I actually had did a wedding were they actually had some of the groomsmen and actually do that.

@Anita....There is a 7-11 right down the road.

Did your meal plan not include the open bar for 4 hours? That was included in our pricing for the guest dinner.

@ Stacy G. - It was, but we negotiated it down to 1.5 hrs open bar to save some money but now we're thinking we might want the extra 2.5.

Like I stated above: our assumption was that people would be well drunk & not care what they drink after dinner started.

But every day, the winds blow differently when the RSVP counts come in.

Gosh, it's like an election night @ my house! LOL!

Oh ok, got ya. Makes sense. It is hard to figure out which option is a better.

We're doing a Premium Open bar for the entire reception. FH is Scottish and Irish so this was a must have for him. The bar bill gives me a headache whenever I think about it. For the party the day after the wedding we have opted for beer and wine only though. But with 7 months to go I fear FH may find a way to work in a full open bar for that event as well.

@Andrene...LMAO...I think you are right on that one.

Having a full bar all night could be costly and wasteful. I think you should definitely have a full bar for your cocktail hour. It warms up the crowd and gets them in the mood to party.

I don't know what your venue would charge, but you can do a specialty "signature" drink. In other words, have a martini louge of one kind of alcohol. You will only have to pay for a case of say vodka, rent or order an ice sculpture louge (your venue could recommend sources) and the venue will make the drink and place it at the main bar of your reception.

Do a champagne toast and offer wine with dinner. Thereafter, they will enjoy the martinis. I don't think you will need anything else except soft drinks. Do a "per glass beer consumption" tab if you can, though I doubt that people will be drinking much other than the martini louge.

I completely agree with the per glass beer tab. Bottled beer is far more expensive.

Re a martini bar, that is fine for people who drink vodka, but many people don't drink vodka. Perhaps you could do a combo of martini and mojito or something well liked across the board.

Personally I'm not a fan of the martini louge or signature drink. I know for our crowd they are very particular about their brands and drinks so that would be money wasted.

I'm an open bar person, we have a 5 hour open bar at our wedding

Some great ideas ladies!

The good thing is that wine & beer is flowing the entire reception - negotiated in our orig. reception agreement.

the guessing game is will the open bar for 1hr 30 minutes enough to make people forget or require more liqueur?