Open Bar Upon Consumption Estimate

We had a consumption bar and it came to about $9500 for 200 guests of drinking age - so your estimate seems pretty accurate. Ours was only for beer and wine however, and I've heard liquor brings the consumption up because people drink mixed drinks faster than wine and beer.

ETA: Our reception was longer though, it was basically 5.5 hours of drinking (and our group drinks a pretty large amount).

That sounds like a lot PP to me, but that depends on where you live and the type of liquor you plan to serve.

We had a consumption bar. It was only about $1400 (plus tax and gratuity) for 80 people total, 70 of legal drinking age. Keep in mind we had a Sunday wedding in the suburbs.

Our reception venue does the same thing, but they're using house liquor and the drink max she gave us was less than or equal to $6 per drink.

She also estimated for a 5 hour reception, the average consumption per person is 4 drinks (I've also read one drink per hour).

So I just took the max # of invitees that were of drinking age and max price, obviously some drink more some drink less but this was to give us an idea of budget.

80 people invited, $6/drink, 4 drinks/person... 80x6x4 = $1920, then my venue adds 18% gratuity to the final bill, and taxes and $50 per bartender minimum of 2.

Our guess is roughly $2500 for drinks

It's impossible to even guess without knowing how much your venue charges for drinks and how much your particular guests tend to drink.

Not sure how useful this will be to you, but we had about 100 guests and our consumption bar came to about $5,500.

ETA: we had 8 featured cocktails, premium spirits, a champagne pour, and "house" level beer and wine (since we knew those brands appealed to more to the guests who would be likely to choose beer or wine).

Thank you, everyone. This information does help. I think I am in the right ballpark and hopefully overestimating!

It really does depend on your crowd and the pricing on the drinks. We did open bar and the venue only offered consumption. Our drinks were $12 a piece and beer was $9. We had 113 adults. I would say 100 of them drank. Our bar tab was $4,139. We also had wine that is not included in the amount above and enough signature cocktail for 150 people.

That's basically 250 cocktails and 126 beers. I don't have an exact breakdown but including wine and the signature drink everyone had 4-5 drinks. Including cocktail hour that was over the course of 6 1/2 hours.

That sounds like a lot, OP. My venue does full open bar for $40 a head for the full 5 hours!

We had beer/wine only and all beverages after tax/tip was $2700 for a 7hr window.

We only had about 50 drinkers or less but this included juices/pops/coffees etc which people drank as well. So a total of about 85 guests.

The calculation I am using includes 2 drinks the first hour, 1 drink each hour after that at $7 which is the highest priced drink.... so 85 (people) x7 (Drink price) x2 (drinks first hour) = $1190 first hour

85 (people) x7 (Drink price) x 4 (hours at 1 drink per hour) = $2380 =$3570 + 29% = $4785 Hence $56pp

ETA Initial Calculation does include taxes and gratuities!

@Mrs Sullivan To Be Yes, we have found venues that do a flat rate between $38 and $44 which would be our preference, unfortunately, the venue that we are leaning towards only serve upon consumption. I know that our group will drink A LOT! So I am trying to be conservative with our estimate.

Oh I forgot about soda!! Our venue charged for soda. I think it was $4 each.

I just read that one of the venues will place two wine bottles at each table @ $22 each which I think will certainly bring down the total at the bar. Maybe a signature drink will also help with the cost! Thanks everyone!

I would suggest being very careful about consumption bar, some people drink a lot more than they usually do on special occasions or when someone else is paying.

My consumption bar total won't be useful to you as it was a daytime wedding full of non-drinkers.

But, my venue did allow me to instruct them that if I went over the consumption amount that was approved that I wanted to be billed anything over. That way the guests didn't pay, even if I underestimated.

You can see if your venue will do that also.

@Mags- we had 3 signature drinks that they made in batches. Each served 50. I think that helped A LOT with our total. I was expecting the worst.

Thank you @Erin Woods I will ask about this!

It's definitely a know your crowd thing. We had 107 guests, and I would estimate 90-100 of them drank. Our bar tab was $2900. Friday night wedding North Shore of MA. Lots of mixed drinks, a decent amount of wine, and a couple beers. I think the wine was $8, beer $6 and mixed were $11.

If you have 85 guests drinking for 4 hours at $7/drink...2 drinks the first hour and 1/hour after that it is 5 drinks per guest

7*5*87(including yourselves)= $3045, with 29% added in $3928.05

We are having an open bar through an all inclusive venue. It was between 1500 and 2500 for an open bar for 120 people.