Open Bar

We are stocking our own bar for our Sunday evening wedding for about 100 people. A beer and wine only open bar for four hours would've cost us at least $1200-$1500, depending on which vendor we went with. We will be providing three kinds of bottled beer, one white and one red wine. The article I saw said estimate 2 drinks per guest for cocktail hour and 1 drink per guest every hour afterwards, giving us a total of 500 total. Since we're having a Sunday wedding, know that most people won't have more than one or two (if that, they'll be driving home and most going to work the next day), and want to avoid our heavy drinkers overdoing it, I think we'll be doing 250-300 instead. We should have more than enough alcohol for our crowd for about $450. Hope this helps!

Open bar prices vary depending on your area, the variety of drinks, and what kind. Well liquors in Kentucky are going to be much cheaper than top shelf in California. We’re doing a modified open bar (beer, wine, hard cider, 2 signature drinks) and providing our own alcohol. It’s going to be about $1300 for 125 guests.

We paid $50.00/pp for a 4 hour open bar. It will very by venue for sure.

We paid “per consumption” for a premium bar at our DW and $19 “per person” for unlimited beer & wine. Per person worked out MUCH better per drink and for an overall budget we could control. We only had 15 guests at our DW and STILL spent $300-500 more than expected. 🤦‍♀️

Sorry, for to write we paid “per person” at our local reception.

It will depend on your venue and area. Average range for 4 hours of beer, wine, and house brand alcohol was around $17 per person. For premium/call brand bar average is about $21 a person. Topshelf/ultra bar average was $26 a person. I priced 7 venues.
I'm in St. Louis, Missouri.
With taxes, tips and fees the cheapest option would have cost about $2300.

We are supplying our own alcohol and drinks and will spend about half.

Our venue requires a specific bar company that charges per person depending on the package. For 5 hours of open bar with glassware, call liquors.... Titos, Bombay, Jack, 2 draft beers, 3 wines, mixers, and soda it is about $21 per person (not including service fee and tax). If providing our own alcohol was an option, we would have done it.

We are doing open bar at our reception. It was one of my few “non-negotiables”. Our venue offers open bar (includes all liquor, 2 domestic beers and 1 import beer of our choice, red/white wine, soda/juice/mixers) for $27/person. Supplying our own alcohol was not an option. But even if it was, I still wouldn’t have chosen that route. There is usually a setup fee and bartender fee and required insurance involved. It’s just easier to let the venue handle it all.

We are doing unlimited beer and wine, and well drinks. The venue priced the alcohol per drink with house brands, and call brands and we will be paying $5-6 for each drink. They have a "tabbed bar" option which is what we chose and our tab is $2500 for roughly 100 people. Top shelf liquor will be available but only as a cash option. We're in Springfield, Mo.

Ours is $35 per person for moderate shelf level liquor. Our bar is open at least 4 hrs.