Returning Unopened Alcohol

I think it more depends on the store. In Texas, I used Specs liquor store. We could return any unopened bottles, as long as they were not chilled (we bought everything room temp).

New England is unique with stricker alcohol laws than other parts of the country so I don't know if you will be able to do this or not.

In CT where I am, one of the caterers we looked at would have allowed us to buy wholesale from a liquor store and return any unopened bottles. But I am unsure if that was just allowed because it was through the caterer. But I wouldn't recommend CT, our alcohol is a lot more expensive than yours in New Hampshire. Even being allowed to return bottles in CT I'm sure you would spend more money.

In Ohio, the stores will buy the unopened bottles back from you, no problem

I checked my state, NY. On the "NY State Liquor Authority, Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control" website, this is what it says, "Liquor stores, grocery stores and other retailers licensed to sell liquor, wine, beer and wine products for off premises consumption may, at their discretion, exchange or refund unopened returns from their customers".

If I were you, I would call individual distributors and liquor stores in your state and surrounding states and see what their individual policies are. I have read many posts in which brides say that they returned their unopened bottles.

I just found a discussion on a Wedding Bee board from 2012. A bride was asking what you just asked. Here is an answer that might be helpful to you: "In the end, we used West Concord Liquors for supplying the alcohol and they were super easy to work with, we could pick whatever we liked, had reasonable prices, and would buy back whatever was unopened and unused. The “buyback” policy is something that’s really handy and worked out great for us."

Here's the website for West Concord Liquors in Massachussetts:

http://www.westconcordliquors.com/

If you are in New Hampshire, stick to buying any liquor there. It's way cheaper than other states. I'm in NY and I know people who stock up when they go to NH because the savings is so worth it.

Like others said, call around to find places thay will take the returns.

Sjd85 -- I'm in NY as well (not as far upstate as you, but still NY). Do you find that NH has cheaper prices than NJ? Whenever we're buying in bulk, we always go to NJ because their prices are so much better than NY.

I know that New Hampshire has really good liquor prices and people go there to stalk up, but I don't live in New Hampshire so it's not like I can just keep the liquor. It will sit in my parents' house and most likely just be thrown away. I guess it may be cheaper technically, but I just can't see myself throwing away money like that and would much rather pay a higher price knowing that I can return what we don't use.

ETA: We can't keep the liquor because we're flying immediately for our honeymoon and are not going to bring the excess alcohol on the plane. We won't be in New Hampshire again until summer of 2016 and in my mind it doesn't make sense to wait a year to pick up whatever alcohol is left over (I don't even know if my parents would hang on to it for that long).

Thank you @The Centerpiece Flowers, I will look into that website.

There is a GIANT liquor store outlet in NH....The New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlet. My cousins live there and we stopped at the outlet on our way home from a family wedding just to get the whole family stocked up haha. Pretty sure there was no tax on it but either way the prices were sooo cheap!! They don't sell beer and that doesn't help you with your question about returns but I would highly recommend shopping there since you are buying your own!

Yeah, I was born and raised in New Hampshire so I know all about the liquor outlets and low prices. I guess I'll have to do a cost analysis to see if the cost of buying in NH is worth throwing away all the extra stuff.

I really don't know the area so can't help, but don't throw extra away! Even if you can't return it, I'm sure members of the wedding party would be happy to take some home if you are just going to toss it. Hopefully you can find somewhere where you can just return it.