Sig drink vs open bar

I agree with you, sig cocktail + beer & wine would be cheaper. I don't know many people that feel that they need to drink & can't find something between a liquor option and a handful of beer & wine options. A full bar just means people getting exactly what they want (which can be good), but likely more expensive, since they'll probably want to either a) try out new cocktails or b) go with their favorites.

Aside from being less expensive, a limited bar also accommodates faster service your guests. Pouring beer and wine is quick and simple, and a signature cocktail can be batched for simplicity too. Nobody likes a line at the bar.

Zoe is right. The most effective bar service, IMHO, is beer, wine, and a sig drink made in pitchers (as opposed to any drink, like a martini, that has to be made one by one. And that's totally acceptable.

Some of the sig drinks I've seen lately have been Moscow Mules, Prosecco Kir, Apple Sangria.

One of the weddings last week did wine and beer and then they ran a tab for bar drinks, but a vast majority of people drank wine or beer.

I think it's probably cheaper because they need to purchase less. With an open bar you would still be purchasing beer and wine, but then different types of liquor as well, plus all the mixers for those mixed drinks. You wouldn't need all those mixers when you have beer/wine/signature drink.

I think between the signature drink, wine, and beer most people will be happy. Thinking about it, at most weddings I have been to I generally only see people with wine or beer.

We are doing beer, wine, and signature drink. I believe this tends to be cheaper because you do not have to purchase/ bring multiple bottles of liquor and lots of times you get to choose the quality of the liquor in your signature drink (cheap, medium, high quality, etc).

Most people will be able to find SOMETHING to drink between beer, wine, or liquor.

You can also buy cheaper versions of liquors if you are making a cocktail with a lot of other things in it.

Not CHEAP of course but not top shelf

We have about 50 guests too. We decided on wine and beer and signature cocktail but we made the important decision to switch to cash bar after our price point hits. This means we know that each guest will get at least two drinks on us(which we wanted to budget for) but if they want to get a little more crazy they can foot their own tab. I personally believe that while hospitality is important ,that a wedding should not be an opportunity to take advantage of your hosts by sloshing down a crazy bar tab. See if your venue or caterer can agree to a consumption bar with a price limit that fits your budget. Best of luck!

We did beer, wine, and a signature drink the whole night. it was great, i don't think that there was anything more that people needed honestly.

and since we provided our own it was cheap, like $10 pp for the night.

For budget reasons, we're doing beer and wine only for 44 people. Our venue has a full liquor bar available for those who want something stronger. No shame, we're still providing drinks that everyone can enjoy without breaking our bank account. The open bar estimate per consumption was just shy of $1000, the beer and wine estimate was less than $400. Didn't take much thought to make that decision for us.