Who is paying (or paid) for the alcohol at your wedding?

We are doing a hosted cocktail hour, and a cash bar during the party. So anyone who wants a glass of wine or two would be able to drink one during the cocktail hour, get another before sitting for dinner, and it would be hosted. Much more than that, and it won't be hosted. Our venue it was pretty expensive to host the whole thing, it would have more than doubled our total wedding cost. Especially since we don't drink, and knowing our crowd, the "feel" of our wedding ect, it wasn't a priority for us.

We are also having a Sunday wedding, with an older crowd, in the early afternoon, so it will be "boring" anyway. I'm in my early 30's and FH is nearly 40, with our friends in the same age range and most of our family are in their 60's or above . We considered doing a cash bar throughout due to some alcoholism in FH's family, but the family members in question opted not to come.

How you host (or don't) the bar will change the vibe of your wedding. But then again - our signature drink is lemonade. We are old. And boring. And totally cool with it!

Definitely host drinks for your guests. It doesn't have to be top shelf or anything fancy, but you need to host something.

If you haven't found a venue yet, one way to save majorly is to find a place where you can bring in outside alcohol. We did and ordered our alcohol from a wholesaler who delivered it to our venue for free. Cost only a little over $1000 for 175 people -- and we're DRINKERS. The cheapest bar option I saw elsewhere started at $30/person, which would have been 4 times what we spent.

We paid for it.

Hmmm, i can see that alcohol is a custom from the posts. non alcohol drinks are already provided, but not alcohol drinks. I'd say only 6% of our guests actually would touch alcohol, we are mostly a group of late 20s. So paying open bar for 94% of none alcohol drinker seem waste money. We can't really limit the selection of alcohol. It's either only beer, or full open bar. And the people that actually touch alcohol don't like beer. The only thing i can think of is give some cash to bartenders like prepaid for the guest that do drink alcohol.

I would personally look over the budget to find places to cut expenses before asking my guests to pay for their own alcohol.

... Since when do people in their late 20s not drink?? If your crowd really isn't into drinking, is a consumption bar an option? That means you just pay the actual bar tab at the end of the night rather than a set per-person price.

Yea i agree with Emily - if you truly thing that few people will drink (also confused by the notion that people in their late 20's don't drink much...) I would go for a consumption bar.

My parents paid for most of my wedding but we paid for alcohol. Part of that was because my family doesn't see the need for alcohol.

Hi Emily, nope, it's either open bar, or try to prepaid the bartenders so they don't charge people. It's not that people in their 20s don't drink, it's just our crowd of people don't, lol. Especially it's a short reception and they have to drive back an hr. The 6% that do drink are my older coworkers (2 or 3) and a few of grooms friend from north cal (4-5 people ).

It is expected that whoever is hosting the reception (bride & groom, bride's parents, etc.) cover the full cost of alcohol. If a full open bar is out of reach, then it is still appropriate to host a bar with beer & wine only. You can even have a dry wedding, although most guests don't like them and it will definitely change the vibe/feel of your reception. Cash bars, or an open bar for a limited time and then cash bar, or drink tickets, etc. are never appropriate.

ETA: Unless your guests are in alcoholics anonymous or don't drink for religious reasons, you may be very surprised at how much they will drink. Weddings are a CELEBRATION, and most adults drink alcohol at celebrations.

Yes do a consumption bar. A cash bar is horrible and I am sorry, Allison the bait and switch bar is even worse. How embarrassing would it be for someone to get a drink then go back for another and be told "that will be $7.50" and they have no cash! I have gone to weddings where it was at a fancy venue and they had a cash bar. Showed me that the hosts could care less about good manners. Those are the situations where I eat and then leave with my gift.

We had a 4.5 hour premium open bar included in our dinner buffet package which my mom paid for. The bar portion was $26.50 per person which did not include the 20% additional charged because there were less than 100 people.

If those are truly your only options, then do an open bar. Prepaying the bartenders means that you'd have to guess how much people will drink. What if your prepaid limit runs out? One person is in line, gets a free drink, and that's the last of the money, so the next person is charged? That would be confusing and embarrassing. Budget for the open bar.

So do what's called a consumption bar. Give the bar a set amount of money and if they're close to meeting it, they can privately let you know and you can up the budget. That sounds way better for someone in your situation.

Only have a few drinkers isn't an excuse for having a cash bar. It just means that you're going to save a hell of a lot of money!

Edited because words are hard now

Theoretically you might be able to give the bartenders a credit card at the beginning of the night and tell them all drinks go on your tab. I'm not sure if that's a common practice, but definitely better than a cash bar. But just for peace of mind, it might be easier if you just do the open bar--at least that way it's a fixed cost rather than an unknown variable.

You should do the prepaid route. Usually if you pay them more than is charged, they would refund that money back to you. If people aren't going to drink that much (which I am surprised about, unless it's religious) then that would be the smartest.

@Ally - That reminds me of a friend who hosted a end of the world party. Not only did he volunteer another friend to be the bartender and told people it was a pot luck, but he then emailed everyone that if we wanted to have roasted pig, we had to bring $10 (maybe $20) for that. Yeah. I just had the potluck stuff.

FH and I paid for everything, including our premium open bar. I find cash bars to be rude.

So if you choose "open bar" do you have to pay per person attending or per drink?

Promike, per person, all guests, lol.

Consumption (prepaid ) bar sound like a great option. The vendor will let us know if the prepaid amt is running low.

We are paying and just doing beer and wine. All my friends and co-workers tried to convince me to do a cash bar, but my WW peeps said absolutely not-no cash bar.