Wine Pour for Dinner

I would have it served, that's what the "service staff" is for! Plus, your venue might have restrictions about self-serving alcohol.

Your caterer may be required by law to serve them, instead of leaving bottles on the table. check in with them on that first.

it shouldn't wear out the staff, this is their job. as long as you don't have them singing and dancing while carrying 50 lb trays of food they should be fine.

I would go with served wine, not on the tables. service staff will still need to be checking the bottles for empties.

also, example. two red and two white bottles on each table. both red are drank but only 1.5 white are. now you have half a bottle of wasted wine. this can happen at every table.

at the bar OR staff walking around serving - bottles are only opened as needed. potential for less waste or drunk guests spilling it all over

I would feel weird about just having a bottle of wine on the table. And to be honest, I would drink it all. By myself.

I didn't even think of the waste aspect, Novak. You're a rockstar!

Sadly, FutureMrsH, so would I and the vast majority of FH's family.

Either have servers walk around to pour wine or have people go up to the bar. Having guests pour for themselves may end up in disaster and a lot of venues/bartenders won't let you since it's their liquor license on the line. There's risk of spillage, over-pouring, etc. I also wouldn't worry about wearing out the staff. They're being hired for this very purpose. And while people are eating, they probably won't be running up to the bar every 10 minutes anyway.

Open bar AND bottle service! Your guests are going to have a great time! I agree about the waste part of it, have the people serve your guests for sure especially because everyone at each table might not be wine drinkers and get up to the bar anyway

All weddings that I've attended, including mine, had the wine bottles at the table. Novak is right, we did have some unfinished bottles just sitting there at the end of the night though it wasn't more than 3 or 4.

At our wedding, the service staff was only supposed to serve the food and then pick up the plates; they weren't paid to serve alcohol or other beverages to the guests. If anybody wanted anything to drink (alcoholic or not) they had to go to the bar. This was specified in our contract, so like PPs have said, either check your contract or talk to your caterer or venue manager to see what you'll have.

We have a wine station near the bar. It's a table set up with 4 wines and pre poured glasses so the guests can help themselves and it does not take away from the bartender

Table side wine service is an add-on that many venues/caterers provide. Ask your caterer.

We are doing table wine.