Open bar at a wedding.

[The Mad Monk]

ClaphamGT3 said:

Yes - twice. We're all different but I wouldn't consider asking people to pay for drinks at any event I was hosting. I don't know anyone who would.

Why did you get married twice?

If you got married (once) and it didn't work, why did you think it would work the second time?

[sc0tt]

Well lets assume he didn't marry the same woman twice for a start.

[The Mad Monk]

sc0tt said:

Well lets assume he didn't marry the same woman twice for a start.

Yes, I think that is a reasonably safe assumption.

My point was, that if you had stood in church (other wedding venues are available) firmly convinced that this woman/man was absolutely the right person for you and you got it wrong, why wouldn't you think that you had got it wrong again?

[fredt]

bobmcgod said:

Having a DIY wedding next year in a local village hall and we're wanting an open bar for out guests. We're having 40 people for the wedding breakfast and then around a 100-120 on the evening (depending on how many invitees RSVP). I've looked online for "calculators" that guestimate what we'll need but the problem is they all vary quite widely on what they think we'll need.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks in advance.

Buy more then you need! Can't imagine anything worse then running out of booze at a party where guests are expecting booze to be served. I went for massive overkill and just kept the leftovers.

If you can't or don't want to hold on to the leftovers, search out a place where you can return the unused stuff.

[paulrockliffe]

I've been to loads of weddings over the last few years, 90 percent you paid for your own booze, which is fine and perfectly normal. But for most venues you don't have a lot of choice, either you have to use their bar or their supplier, so drinks are £3-4 a pop and you're into serious cash quite quickly. The worst is when they setup a temporary bar and charge your guests £4 for cans of Bodingtons!

We looked at getting people in for ours - village hall venue - and couldn't get below £3 a drink for someone to setup and provide serving staff. Which again was really too much for a paid for bar.

It worked out below £1 a drink to buy it ourselves and set up a self-serve DIY bar, so plenty of lee-way to overbuy and get a decent range. Had my little brother in charge of making sure the bar was generally tidy and OK, but it wasn't necessary. A few guests took it upon themselves to serve drinks for bits of the night and the setup meant no need to restock etc.

Only negative was it was stressful setting it all up at 10pm the night before, especially as I had a speech still to write! And I had to pop over in the morning to mix 24l of cocktails.

[talksthetorque]

HTP99 said:

I've never been to a wedding where there has been an open bar; sure wine on the table and something fizzy when arriving at the reception, but if anyone wanted anything from the bar then they pay for it themselves, I really don't see why there are some who have an issue with that setup.

Only happened once to me. All my contemporaries' weddings were free wine with the meal and paid bar for everything else. Never bothered me.

The one time I have been to a wedding with free drinks was my Grandfather's second marriage after he was widowed.
Everyone had a splendid time - about 40 people for the full sit down meal afterwards, no night do.
He went up to my dad as everyone was leaving and said, with no prior warning of this:
"You wouldn't mind getting the bill for me son would you?"
Dad paid up and we then drove back home from Lincoln to Telford in record time. I think dad was a bit peeved.

Edited by talksthetorque on Monday 14th August 09:28

[anonymous-user]

The Mad Monk said:

Yes, I think that is a reasonably safe assumption.

My point was, that if you had stood in church (other wedding venues are available) firmly convinced that this woman/man was absolutely the right person for you and you got it wrong, why wouldn't you think that you had got it wrong again?

Maybe his first wife died in a tragic accident, or after a terrible illness during which she convinced him it is was possible to love again?

[joshleb]

As much as I believe it should be free bar all night, I understand how unfeasible this is.

Last couple of weddings I've been too have had table drinks and open bar until a set time, say 2200, then a paid bar from them on.

Works well, everyone gets onto a good level and noone tends to take it too far!

[Disastrous]

Why are people afraid that guests might get pissed at a wedding? That's surely the point!

Invite your friends and family, get lashed and dance and sing the night away together.

Thank god for highland weddings!

[hairyben]

Mastodon2 said:

Have some of the posters in here considered that not every other poster can afford to provide free drinks? Perhaps they should wait and save up for a few more years, delaying their wedding of course, but avoid the social suicide of expecting people to pay for their own drinks?

PH being PH as usual, always a few who cant wait to inform everyone of their (self certified) superiority.

Our wedding was free bar but I cant claim too much internet-hero status in all honesty as the in laws bankrolled the whole event down to the last cent, I guess someone will have something to say ahout that!

As for others it depends where theyre coming from, your expectations from those having a modest ceremony while they're stuck doing 2 bit jobs struggling to break the deposit/rental trap wont be the same as those chucking good money at ostentatious superflous tat.

[bobmcgod]

So any advice on how much to buy?

Current list:

Wine 54 Bottles

18 Bottles of the sparkly stuff

240 Bottles of beer (various)
60 Bottles of cider

Whiskey 5 Bottles (3 JD, 1 Honey JD, 1 Fire JD) ... (It wouldn't be right for me to have anything else but that's a different story.)
Vodka 5 Bottles
Rum 2 Bottles
Gin 2 Bottles
Pimms 4 Bottles
Ammaretto 1 Bottles
Baileys 1 Bottles
Tequila 1 Bottles

Coke 20 litres
Diet Coke 20 litres
Lemonade 20 litres
Fanta 20 litres
Orange Juice 10 Litres
Apple Juice 10 Litres
Fruit Shoot, Some
Tonic 6 litres
Squash Black Current and Orange


That's for the wedding breakfast of 40 then on to about 100 evening guests and works out as about 1500 servings of alcohol.

Should do, right?

[Hoofy]

Attended a wedding in Scotland earlier this year; open bar at a country club, about 50 seated guests followed by maybe another 30-40 turning up in the evening. I think the total came to about £5k.

Nice range of whiskies behind the bar.

[dave_s13]

Best wedding I ever went to was in a barn. They had essentially bought the contents of an entire off license and set it all out in a great display.

It was all free but they set up an honesty box so folk were chucking in a couple of quid here and there. I think it went a long way toward covering the cost of booze and everyone was more than happy with it.

[PurpleTurtle]

bobmcgod said:

So any advice on how much to buy?

Current list:

Wine 54 Bottles

18 Bottles of the sparkly stuff

240 Bottles of beer (various)
60 Bottles of cider

Whiskey 5 Bottles (3 JD, 1 Honey JD, 1 Fire JD) ... (It wouldn't be right for me to have anything else but that's a different story.)
Vodka 5 Bottles
Rum 2 Bottles
Gin 2 Bottles
Pimms 4 Bottles
Ammaretto 1 Bottles
Baileys 1 Bottles
Tequila 1 Bottles

Coke 20 litres
Diet Coke 20 litres
Lemonade 20 litres
Fanta 20 litres
Orange Juice 10 Litres
Apple Juice 10 Litres
Fruit Shoot, Some
Tonic 6 litres
Squash Black Current and Orange


That's for the wedding breakfast of 40 then on to about 100 evening guests and works out as about 1500 servings of alcohol.

Should do, right?

Only thing I might look to up there is the fizz count - you get 5 glasses to a bottle, so that's 90 glasses for 40 guests - you'd be surprised how quickly that can shift. We overbought on that (France booze cruise, in the good old days of €1.4 to the £1) so it didn't break the bank too much, relatively speaking. We had a fair bit left over but it was quite nice to crack a bottle every Friday night for several months afterwards!

Do you have a backup plan in case stuff runs out? Maybe a couple of cases on sale or return that you can stash in the boot of a mate's car - ushers called on to get them if things look to be running low, you can return them if unused/unopened.

Good luck - have a great time, try not to sweat about stuff like this. Remember that your guests just want you to be happy, so provided you've provided them with some booze, and the facility to buy some more, they should be fine. Anyone coming to a wedding and just expecting to get pissed all night for free needs to check their priorities IMO.

[talksthetorque]

Do you know someone who specifically drinks Tequila.
I would say that it has a bit of a reputation for being downed, rather than enjoyed.
Unless you are buying for a specific moment, I'd ditch that.

Oh, and Lime Cordial.
someone always drinks lime cordial in their vodka or beer

[bobmcgod]

talksthetorque said:

Oh, and Lime Cordial.
someone always drinks lime cordial in their vodka or beer

That's a good shout.

[talksthetorque]

bobmcgod said:

talksthetorque said:

Oh, and Lime Cordial.
someone always drinks lime cordial in their vodka or beer

That's a good shout.

Hope I've not just blown the budget

[skilly1]

As long as you are within the return period and have a receipt, supermarkets are great to use for sale or return, especially for back-up stock.

I returned a lot of spirits to Sainsburys and they could not care less.

[jamiebae]

bobmcgod said:

So any advice on how much to buy?

Current list:

Wine 54 Bottles

18 Bottles of the sparkly stuff

240 Bottles of beer (various)
60 Bottles of cider

Whiskey 5 Bottles (3 JD, 1 Honey JD, 1 Fire JD) ... (It wouldn't be right for me to have anything else but that's a different story.)
Vodka 5 Bottles
Rum 2 Bottles
Gin 2 Bottles
Pimms 4 Bottles
Ammaretto 1 Bottles
Baileys 1 Bottles
Tequila 1 Bottles

Coke 20 litres
Diet Coke 20 litres
Lemonade 20 litres
Fanta 20 litres
Orange Juice 10 Litres
Apple Juice 10 Litres
Fruit Shoot, Some
Tonic 6 litres
Squash Black Current and Orange


That's for the wedding breakfast of 40 then on to about 100 evening guests and works out as about 1500 servings of alcohol.

Should do, right?

I think you're light on wine and heavy on spirits and mixers but it depends on the audience really.

[.:ian:.]

bobmcgod said:

So any advice on how much to buy?

Current list:

Wine 54 Bottles

18 Bottles of the sparkly stuff

240 Bottles of beer (various)
60 Bottles of cider

Whiskey 5 Bottles (3 JD, 1 Honey JD, 1 Fire JD) ... (It wouldn't be right for me to have anything else but that's a different story.)
Vodka 5 Bottles
Rum 2 Bottles
Gin 2 Bottles
Pimms 4 Bottles
Ammaretto 1 Bottles
Baileys 1 Bottles
Tequila 1 Bottles

That`ll do me, but I`ll skip the Baileys. Though my invite seems to have got lost in the post!?