Alcohol Options

We're almost wedding date twins! Ours is the day before yours.


I think you're on the right track, domestic and craft beers (I've heard some stores will let you return unopened bottles/cases which is better than a wasted keg) a white and red wine option or two (something sweet and something dry for white is usually a good idea. I don't drink red so I'm useless there!).
Some people will have a signature mixed drink for their only hard liquor so if your future spouse loves whiskey sours you could do that as the only hard liquor option to make your bartenders life easier. If it's a premade punch even easier. I would skip coolers unless several of your friends and family are fans and then I would get a limited variety, people requested them at our work party and then barely drank them in favor of wine and beer.
Keep an eye on what your friends and family drink in the coming months. You might realize you need less white wine and a lot more red or vice versa.

We just went with drinks we liked. We had an open bar and we could provide our own alcohol. We had one kind of beer, red and white wine, and four signature cocktails. We also listed the ingredients of the cocktails so people could make up their own drink based on what we had. No one complained (to me anyway!) and everyone seemed to have a good time! There’s nothing wrong with having a small bar. If people really want a drink, they will find something they like or can deal with.

Thanks for all the input everyone! You all raise some very good points that we need to consider. I appreciate you taking the time to reply!

We did bought our own alcohol and then our bartending service made drinks and supplied the mix and garnishes so we had a little of everything with no problem. Whatever wasn't opened we were able to return

We had red + white wine, beer (bud light, kokanee, coors banquet), spiced rum, white rum, regular rum, rye, whiskey, gin, tequila, vodka, and fireball! I think that's it... but I would say our big hits other than wine and beer was GIN, spiced rum, and fireball

Your concept seems fit to your budget and brewery, go for it. Some hard liquor is good for those that want shots alone, mixing with tonic water/club soda, or on the rocks.

Consider the options on the smaller scale to limit what you want to serve. As a guide, I suggest looking into the particulars for weddings and guest count basis. Another one for drinks guests do enjoy as well.

You could do a simple bar with one each of a vodka, rum, gin, rye, bourbon and tequila. There are lots of popular drinks you can make with these liquors that would use pretty much the same mix that you would buy to be available as non alcoholic drinks (ie pop and juice). It may also be cheaper since you can get ~40 drinks per bottle rather than the usual 1 per beer can or 4 per wine bottle. it’s nice to offer your guests variety and means you don’t need to buy as much beer or wine to compensate.

Depends on your budget and your guests. Personally I’m not much of a drinker but I still went with delux bar, red and white on each table and signature drinks because it’s important to me overall that all the guests have every option available... again though... it depends on you as an individual