Buck and Doe - Permit Process and Costs

I am just starting to plan my buck and doe (booking the venue in two weeks for march 2023) and I already feel in over my head! My finance and I are charging for drinks but I read under AGCO that for private events you are not allowed… Do we do a public event? Or charitable since it is to raise money for the wedding? Also, I know it may range from city/province but does anyone know what licence to get for games of chance?

For games we are thinking about:

Bra pong, pie in the face, goldfish insurance, toonie toss, hold the beer, balloon pop, etc.

prizes:

Baseball/hockey tickets, coffee/tea gift basket, selfcare basket, etc. looking for sales constantly for anything such as google homes and makeup brands.

I have done the permit! it is a private as buck and does have rules saying its invited guests only - I had to read down a bit before figuring it all out. The person you put as responsible needs to be a sober person who is not drinking. Your names are still on permit but they are responsible for making sure it all goes correctly. As for insurance you 100% need to have this- if someone leaves the property and gets into accident even 24 hours after it the insurance covers you. It also comes into effect 4 hours prior to event as well. If you need help filling out application- message me and I can go threw every step with you.

Balloon pop was a giant hit- we should have blew up more balloons lol. Basicly you blow up balloons people buy them 2 dollars per and can buy as many as want and last person to not have it popped wins. Once your balloon is popped you have to get off the floor and cannot pop anyone elses.

Here in MB we have different permits so I can't help you there (we have a "social" permit that is for gambling and booze). Also can't help with games because we don't do that at wedding socials...

For how much we payed though: Guest count was roughly 300 in person although we sold support tickets as well.

Venue depends on day/ specialty weekend: ranges from $670 - $900 an additional hour to 2am was $200

Alcohol was $5,000ish

DJ was $500

Food was $500

Then most of the raffle items were donated so I'm not quite sure about cost but we payed about $500 in items (this included an apartment size freezer).

All in all we probably put about $7,500 but profited in the 5 digits so we made good money!

My Jack and Jill is in 2.5 weeks!

You would apply for a private event permit since the event is only open to those you have invited and not just anyone. They will ask you when you apply for the permit if you will be selling alcohol or not, just tick off that you will be.

Fun games: Find the joker (tape a deck of cards to a bristol board. people pay to sign a card, whoever signs the joker wins a prize), Guess the combo (get a lock and lock a box with a prize in it and write out a bunch of lock combinations. People pay to pick a combo, whoever chose the correct combo wins the prize), Great Canadian Whack off (get a log of a piece of wood and people pay to drive a nail into the wood. Keep score of how many hits it takes, whoever takes the least hits wins a prize, ring toss, corn hole, Drinko (make a plink-o board where people can win drink tickets), Beer pong (just with empty cups though, just whoever gets the most points wins a prize).

We paid about $800 for our hall rental. our wedding party is donating the gift card prizes for the games. Food we're having our families make snacks. The alcohol we are buying this weekend so I still need to see how much that will cost.