My husband and I married last year (July 2022). Our ceremony, cocktails/appies, and reception were all held at Cherry Creek Estate, near Kimberley BC. We were their last wedding, as they have ceased operation as an event venue. All things considered, our wedding went how we dreamed but one point of frustration we had when settling up the final amts with the venue was the issue of drink tickets. We had 160 guests, provided a hosted welcome cocktail, host wine on the table (two bottles per table of eight) for dinner, and handed out 3 drink tickets to each guest (over age 19) as they arrived, and a few extra we handed to folks throughout the evening. We had plenty of mocktails (hosted) and our emcee asked anyone not using their drink tickets to deposit them in a container near the bar for anyone out of tickets to use. Beyond that, guests paid cash for their drinks.
We had pre-paid for 500 drink tickets, at "house" beverage prices, with the expectation that if guests chose a premium beverage with their ticket, that we would pay the extra on the final tab. Days after our wedding, we realized that many of our drink tickets were not used - folks found them in their jacket pockets, as we were cleaning up the wedding supplies, etc... then we received the final invoice from our venue. They provided us no credit for the un-used drink tickets we had prepaid for and claimed there was no expectation for them to "track" how many tickets were used. The whole point here is, if you are planning on using a drink ticket system (which worked well in general) to put an upper limit on your bar tab.. make sure you are clear with your venue you expect unused drink tickets that have been pre-paid to be credited back... better yet, ask them to keep the drink tickets provided by your guests, bill you based on the number used, and provide the physical tickets to you so you verify.
