Is an open bar important to you?

Venues can offer open bar on 2 basis which may break or save your bank.

Packages with open bar available to your guests with the exception of dinner time. That is when the bar is closed offering wine to be served or on the tables to self serve. That would be saving on your bank.

Packages that have limited time for open bar before charging you for drinks or alcohol consumption for the duration of the evening. Alternatives to breaking your bank in this case is to have cash bar (toonie bar reference) or tickets for guests to use for how many ever drinks after the open bar time finishes.

Luckily, the venue we chose did offer the first package keeping/saving us on the budget. Inquire with the venue when looking at cost per person of food/drink.

An open bar definitely important to us, but luckily we're having a brunch reception, so we'll offer beer, wine, signature cocktails, and have a mimosa (instead of champagne) toast, so we'll be able to skip hard liquor as an option.

An open bar was probably #1 on our "must-haves" for our wedding. I can't imagine having our wedding any other way tbh lol.

It is very important to us - we're going all out with a deluxe open bar!

It is important to us and is the biggest expense.

Yes. Hosting an open bar is important for us; one of the reasons we wanted to have a small wedding is to treat our guests.

Absolutely not. I come from family that won’t expect one. It gets very expensive very quickly to pay for everyone’s liquor!

Not one bit.

I do not come from a family/background where it's something that is expected, so that never really crossed my mind as an option, especially with our budget.

We are already paying for the guests food, wine at dinner and 1 drink after the ceremony. If guests want to drink outside of that, it'll be on them.

Very important to me! It wasn't even a consideration for us it was a must!

It was one of our non-negotiables lol

Both sides of our family are drinkers so it wasn't even an option for us. Our venue waives the hourly bartender rate if we keep sales over $300/hr, which we already know won't be a problem!

Not at all. We aren't from families or cultures that have that as the 'norm', and honestly, it's way too expensive for us to have ever considered it.

We did a bottle of red and white at each table, a champagne toast, and 2 drink tickets per guest. So they didn't get 'nothing'... but I could't imagine paying upwards of $5,000 (easily more, our bar bill was already $3,000) for other peoples booze, when I buy myself $10 bottles of wine... haha. I MAY have considered open bar if I did a self-service venue where we could bring in booze, and weren't paying a premium, but even then I'd still do a ticket or toonie bar, as there is a TON of waste with open bar.

It is important to me, I wish we could do a full open bar. We are having a toonie bar though! So $2 drinks which really is not too bad. FH thinks there will be a lot of waste with an open bar. People lose their drink or it gets warm and they go get another one. So we compromised and really for only $20 you get 10 drinks thats amazing.

In my family, it's always been considered somewhat rude or cheap to have your guests take out their wallets for an event. That's why we're having an open bar. I completely understand why some people opt for a cash bar (weddings are hella expensive!), but that was just never an option for me.

It was important to us. i'm only half kidding to say that I think my family would riot if it wasn't an open bar. We're not doing a big top shelf open bar though, just wine, standard beer, champagne toast, and basic vodka, gin, tequila, rye, scotch. As Casey said, that way our guests don't need to worry about bring cash.

Open bar was important to us - we're hosting the party and they're coming with gift in hand. Luckily for us it was a small daytime celebration, and our families aren't heavy drinkers! (though we had a few who appreciate a good scotch so we paid a 300% mark up to bring in a bottle of the really good stuff!)

Open bar is big for us! Yes it may be a little more pricey, but I like not having to worry about bringing cash to a wedding. My family is also big on drinking (polish people drink a lot)

Very important to us!! We will be having an open bar!

Both my family and my Fiancé's are well aware of the unwritten rule of giving more presentation when it's open bar to cover majority of drinks consumed. Even our uncles have asked if it would be as it will affect presentation from them - they literally said that it will.

Open bar doesn't matter to us. We're thinking about an open cocktail hour and then do drink tickets and pay for 3-5 drinks per person during the reception.
IF we have a bar at all.