Liquor

I'm glad people consume more! It means that it's a wonderful treat for them and I'm so glad to be able to do that for them (and get my money's worth out of that open bar!)

Our venue has a per person drink package that I am considering. The alcohol also counts toward our food minimum so the extra cost is going to be negligable. The main reason I don't want to do drink tickets is I know my parents will buy tickets for my side of the family and then that leave out FH's family. I have seen with this that there is so many wasted drink tickets because they buy them 10-20 at a time and put them on the table and they spend the whole night making sure that there are always lots of tickets on the tables which means at the end of the night there is so much wasted money on tickets.

You are right- people will consume more than usual when drinks are free! You just have to trust that the venue has licensed servers who will cut people off when they have had too much! You can ask about that when you meet with vendors if you are concerned, because you don't want that worry looming over you on your wedding day!

Tickets are a good solution for controlling costs though! And having wine on the tables usually gets the party started, some tables won't drink all of theirs, and other tables will "borrow"

Hello everyone,

Great suggestions thank you, i never thought of doing tickets. So simple yet genius.

I come from an Italian home, so the weddings are traditionally open bar. My mom and I were talking about this and she is very much open bar as I am worried about the guests that will be coming might consume more then usual.

We have decided to have a hotel wedding or have a wedding venue near a hotel, ease of transportation for my older guests. We also decided to have 2 bottles or red & white on each of the tables.

I will definitely be bringing up the tickets idea at my next family dinner!

To add to this- is has been suggested in another post to have a jar for unwanted drink tickets- maybe a non-drinker only wants one glass of wine? So they can put their extra dickets in a jar "up for grabs" and any one who would like an additional drink can take one. I think it would be a nice way to do things, especially as the drinks you pay for might as well be consumed!

Hi Talisa! We didn't want to do an open bar because of our budget so we debated between doing a cash bar or a hosted bar. We decided that we didn't want to do a hosted bar (where you pay up to a certain limit and after that guests pay) because it wouldn't be fair. There's always those people that have 3 drinks before someone else has finished one! We were planning on doing a cash bar but we ended up with less guests than we were expecting and had a food/beverage minimum to meet so we ended up doing 3 drink tickets per guest plus a glass of champagne for the toast and unlimited drinks for our wedding party. That way all guests technically got the same number of drinks and if someone didn't want theirs, they could give them to someone else. From what we heard, there were more than enough tickets to go around so no one had to buy drinks!

Hi Talisa! Welcome! I'm so happy to see you in the community!! I think you're asking a great question and it of course depends on what you can afford. You should take a look at these two discussions where couples have come up with different ideas: Open bar. Yay or Nay?

Limited bar or open bar?

I think the toonie bar could be an option! You could also give drink tickets, etc. It also depends on the venue you booked and the style you are going for. Will guests have drinks served with food? What type of venue did you book?

I tend to agree with Val and Lindsay- Open bar is the best way to host your guests, even if you aren't a drinker. And consumption bar will be the more cost effective in groups with few heavy drinkers.

If you ARE going cash bar I think a toonie is the absolute max to charge. Your guests will be spending a lot of money to come to your wedding and celebrate with you...so the less burden of cost you put on them the better.

Seconding this! Great advice Valerie

Open bar is always preferred, it's such a wonderful treat when your guests can come to your wedding and never have to open their wallets!!! Plus who wants to carry around toonies all night! If your group doesn't have many drinkers you could do a consumption bar, so you would just pay per drink, it often works out to be cheaper. You could also offer beer and wine (no liquor), that is often cheaper than full open bars. Lots of great options to still treat all your guests while still fully hosting them