Saving on alcohol

View quoted message Typically with a toonie bar the guests pay 2 bucks and at the end of the night the venue can calculate how many were sold and you pay the difference. But it all depends on the venue I guess ...

View quoted message Thank you so much!

View quoted message The trouble with the toonie bar at our venue is that we have to provide tickets, float and a ticket seller. Is this common?

View quoted message Great idea

View quoted message Thanks for the advice!

Maybe have some cheap bottles of wine on the guest tables. i know a lot of people go to weddings for drinks and food. you also cant give open bar to certain people and not others. people will be going up to them and saying hey how did you get the booze lol

Thank you to everyone for your advice. At the moment, I'm pretty overwhelmed and stressed about the alcohol part of our wedding. We are on a tight budget so I appreciate all of your feedback!

You could make your own wine and have it on tables during supper. You could have limited beer options and do kegs instead with just the few wine options.

Alcohol is a very expensive part of a wedding, and many guests go to weddings to drink and eat.

If we weren't having an open bar, I think I would do an open bar for cocktail hour, and then table wine during dinner, then have a couple drink tickets per person. So that is about 4-5 drinks per person before dinner is even done. This way there would be a few free drinks for guests, and then if they want to drink more it would be up to them.

Our venue has the option for guests to pay for their drinks - since neither of us drink we agreed that would be a great way to stay within budget and to avoid people getting to drunk. Plus the venue makes a little extra cash!

Theres definitely a few options for your situation.

Open cocktail hour then cash bar, keeping it to an hour ensures 1-2 drinks per person but nothing overboard.

Drink tickets, 1-2 drink tickets per person, whatever they consume will be your tab at the end of the night.

Toonie bar, Guest pays $2 and you pay the remainder.

Table wine and/or Champagne toast are also pretty standard.

We are doing a champagne toast at cocktail hour, table wine with dinner and then 1 drink ticket. After that it is a cash bar. Hoping that the various "free" drinks will offset any grumbles about not doing an open or a toonie bar. Our venue will not let us bring in our own liquor so a cheaper bar is not feasible. Its really hard to save on this part!

You can do a toonie bar (i.e. $2 a drink) or you could offer drink tickets (2 per person) and then after that, cash bar.