Venue / Bar / Tipping

Ashley

You can tip the bartenders if you want even if your guests are tipping them personally. The honeymoon jar you do as wished to use yourself.

I do agree from the bartender view and can't dispute that fact. I personally didn't tip any vendor includding the bar.

This is your call to make and FH.

View quoted message Thanks so much for your detailed reply! We have reached out to schedule a meeting with our venue. I really like the idea you've proposed of preparing a shopping list for them, that way too, we will know roughly how much our bar tab will be building up to. 26oz of vodka = 26 drinks @ $5.50 each = $143 for us. This whole bar thing is so frustrating! Typically with anything, purchased in bulk, they become cheaper. Why isn't that rule applying here? The bar is going to blow 1/3 of our budget. We have about 15 questions prepared for the venue and 10 are about the bar. Haha. I will post an update once we meet with them.

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HI Ashley,

A month has passed since your post so you may have had your next meeting with your venue but I wanted to touch base because our venues seem to have similar rules. Our venue is carrying the liquor license through a special event permit so they have to buy the booze but they are letting us set the budget by giving them a list of exactly what we want stocked - ie. 25 bottles of Smirnoff Vodka, 12 cases of Canadian, 20 bottles of Relax Riesling, 15 bottles of Bodacious Red etc. We also have to tell them exactly what kind of mix and how much. I think this actually alleviates a lot of pressure from the venue because less decisions for them - might be a good solution and you can take back a bit of control? It's also specified that there will be no shots which should save a bit on our booze costs because we are a big drinking crowd.

View quoted message Yes I know that. I was just adding it from a bartenders perspective. But like I said the bartenders are only hired and it sucks that the owners won't budge but I was just letting you know from our perspective. And just remember- even though you have a honeymoon jar, your guests will still directly tip the bartender so ask them if they got any tips (I just did a wedding and got $200 in tips to share with another bartender) so we didn't get an additional tip which we were fine with. So just double check with them throughout the night. You don't have to tell them that you will give them a tip at the end of the night (you can if you want), it's more just a pleasant surprise for them at the end of the night. Just my opinion though.

After reading your comments, I think it would be best to keep the two seperate. Honeymoon fund jar at the card/gift table. Tip jar at the bar, then our guests can tip the bartenders accordingly. As always, thank you for the great suggestions!

View quoted message Eek! I stated that I am okay with US giving them a tip at the end of the night when we pay the final bar tab. That way we can give a lump sum based on the total sales and our guests aren't fumbling around with change at the bar. This is something I would run by them ahead of time, it's totally up to them. This post was mainly asking about the honeymoon fund jar.

View quoted message Oh no no I wasnt bashing your idea of tipping them. I just read others comments about not tipping them at all and I thinks thats not the best

View quoted message Eek! I didn't say that,. I am okay with US giving them a tip at the end of the night when we pay the final bar tab. That way we can give a lump sum based on the total sales. This is something I would run by them ahead of time, to see if they are okay with doing it that way.

I have never seen the honeymoon jar, but if had, I would tip the couple of course. I also always tip the bartenders, I think it is an big deal for them.

View quoted message Yes totally agree with you! And a lot of the times it's not the bartenders fault of the pricing of drinks and not budging the price.

I dont think a honeymoon jar is bad at all but I think not tipping the bartender crappy. As someone who used to work at a bar I know their jobis way harder then most give credit to.

I don't think a "honeymoon fund" jar would be tacky at all. Or a "wishing tree" with clips for bills, oe something else to that effect. My fiance had a similar opinion about the open bar, but the budget forced us to do something different (we will supply guests with a few free drink tickets to start the evening, and then they will buy them). An open bar is a very courteous gesture as a host, but in all honesty, I believe that guests are prepared to pay for things at a wedding. Most people understand that weddings are expensive, especially open bars, and I think they will be glad to see an easy opportunity to help out and feel helpful. I hope you find a plan that you feel comfortable with!

No it's not tacky to have a honeymoon fund. And you're fine to not tip them until the end.

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I totally understand that - hubs wanted the open bar no negotiation as well! We supplied everything but the wine which isn't unusual in our area for a winery wedding. We got a special occasion permit from the LCBO and bought the liquor under that licence. We also bought our own event insurance through PAL Canada so we were protected on top of the venue's insurance if anything were to happen. Bring this up with them and see what they say - if you are insured and have a permit, I'm sure their liability is limited. Many venues serve alcohol under an individual's SOP and have no issues doing so in ON. It sounds like it may be a case of controlling the inventory and the pricing to their liking. If they won't budge, maybe consider doing a wine and beer bar since you can buy by the case and typically can save some money doing that. The other option, since they are new, is try calling around to a few other venues in the area and see what their policy is and if they have your date available - threatening to jump ship (even if you have no intention of doing so) may be motivation for them to be a bit more flexible with their policy.

View quoted message Hi Andrea! Thank you for your input. First off, it has to be open bar (FH won't budge). The venue stocks the bar, though if we could stock it that would help out a lot. She said because they have the insurance, they buy the alcohol. We are going to arrange another meeting and try to negotiate something. I will bring this up. How will they even know what to stock? We are the only wedding booked there in 2018 and they are also new owners. It's so frustrating. We offered a few different alternatives when we met 6 months ago, but she flat out said no to them all. I don't know if there is a way around it. I was more-so looking to see what you guys thought about the honey-fund jar on the bar counter.

View quoted message Hi Crystal, they do not host many weddings, they are quite small (capacity of 80). We are hosting an evening wedding with hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. There won't be a formal dinner.

How come your venue didn’t give you a fixed rate per plate? Alcohol is usually included in this cost.

Whoa...that's a brutal cost. My husband was also set on the open bar option, but we were able to buy our own booze and bring it in with the exception of the wine (we got married at a winery and had to use their wine, but we got to choose which ones at which price points we wanted). Is there a way you could do this too and then only pay for mixers through the venue? I feel like this helped out with costs since we could decide what to buy at what price point and in what quantity. We took care of tipping our bartenders at the end of the night, we didn't want our guests to worry about it. You could do drink tickets or a toonie jar (like maybe everyone starts out with 3 tickets and then after that, they pay $2 per drink?). There is another thread about toonie bars on here from recently as well that had some good ideas thrown around on it...maybe try checking that one out?

Note: My FH doesn't want to do a toonie bar. Open bar is his non-negotiable. Mine was a good photographer