Alcohol - The Biggest Budget Buster

Next to the menu, alcohol is going to eat up the biggest part of your wedding budget. I will try to make this minefield of hidden costs and secret language, a little easier to navigate. First, let’s talk about how your bar can be set up. You have four main choices here.

1) Non-alcohol Bar – let’s say your family is not into drinking for either personal or religious reasons, you can always chose to have a non alcoholic bar, with choices of tea, lemonade, soft drinks, even your own specialty drinks. I have done more than a few weddings where we have had a non-alcoholic cocktail hour. For this we served water flavored with limes, lemons or strawberries slices butlered through the room.
2) Open Bar – Where guests can get any drink they request.
3) Limited Bar – Where you have limited the guests’ choice to a few favorites, most often beer or wine. Also popular now are the offerings of one or two specialty drinks.
4) Cash Bar – Where guests are required to pay for their own drinks. Etiquette wise this is a giant no-no. It would be the same as inviting guests to your home, offering them a drink and then saying that will be $5.00. That being said, it is still a popular choice in some regions of the country. If you are going to do this make sure that your guests are aware ahead of time. Nothing would be worse than your guests showing up without money and everyone scrambling for cash.

But I’m on a budget, what can I do, you ask. Well instead of an open bar all night, why not serve cocktails only during your cocktail hour and switch to only wine or beer when the partying begins. Another choice would be to close the bar during dinner and reopen when the party begins. Choose a cute signature drink that fits in with your theme and serve only those with beer and wine instead of a full open bar. This will please both your liquor drinkers and your wine and beer people.

Now you ask, how much will this cost me? Well nearly all venues charge one of four ways:
1) On Consumption – where you pay per drink for what your guests drink. Good choice if you are sure you will have few drinkers.
2) Per Head – You pay a flat fee based on how many people will attend your event. They can drink as much as they want and you are charged just the agreed upon amount. If you have a lot of big drinkers, this is the way to go.
3) Capped – This is where you tell your venue that you want to spend up to a certain amount and at that time the bar will either shut down or switch to beer and wine.
4) Per Hour – You pay per guest, per hour. The price drops as the night goes on. You might start off at $8.00 per guest, then in hour two it drops to $7.00 per guest and continues dropping as the night goes on.

Tomorrow we will finish talking about things you need to know when deciding on your bar.