Cash or free bar at wedding?

[Littleblurry]

We are getting married in a large barn. Will have around 130 day and 70 evening guests.

We are going to put on champagne,wine, beer, cider, pimms and soft drinks during the day.

The question is, do we continue offering free drinks (with a few spirit options added) during the evening? Or do we hire a bar company and have a cheap cash bar?

The main concern is people taking advantage of the free drinks and getting horrendously drunk when there will be quite a lot of kids around. In all honesty, I dont think there will be many who do as most adults are in their 30s or over and (in our circle anyway) for most of us our binge drinking days are long gone. Lots of people wont be drinking much as they have their kids with them, the venue is around 20-30 mins drive for the majority of the evening guests so its likely many of them will drive anyway.

I'm inclined to offer the drinks free but DF thinks a cash bar would be better. What would/did you do? Would you be unhappy with a cash bar or is it fairly normal these days?

I've been to about 20 weddings. Only 2 had a free bar all night. Cash bar after the meal is totally normal and expected.

Either would very generous. After drinks on arrival and during meal I would expect to pay for my own drinks during evening. However if you really want to provide more then I would cap it otherwise you’ll have people going overboard.

At my brother’s wedding, they paid for a certain amount (no idea how much, let’s say £500). So they kept a tab behind the bar, and once it went over that you paid for your own. Would that be a compromise?

We had a similar wedding and carried on the free drinks. Some people brought their own as they wanted specific things. It was great and not that expensive.

Are you in the UK? I don't think free bars all night are really a thing here especially for so many guests! We did a raffle ticket system at ours for evening guests coming in who got a free drink with the ticket but then had to pay, obviously all day guests had had free drink included with meal etc.

I would never expect a free bar all evening. We did all the drinks through the meal and then first evening drink was paid for by us too then it was a cash bar.

The only weddings I've been to with free bars have been in Ireland.

We had a free bar and recently went to a wedding with one.

No one took the piss & seemed to drink about as much as they would at a pay bar.

My experience is that a free bar is the norm and expected. It would be most unusual to have a pay bar, I think I’ve only been to one wedding with one and that was an old university friend but it’s also normal to have limited spirits available or only specific brands.

Either works but what we did (which worked really well) was have a charity bar for the evening party - ie a small token price for drinks (1 pound for single drunk and 10 for bottle of wine). People loved the idea and it meant that people didn’t just take drinks and leave them around (which often happens at free bar I think) but also no begrudging spending 10 quid for all your drinks (if you have 10 haha!) and then a nice charity donation at the end! Also if you contact your fave charity in advance they will usually send you eg a small poster which we put on the bar (and eg cancer charity some small daffodils which we put on the tables with the favours). I wanted a free bar and my husband wanted cash bar and this was the best compromise for us xx

My experience is totally the opposite of applepie. I can't remember ever attending a totally free bar. I've known one do free bar until a certain tab was reached but that's it - one. And I've been to dozens of weddings.

Oh this was a big thing for us

Its a cultural thing. My partner is american and all the weddings there have open bars. The ones over there seemed to go fine. They find the whole cash bar thing crass and would be expecting an open bar so would need to be told in advance to bring money and expect to pay.

I've only been to one bar in the uk with an open bar and found that people did not handle it well. It lead to people sleeping on tables etc, leaving early due to being drunk etc. I think its up to you to know your guests etc and how it might go.

I decided for our wedding that even if funds allowed an open bar, i wouldn't have one as i don't think my family would manage an open bar well.

For us we considered
1)open bar
2) the UK norm of welcome drinks eg prosecco, wine on tables for meal then a cash bar
3) the expected stuff but then having some form of tokens for a set amount of free drinks per person
4) offering additional free cocktails or pims etc for a set time/amount
5)Having certain drinks eg wine and beer be free
6) putting a set amount of money behind the bar or paying for drinks till a certain time and once its gone its gone

We thought about no 6 but went to a wedding where people were stock piling drinks etc. In the end we decided on additional free jugs of certain drinks that were limited and free soft drinks.

You may have very sensible guests who wouldnt be phased by an open bar though.

My dad put a certain amount behind the bar which lasted till about 9.30 which meant evening guests got some free drinks too . No one was anymore drunk than at any other wedding .

I've been to quite a few with a free bar and, if you can comfortably afford it, I'd go with that option. We had a hall where we could take our own alcohol so were able to have a free bar but we kept it simple with wine, beer, bubbly, cider, port and soft drinks. Total drink cost was £8.50 per head between 3pm-11pm.

That's very generous with so many guests. As some PP have said it's not expected after the meal. If you want to provide the free bar and can afford it then go for it but your guests shouldn't be expecting it. We had a tab going at the bar and told every to put their drinks it. No one went overboard and got horrendously drunk. We expected the bill to be bigger than it was. I suppose it depends on the maturity of your guests being able to cope with the idea of a free bar. A cap on a tab would be a good compromise. I would be surprised if people turned up to a wedding with no money expecting it to be all completely free!

I've only been to one recent wedding where there was a set amount behind the bar and it embarrassing to see work colleagues ordering ridiculous amounts of drinks before the money ran out.

Would a couple of drinks vouchers per person be really tacky ? Means everyone including soft drink people get a few drinks for the function but people can't abuse the privilege.

(I wouldn't be unhappy with a paid bar because of budget reasons but slightly perturbed if it's to make sure we didn't get too drunk - we got married in our 30s and no one got hammered, just happy, despite free bar!)

I like mostlyambridge idea!

Whatever you do if it requires people to be carrying cash its worth letting them know. I usually only carry a bank card.

Also check if you can realistically afford an open bar by discussing a budget with your venue. My concern was that i didnt want to be saddled with a massive bill the morning after the wedding, and it would have been a decent chunk of our wedding budget.

I also didnt want to run it to a situation where people had drunk more than i could afford or where we were people couldnt drink what they wanted because we couldnt afford it.

The usa have much more of an attitude of if you cant afford to buy all their drinks, dont invite them.

I’d go for a pay bar. It’s entirely normal to do it that way.

We had a free bar all night but no shots or doubles and the majority of the guests were oldies. But cash bar in the evening is absolutely fine as long as you forewarn the people invited.

It might be worth saying that our open bar was budgeted by venue and the alcohol costs for our wedding was predicted to be much more than people have said here (we were looking at for 70 day guest, then our evening guests into the thousands, definately not the hundreds!).

Obviously much more affordable if you're able to supply your own alcohol etc

I've been to a lot of weddings, and never has there been a free bar in the evening. Plenty of free drinks in the day but not in the evening.

I've been to dozens of weddings over the years.

One had a free bar.
Vast majority had pay bars. Only free ones being a drink on arrival, some wine at dinner (approx half bottle pp and a toast)

This is the norm here ime over the past 40 years anyway - mainly Yorkshire but some further south.

So interesting that people’s experiences are so varied in the UK.
I have only been to one wedding without a free bar and the norm in my experience has been to offer soft drinks, wine, larger, cider, bitter, Guinness and Prosecco-so no spirits.

Apologies, my last post (it was such a big topic for our wedding that its all come pouring out)

Check what the venue will charge.
Eg if we asked guests to put it on a tab, or put a set amount behind the bar then we would be charged the full drinks price eg, £5 for wine or spirits whatever

However if we spoke with our venue in advance and booked it, we could do things more at cost price eg we could pay the bottle of spirit cost, usually cheaper than what they'd sell the whole bottle for and definately cheaper than buying it per shot.

In my culture, it would be very inappropriate to expect wedding guests to pay for food or drink at a wedding. I think in mainstream British culture, people are too set on having fancy day that they expect other people to finance.

We often cater our own weddings (up to 20 people cooking vast amounts of food buffet style) to maximise the amount of people we can afford to have at the wedding (another common issue I see is limited numbers) without having to ask them to pay for the day. There is already social obligation to give a gift and perhaps buy new clothes for themselves plus they might have travelled to the wedding location and had to arrange accommodation. For us, it would be extremely rude to also expect someone to pay for their refreshments too.