We're having our wedding on a working dairy farm where we've hired a barn and a field. We're bringing everything on site, marquee, toilets generator, the lot.
We're planning to provide a Pimm's/fizzy elderflower drinks reception (2-3 glasses ppn), then red and white wine (just under 1 bottle ppn) to be served with lunch followed by some fizz (2-3 glasses ppn) for the toasts.
We were planning to get an event bar service to come on-site to provide a pay bar for the guests. They've quoted £300 for the staff, supplies and equipment. they would be charging our guests standard bar prices. We decided £300 would be better spent on booze instead, for that we could buy 2 casks of local ales, and a cask of local cider. That works out at about 2-3 pints per person. We'd also buy a selection of large bottles of standard spirits, vodka, gin, rum etc. There would be plenty of mixers and soft drinks, and we'd get some wine on sale or return from Majestics. My BiL is making some homebrew and my bridesmen's nana is giving us this years' batch of elderberry wine. The quantities of these homebrew provisions is anyone's guess.
I don't expect this amount of alcohol to last all night, and my Dad suggested we should just let people know what will be provided and that they can also bring their own if they like. Before we'd even thought about what to do about drinks, When a few of our friends found out about the nature of our wedding, the fact it was a non-standard venue, several said "brilliant, won't have to hide my hip flask" or similar. Our caterers said many weddings they've done have had a similar scenario, and they tend to help organise the collection and service of brought drinks.
I know the idea of BYO to a wedding might be controversial grabby/rude insert MN terminology here and I'm not 100% sure about it. My Dad thinks people would far prefer to spend £10 on 12 bottles of their favourite lager from Tesco beforehand than on two drinks from a pay bar. I don't really think my friends and family would be sneery about it, but our wedding is all about our guests having the best possible time on the budget we have, so I'm trying to work out if this fits in with that philosophy.
I guess we could spend another £300 on more drinks, but that would mean second guessing what people will want to drink, and how much will be drunk. Not to mention spending £300 less on something else, and the majority of the budget is being spent on food and event hire - my dress was 50p from Sue Ryder not really but you know what I mean. We've attended many of our guests weddings before ours and every one has had a standard venue pay bar. Given that we'd originally intended (with no qualms whatsoever - I've read the threads) to provide a standard pay bar for our guests, is providing them with the alcohol options I've outlined reasonable?
:)
Just another thinly veiled excuse to bang on about me' nuptuals really