If you had a free bar at your wedding

[weddingweddingwoe]

What was the rough cost pp?

I have no idea, please help!

We are thinking wine, beer, champagne and soft drinks.

2.7k I think. It was a cricket club, so not massively expensive. 120 people, drinks all day, no limit on what could be ordered.

It depends entirely on your venue.
At our wedding the bar was mid priced and we had an all day open bar for 150 (at least 30 were children) which worked out at about £15 per head ( bargain). We also had a tea and coffee area and lots of bottled water so I think (apart from a small minority who drank as much as they could) that most people drank less from the bar than they might have done otherwise. Plus we had no evening guests so by evening most people were actually slowing down.
At my brother's wedding on the south coast ( married into an Irish family) they ended up spending about £80 per head including the kids and not including the wine on the tables.

We also restricted to singles only and no shots. People doing jagerbombs bought their own

About £2000 14 years ago. Open bar from after the ceremony at about 3:30 pm to midnight or so.

Our venue just charged us per person which included unlimited drinks. (Sorry, I don't remember how much it was and it was a long time ago). As the customers we didn't know what the price breakdown was between food, drinks, service etc. It was just a fixed cost. Is that not an option?

80 people here and just under 2k.

Christ, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't do a free bar. All these people are your friends, the SECOND the free bar opens up these people will act like they don't know you and just say 'f*ck you' they will order shots, bottles of prosecco and they will rinse that bar whilst it's free and not give one thought towards you paying, Just think of it as people queuing for petrol, panic buying
Then after the free bar has ended you will see more undrunk drinks then you ever thought possible. It's an easy way to loose £4000. trust me on this.

Can I just say how nice it is to see someone actually hosting their guests is lovely. I know it's a cultural thing but the idea of inviting people to an event for which they have to buy clothes and probably travel and pay for lodging AND provide a gift and then not providing all the food and drink just feels so grabby. One wedding I attended this summer didn't even provide food, aside from a slice of wedding cake - they had a taco van that took cash and card payments. I paid a tenner for two mediocre little tacos and some salsa. It wasn't even authentic Mexican food - basically Old El Paso 😂

So many couples have weddings I have been to that cost £20,000 or even more who then had the nerve to accept gifts AND pay for our own refreshments. It just feels so selfish and grabby. It's sad to me that it's just the way things are.

We put £800 behind the bar and said no spirits. It covered about three hours of the evening do. We had 60 people to the reception and 30 more at night. We paid for two drinks plus coffee during the reception as part of the set menu.

I'm Irish. I've never been to a wedding with a free bar. That would be carnage and insane!
At a wedding, I'd easily spend €100 on drink - I know people who would easily spend a lot more.

Set a limit, or ask if staff could take a bar order at the end of dinner.

My FIL paid the bar tab as a gift. Not sure how much it came to in the end but I'm sure it wasn't more than £1,500 for 80 people (that includes children though). He topped it up through the night as needed. We also had wine on the table during the meal and prosecco after the ceremony.

I think a lot depends on your guests. My DH doesn't drink and I only had a few, our friends and family aren't really big drinkers either. There were three guys who got totally hammered - I'm sure the bar would have cost significantly more if everyone drank at the same rate as them!

We put on fizz before the meal, Pimms and 1/2 a bottle of wine for everyone and put something like a £1000 behind the bar - which didn't last terribly long. 100 people.

We had 100 ish guests

We put 2k I think (or 1.5?) behind the bar but it did run out ( DH's friends) but probably not til about 11pm so figured everyone had they 20 quid's worth by then lol. We limited the options to single spirits only I.e. if someone wanted a double they had to pay. Beer/wine/soft fine

We had an open bar with about 70 people. We paid for about 150 drinks, so whatever that costs at your venue.

My father-in-law paid this for us and it came to about £2,000.

We personally only provided 3/4 drinks pp but we attended a wedding with a free bar. There was a £3k limit in a posh hotel, scottish wedding (we like a boozy knees up) and I think it ran dry about midnight so people bought their own until 1am. Probably about 150 at evening reception. This was a few years ago so prices will have gone up.

That was in addition to the other free stuff that was already circulating.

Don’t do champagne you’ll bankrupt yourself

Agree that drinks tokens are a good way to do it

We put £1000 behind the bar for ours. It ran out at about 11:30pm so people only had to pay for drinks for the last 30 mins. We had 70 guests, about 15 of whom were DC and about 10 of the adult guests were teetotal or designated drivers. We also paid for soft drinks so that the children, recovering alcoholics and religious abstainers didn't have to pay for drinks either.

Actuslly taking a bar order after the meal sounds like a good idea, maybe offer 2 x drinksnper person. Stops taking the piss. You could then put the extra behind the bar for soft drinks

We did a free bar but had a limit on what you could order so glasses of wine, pints of beer and single spirit mixers were free.

If guests wanted doubles, shots or cocktails they had to pay themselves - think it was around £2000 but wedding started early so bar was open 3-midnight

Just had our wedding this weekend and had an open bar. We stocked it ourselves from Majestic on sale and return. On the end it cost us around £1,200 for 65 people all day, including table drinks and toasts etc. Nobody got stupidly drunk, which I was pleasantly surprised by. Too busy dancing I think! It was important to us to host our friends and family this way and I don’t regret it for a moment.

How long ago did you lot get married? None of these figures add up.... £2k for 100 people is £20 each. These days it's £4-6 for a pint of lager, up to £15 for a costal or decent premium double spirit and mixer. And as for 100 big drinkers and £1500.... was it in the early 80s?? Cos that would get you 3-4 drinks per person .

The last time I went to a wedding just before lockdown it was in a cheap little Labour club with a paid bar and I still managed to spend £140 on drinks for two adults and 3 kids.

For a fully paid bar I would bear in mind that some people will nurse 1-2 drinks and some will go through 6-8+ . So I'd look at 5 per person and state it's draft Lager/cider/bitter, house wine and house spirits and cordial/post mixer drinks. That's it. Anything else has to be paid for. Then work out an average cost of the drinks you are offering and times it by the people you have invited. Then multiply it by five. That's how much to put behind the bar. Other wise provide each guest with X amount of tokens to get a few free drinks.

@Brainwave89

We did not. Cash was very tight, and we were quite upfront around this. We did buy a first drink and have wine on tables, but a free bar, particularly in a good hotel was at the time beyond our means. The wedding day itself is important, but for me far more important is what comes afterwards, i.e. married life, and I would focus the cash on this.

OP was asking if you had a free bar and your opinion on them FFS.