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.

And we agreed with the hotel that we would put a grand behind the bar and that got used up by 11:30pm so it lasted pretty much the whole night

Approx £9k - from 4pm until 1am ish - we had our local pub to ourselves, that included food too (100 people approx). March 2020 two weeks before lockdown!

We had an open bar for around 110 people and spent about £5k on drinks altogether (about £4k on pre-purchased welcome cocktails, wine and fizz, then an additional £1k as a bar bill). Full caveat, though - we started around 4pm and went on until the early hours, it was in central London, and it was a cracking party!

We kept costs lower than they could have been by pre-ordering the wine and fizz, and by buying specific spirits we liked and paying corkage to the venue, so the bar bill was mainly beer, non-alcoholic drinks, mixers and people who wanted specific spirits. We asked the bar staff to give guests whatever they wanted, except for shots/cocktails, and we asked them to stop doing doubles later in the evening if it was looking a bit messy.

We had loooads left over and could probably have cut the bar bill in half if we'd wanted, but I was quite happy drinking wedding drinks for the next year!

And no restrictions on drinks at all, a few that did shots asked us beforehand which was polite 👍🏼

No idea because it was my lovely parent-in-laws’ generous gift. However rather than a bar they bought stuff gradually the year leading up when it was on offer and built up a collection of wine/cava/spirits that way, then we also bought a keg of ale from a local brewery which they delivered with a tap. We just set it up so folks could help themselves.

We couldn’t have afforded it ourselves but it did make for a lovely atmosphere - lots of our friends are freelancers with small incomes who had already paid to travel and it felt so nice to just know folk could enjoy whatever they wanted without stress.

We did but the lovely venue let us self cater it and instead of presents we said that while genuinely we didn't want or need gifts people could chip in for the bar cost and several people did which was nice.

It was something that personally mattered to me...having a free bar so people genuinely didn't have to pay fir stuff

We had 40 guest and put a grand behind the bar. Some guests also chose to buy their own drinks (cocktails) and we lasted the night.
The money behind the bar was part of a wedding gift from my parents!

We had 80 guests, bar bill was £2,100.
All drinks bar cocktails and champagne. We had some majorly big drinkers too

We gave everyone two free drinks, plus table wine and a cocktail for arrival. It was £8.50 for a glass of wine, more for cocktails and similar for spirits and over 100 guests. Maybe our friends and family drink a lot but I'd expect most people to have more than two drinks at a wedding, and at those prices our bar bill could've easily been over 5k. We thought we'd provided enough, but if people wanted to get plastered they'd have to put their hands in their pockets.

Depends on the venue. Ours was in a marquee so we spent about £500 at a wine warehouse in Calais, which covered the bar for 100 very easily. We also had Pimm's and prosecco as extra.

If you're in a proper venue I can see the costs going towards the 2 grand mark easily if unrestricted. Would definitely keep it to wine, beer and soft drinks. If people want shots etc they can pay for them.

20yrs ago, about 100 guests (inc a handful of children and non drinkers but also some big drinkers), afternoon into evening in a reasonably expensive hotel venue, about £2500.

I didn’t have one and really regretted it. I provided a welcome drink and wine with the lunch but people paid for their own drinks in the evening. Since then I’ve had my 40th snd 50th party and provided free bars.

Just a little word of warning when you plan to be so generous OP. We had a bottomless champagne reception before the wedding breakfast. We really regret it because a lot of guests (mainly relatives) took it to the extreme and got absolutely wasted. They, were just really greedy and some had two glasses in their hands at one time so they didn’t have to go back to the champagne table. We were happy that they had a great time but also a bit upset that they then just behaved like pissheads for the rest of the afternoon. Money behind a bar for one or two drinks per person is a much better option in my experience.

MIL’s main contribution to our wedding was money behind the bar (very kind of her) There was a cap, don’t remember exactly what but nothing too crazy. On the day she got a bit tipsy and ended up extending it a bit.

Gusts still talk about what a good time they had at our wedding and it is 90% down to the free bar.

Each to their own but weddings at venues where drinks are expensive and it’s a case of buy your own tend to be more somber and formal.

I used to work the bar at wedding receptions and the wastage was huge. I'd definitely just give the free champers and not the free bar !

We had 15 people in total (including us), one of those was a child. Our drinks bill was £1,138 (this includes drinks during the meals), just over £400 of that was espresso martini, we also had some expensive wine as champagne.

If we had seperately had wine on the tables it would have artificially made the bar bill look £270 cheaper.

I've always thought asking guests to pay for drinks at a wedding / party was mean. I'd prefer to scale back and show then a good time....

Definitely do tokens, there will always be some idiots who will drink it dry on someone else's dime.

Cannot get over putting 9k behind the bar !!

Tokens are nice . There's no need for anyone to have ten drinks, I'd be made up of I had a 2/3 free drinks somewhere as that's all I'd drink at most!

Cannot get over putting 9k behind the bar !!

I can't understand people paying £9k for a dress they can only wear once but many do! At least this way your mates get a bit of enjoyment out of the cash. Weddings are strange things 🤷🏻‍♀️

I agree with some PP , dont have a free bar , people will take the piss no matter what they say now . and one with a cap on means the 1st 50 or so in will get free booze and anyone arriving late will miss out .

So with agreement from the pub and the money paid the day before we gave out tokens( two each ) that we printed with our names / date / venue ( so they could not use them in another pub / different day as we knew one or two would try to take the piss )
The value was £3.50 each which was roughly the price of a glass of wine , decent pint , single and mixer.
We gave the tokens out to people when they came over to say hello / congratulate us , if they did not have the manners talk to us they didnt get any tokens !

We did not tell anyone there would be free drinks so it was a nice surprises for everyone

At my friend's wedding a couple of years ago, they put wine/beer/fizzy water on the tables for the meal, and some was left over, which people drank into the evening.
Then on everyone's evening invite, there were two kind of ticket stubs, which they could exchange for a couple of free drinks. I think it worked reasonably well.
(I was bridesmaid, so I was involved with some of the planning.)

We spent 2800 on wine, beer, cocktails and soft drinks (dry hire with no corkage) recently and took £600 worth of wine back and kept about another £300's worth.