Help! Wedding food and drink

[Windermere90]

We have just over 100 guests and are having a sit down meal etc. There are a number of dietary requirements among our guests (vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, allergy to nuts, shellfish, gluten, cheese, spices, celiac) etc etc. I am curious to know if other people's venues catered for this in a personalised way or if you basically get 2 options, the main menu and then a vegan dish for everyone else?

The cost of drinks seems impossible to predict! We would like to offer a free bar for the after party and have saved on costs elsewhere to do so as this is a priority for us. The venue can offer us 3 hours of wine, beer and soft drinks at £20 per head (so just under £2000) and the party is covered. Alternatively we can put our card behind the bar and people can order what they like - spirits and other drinks too.

I estimate there will be roughly 10 people who don't drink at all. Among the drinkers, as usual there will be some who drink less than others.

Does anyone have experience of this and which option do you think will work out cheaper for us?

Thank you

Do you know what the bar prices are like for pints, spirits, etc.?

No, good point December. I will enquire. I would imagine they are fairly high as it's in London.

I wouldn’t bother with a free bar. It is definitely not expected anymore and I think it is a waste of money.

People want nice food and plenty of it

Could you put £2000 behind the bar? If it goes over, people pay for themselves ?
If not you get a bit of money back?

If I'd possible, restrict to house spirits and wine, oh and singles.

I don't think anyone should expect a free bar but most guests would love one! If you say, 4 drinks in 3 hours by a rough price for pint/spirit, that is surely more than £20 in London? The last suggestion of £2k behind the bar could work well if you have several non drinkers.

One of the problems with money behind the bar, is that there will always be people who get several rounds in at the beginning, thereby denying some others their drinks.

Could you just allocate a set number of bottles of wine per table, say 1.5 per head, with free soft drinks. Anything else the guests pay for themselves?

Thanks for the suggestions. We definitely do want a free bar greendale - we have saved on other areas to do this, so it's more about which option is the most economic. That's something I hadn't thought of hada that people get rounds in early. I'm feeling like their £20ph package is probably going to work out better as it's unlimited in terms of amount, although restricted to wine and beer.

Can you not limit it to beer, wine, single spirits and soft drinks, and say no rounds? I think a free bar is a great thing to have at a wedding if you can stretch to it.

We are having a family wedding soon and the caterer is providing personalised food for the various dietary requirements. We were slightly surprised at how few actually were requested when it came to it ( personal interest as I am non dairy myself ! ) We are also providing a free bar for the evening - it’s a venue with no corkage , , so most hirers buy in the drinks on a sale or return basis. We are providing an unrestricted continuation of the wine choices from the meal plus beer , and soft drinks, served from a simple bar manned by the caterers staff. And lots of water easily available ! I think, with a different catering set up, your £20 per head sounds like a useful idea - at least you have certainty.

I don’t think your venue would offer you a £20 package if they thought it would even potentially put them out of pocket. Our open bar was less than £15 pp on top of (roughly) half bottle of white, red and fizz pp.

Oh and ours included spirits, malt whisky etc.

Oh and for 5 hours!

Regarding dietary requirements usually typically they group where possible so celiac, gf etc then vegan/vegetarian. Unless you are having cheese or shellfish then the others can have the same meal. I'm gf and generally this is what I've experienced at every wedding.

Nut allergy is a very different issue personally if I had a nut allergy sufferer I would want to check that no nut based elements were being served so typically no nut roast for the vegan/vegetarians.