Hosted Bar vs. Cash Bar

Believe it or not, drinks can eat up a surprisingly large part of your wedding budget. If you choose to have a hosted bar, meaning you pay for all alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, sometimes guests think that the drinks are "free" and they can end up getting 2 or 3 drinks at a time, bringing up your bar tab to thousands of dollars. Sometimes the bar tab can rival the food tab.

On the other hand, having a cash bar, where you have guests pay for their own drinks can be tacky, in my opinion. Guests may feel less relaxed when they have to keep their wallet closeby in case they want to buy a drink. So what do you do? Here are some suggestions.

Hosted Bar Only during Cocktail Hour - A happy medium can be simply hosting the bar during cocktail hour. If you want to include mixed drinks (which are more expensive) as well as beer, wine, and soda, then this can be a good choice. Limiting the open bar to one hour can help limit drunk guests at your wedding, limit costs, but at the same time guests can feel comfortable getting their drink of choice during this time.

Hosted Beer and Wine Bar - This was what we did at our wedding. Mixed drinks were $8 - $10 per drink so we decided to limit our hosted bar to only beer, wine, soda, and juice. We were able to have a hosted bar all night without worrying about the bar tab.

Supply Your Own Wine - If your venue allows, you can buy your own wine at BevMo and save $$$. Keep in mind that your venue may charge a corkage fee, but this fee may still save you more than if they charged you wine by the glass. We also did this, buying our white and red wines at a very low cost at BevMo. The salesperson was very helpful in helping us choose a brand of white and red wine that our guests really enjoyed. Walnut Crest was the brand we used. Even red wine connoisseurs commented on how good our wine was, and it was only about $4 bottle! The venue helped us estimate how many bottles we needed and they were exactly on target.

Tip: If you are able to pre- order your wine and have it delivered to the venue, that would save you a trip to the venue and some hassle.

Skip the Champagne - Traditionally, there is a champagne toast. Instead, our DJ asked guests to have their drink of choice ready for toasting. I love champagne, but we decided to forgo it for our toasts, since it would only be used for toasting. I don't know how guests felt about this but to us, it wasn't an important part of our wedding. This choice saved us a few hundred dollars.

Feature a Signature Drink - At our wedding, we featured a signature drink that was special to us, cranberry juice with club soda and a spritz of lime juice. The venue also served these drinks on trays during the cocktail hour and displayed a sign at the bar to encourage guests to try our signature drink. This non-alcoholic drink was quite popular at our wedding as it was consumed more than soda or juice, maybe because people like to try new things. Having your own signature drink can help limit costs as this can be the alternative to having mixed drinks but at the same time add something unique and memorable to your wedding.