Wedding drinks...Advise ladies if you can! :)

Depends on your guests really and how long the meal is - I would drink more than one glass if I was eating for say 1.5 hours ish... plus all the talking etc.

How much will the "top-up" actually save you? Is there an open bar if they want more than the one glass?

We don't have that option in ours, it's half a bottle per person plus toasting drink and thats it.

We allowed half a bottle per person and most went - so around 2 to 3 glasses each.

Oh, and then another drink to toast with.

Unless you have a pay bar during the meal then one glass isn't enough. Our venue advised against a pay bar as guests would then stand there and chat therefore clogging the room up rather than chatting at the table.

Like above no option in the ones I have looked at its a half bottle PP per table.. soo in reality 3 bottles per table.. If they want somethign else they buy it at the bar?

If your venue lets you reduce the amoutn then yes do.. to save the pennies!!

Well it'll save around £60 which isnt a lot to some but to us on a verrrry tight budget is quite a bit. Were not having an open bar or anything so it would be just the 4 drinks (If we include the topup). I mean really if it was really stingy to do it then we'd just cut our loses but thought it'd be interesting to see what you all thought xx Thanks for the input ?

1/2 a bottle is loads. consider that anyone driving wont be drinking, a lot of parents with kiddies will stay sober too. On top of that, some just dont drink that much. That means on a table of 8, anyone that enjoys a drink will have enough

We're having a drinks reception after the ceremony (whilst pics are being taken - so this could be as long as 1.5hrs) then 1/2 bottle per person on each table as we have no kids and most people are coming by coach followed by a glass of bubbly. we've been told to expect food to go on for upto 2 hours!

Make sure the bar will be serving during dinner if you are cutting back - as some bars close and you only use the drinks on the table.

I'd be inclined to include the top up , but thats only because I'd drink more than a glass of wine with my meal

If you are providing bubbly for the toast though, If you need to save money I'd lose it. AT the end of the day, if you need to make cuts somewhere I'd say a top up on a glass of wine is an easy cut to make.

HTH x

I didn't have a choice either it was either drinks package or none!

I agree don't have it if it saves pennies am sure your guests will be more than happy with the drinks you are providing i would be

The biggest drinks saving we found was NOT to have a drinks package from the venue. We bought our red wine in France (but could have found a good wine for a similar price in the UK) and the white from Sainsbury's on offer. Corkage seems high but when you tot it up the packages can actually work out significantly more expensive. We saved just over £800 doing it this way. That's allowing 3 bottles of wine per table, cava for the toast and our welcome drinks.

Would provision of soft drinks work out cheaper?

I would seriously need more than one drink with my meal, even if it was just water.

We haven't had any drinking included, simply because whatever we provide won't be enough - our families and friends are huge drinkers and we'd be edging towards a bottle per person.

Of all our guests i'd expect 10-15 (out of 150) to actually choose to drink champagne and out of that only 5 of us would have it as our prefered drink if ordering from the bar.

We are thinking of putting a voucher for the first drink on tables depending on budget nearer the time.

But that said me and OH are very different to most in that food and drink isn't hugely important to us - it's less than a quarter of our budget.

We're having a non alcoholic package, with a pay bar pretty much from the start of the wedding breakfast till midnight.

We are using Shloer for toasting, a 'fruit punch' as a welcome drink, and will have jugs of assorted fruit juice and iced water being topped up on a regular basis.

Neither of us drink, neither do the majority of our guests (and those that do mostly aren't big drinkers) so it all seemed rather pointless to us to shell out £16.50 a bottle for their 'house wine' for most of it to end up as half drunk bottles for waste.

Alcohol doesn't form a part of our normal lives, so we didn't see the point in making it part of our special day either.

We don't have to pay corkage so were providing welcome drinks, and wine with the meal (1/2 bottle per person). We were going to have pink champagne to toast but went to a wedding in spet who didn't have a toasting wine and like us had the speeches before the meal, neither of us even noticed it hadn't been there as the wine had just started flowing so we have decided that we will drop it, which should save us 20 bottles of champagne!

We are really lucky not having to pay corkage and bought our wine in the latest asda deal, we saved £210 on our wine! and £30 on our welcome drinks!

Funny you should say that. After reading your post I thought back to my friend's wedding, where they had the speeches before the meal, and they didn't provide bubbly either. I hadn't even realised until reading your post just now!

Luckily we don't have to pay corkage either, and can provide whatever we want. We will allow for a least half a bottle per person, probably more. I would drink more than one glass with the meal. Especially at weddings where it all takes so long.

I would definitely drink more than a glass during a full wedding breakfast. We're providing 2 drinks with the reception, a half bottle during dinner plus sparkly for toasting. I'm thinking that since there will be a few people not drinking hopefully the drinkers will have plenty.

We are only providing the toast ?

We were thinking of providing actual toast as a toast but they wanted £2.50 per head for it!

We're providing full bar, no restrictions, but we also have very boozy friends who are travelling a great distance, and we have a venue where we can supply our own wine/booze etc.

It depends on your guests, but I don't think one glass of wine is sufficient during your meal if you want my honest opinion..

(My boss, a Swede, pointed out that he had been to many weddings where there was fancy stuff on the tables, and pretty cars and wedding attire, but they ran out of wine mid-dinner... At that point, nobody cared about the decor, they just wanted another drink!!)

We are providing our own so it is slightly different. We're giving 2 glasses of Asti for reception drinks, 1/2 bottle per person of wine with meal, plus 1/2 glass bubbly for the toast.

You could possibly ask for 1/2 glass of bubbly to save money - most people dont drink the whole glass and it just gets left on the tables.

I'm a big-ish wine drinker and I would need more than a glass with my meal but if someone only provided one drink with my meal at a wedding I wouldnt think they were stingey - I'd just go and buy myself another glass at the bar!

I dont think you HAVE to provide anything - its up to you. If budget allows it then I'm sure your guests will be grateful, but if not, I dont think they'll be p*ssed off you 'only gave them one glass'.

HTH

xxx

As a wedding guest, I tend to pay more attention to whether or not I have enough to drink (doesn't have to be alcoholic) and enough to eat rather than some of the other bits. There's nothing worse as a guest to have the bride and groom disappear for 2 hours for photos while you're left with one glass of warm pimms! So personally, I'd go for the top up if you can afford it and maybe cut something else out.

The drinks package with our venue includes one drink during the drinks reception, half a bottle of wine per guest during the wedding breakfast and a glass of bubbly for the toast. There will also be bottles of water on the table during the WB.