How much are you spending on alcohol at the wedding?

£733. That's for 48 adults, for the meal and welcome drinks. NOT having an open bar. Personally, if I go to a wedding I expect to pay for drinks, always have done- any freebies are a bonus.

We are having our reception at a wine bar though, so prices are a bit more than you could get at other places.

It might seem like a lot, but there's no hire charge for the room, etc. so it balances out- which is fair enough- the booze / food is where they make their money instead.

Not sure about alternatives to an open bar....? Maybe a set tab and when it's gone, it's gone? You'd have to be careful though because if people get a sniff of a tab they'll get selfish. You'd be surprised; it brings out the worst in some people! Suddenly, Auntie Margie develops an unquenchable thirst for Champagne...

£500. I've no idea how much that actually gets us yet but that's what we have been gifted by my Grandad for the drink at the reception and that's all we intend to spend. Looking at rough prices it looks like each of my guests can have a pimms/non alcoholic drink and a sparkling wine/non alcoholic toast and there might be some left over.

Over £2k. £1k of that was bar tab. £800 on table wine. 100 alcoholic reception drinks at minimum £4 a pop. That doesn't include perhaps £300 of wine at the top table, which my Dad paid for. And it doesn't include the several hundred we paid the next day for the (secret) continuation of the bar tab for people in the bridal party.

We had 58 guests. I worked it out on another recent thread and the evening bar tab came to about £35 a head.

Disagree. Surely that depends on your guests

OP, our bar tab was limited to soft drinks, beer, wine and single shorts/mixer. The bar staff were very good at making the call about whether they should charge for a drink or put it on the tab.

I think ours cost about £2000 to £2500 for 120 adults:

3/4 x reception glasses of prosecco

Free bar during reception (before dinner)

1 x champagne toast

About a bottle of wine per person during dinner

We didn't have a free bar in the evening as we couldn't really afford it. Also, the drinks prices at my venue were reasonable bordering on cheap.

I don't even want to think about it. Probably about £7k by the time you add in the corkage. We did open bar for sparkling, red and white wine, beer and soft drinks. And even though we paid for all that there were still quite a few people who chose to pay for spirits. Just goes to show people don't just hoover up the free stuff and they are prepared to pay for what they want to drink.

Let's just say people had a very good time and there were alot of sore heads the next day! ?

We have allowed for £1,000 for reception / welcome drinks. As an idea - Prosecco is £20.25 a bottle and we have 110 guests.

For the tables we are paying for 3 x bottles per table of 8, and that comes to around £800.

Its then around £350-400 for our Prosecco for the toasts.

Our reception drinks and meal were included in the package, but we also put £1500 behind the bar.

We had a "no doubles, bubbles or shots" rule.

We've budgeted £1500 for an open bar, for the day for about 80 adult guests.

Although, we're providing all drinks ourselves, so are not having to pay bar/venue prices or corkage.

It's all a matter of proportion though - absolute amounts don't really tell you much.

You are spending about 20% of your budget on alcohol. That's more than we spent on alcohol....

We're having an open bar so will be buying in £5-£700 for the day.

Our concern is there won't be enough but we're considering putting 'IT'S A FREE BAR' on the invites but to ask guests bring a bottle as backup. Plus it covers fthose who want something we don't have.

Finding somewhere to store the ice is our headache right now.

Indeed. And mine are all impoverished borderline alcoholics and 'artistic' types! ?

I actually feel better about the amount we're spending now. We're on a bit of a budget (whole thing coming in just under £7k) so actually we're only spending approx 10% of our budget on booze. I thought it was an extravagance but, compared to others, it doesn't seem so bad!

That's a GREAT idea! Makes it fairer.

I can't remember how much it is but we are having reception drinks, wedding breakfast drinks and toasting prosecco.

Apart from the venue (which OH's parents are paying for) we are doing everything for 3k so really can't afford to do an open bar. But there are always bottles of wine leftover at weddings so will put them out in the evening.

I will be spending nil on alcohol just to be a bit different haha!

I don't drink, My H2b only needs to sniff a pint of larger and gets tipsy so he doesn't drink either. We have 2 children and are planning this wedding on a shoestring.

People will buy their own drinks, its a very informal ceremony/wedding breakfast and with a guest list of 30 people of about half are children.

x

About 1.5K I think. We aren't having an open bar but providing prosecco for everything at the church. Then there's a welcome drink or 2 (might be more prosecco) at the reception venue, then half a bottle of wine with the wedding breakfast, and something for the toast. We are also having alcohol minatures as favours so they can drink that if they're that desperate for another free drink! I would like to lay on another welcome drink to start the evening reception but going to have to think about that. Not sure whether it would be best to give everyone a token or something for a free drink to take to the bar, but reminds me a bit too much of being on a night out at uni...

Fortunately our venue's package includes a welcome drink, toasts and wine on the tables so we don't really have to worry about those as they are already accounted for, but we've also been fortunate enough to have had some money given to us so we're putting 1.5k behind the bar for 80 day guests and 120 evening. Once it's gone it's gone so we just hope everybody gets a chance to use it before it runs out!

Our party is a real mix of those who don't drink at all, for a wide range of reasons but mostly just because they're not that fussed about it, and half that enjoy a drink what I would call a 'normal' amount, but possibly seems like a lot to the non drinkers!

We are hiring a hall so buying the drink ourselves, providing Pink Prosecco for the welcome drink, plus a juicy option for non drinkers, then there will be red / white / rose bottles on the tables with the afternoon tea (probably traditional lemonade for the non drinkers and children) and more Prosecco (standard, not pink) for the toasts. We'll be getting all this on a run to the Calais Wine Superstore and even if we go for recognised labels and not get the cheapest of the cheap, it still works out very reasonable, probably about £350, and the travel is free as the supplier pays for you to come over.

From 6pm there will be a cash bar provided by Coxtails, a mobile bar company - it cost us £150 to book them which gives us there cocktail bar set up and 3 'mixologists' and prices are only £3 for wine / beer or £4.50 for a cocktail, which we don't think people will object to. Every wedding I have been to has only provided the booze until the toasts and to me those prices seem very reasonable (although I live in London so my idea of what is cheap might be slightly skewed). So it's not much at all but I think it will be more than enough for our drinkers.

Aiming for no more than £300 but that is just for the alcohol we are providing for the meal as we already get 3 drinks per person with our package (arrival, meal and toast)

Witihin my package i get a half a bottle of wine pp so thats four bottles of wine on the table (1 red and 3 white), with presecco pp as you arrive and presecco pp for the toast.

We have decided to put £250.00 extra for drinks, and we have 12 children (they wont be drinking wine :~) so the 4 extra bottles that would have been provided for the kids table will be available at the bar when we arrive and we will be asking for a barrell of beers and some extra bottles of presecco, I will not do the option of money behind the bar as its very hard to tell how much has been spent. So i will be speaking to our wedding coordinator beforehand to purchase the drinks - how ever much i can afford. I am sure this is enough for everybody.

i think most people who attend weddings always expects to pay for the drinks. I know with the weddings i have been to i havent even thought if there were a free bar.

I agree when people say it is all about what you can afford, because i am sure family and friends invited would not expect you to spend out that kind of money especially as you have organised + paid for the day as well. I think everyone understands that weddings are a big cost.

Hope thats ok advice for you

I did a few sums last night and worked out our drinks/bar bill will be approx £2k, based on my rough 'guestimations.'

We are putting £1500 behind the bar, on top of the drinks included in the wedding package, which are: 2 drinks at reception, 1/2 bottle wine with dinner, and 1 glass champagne for toasts.

We spent £2k on booze and £1.4k on corkage

We had sparkling wine, pimms, red + white wines and beer available all day and then spirits in the evening. We had 40 day guests and 90 evening guests. the corkage price includes all soft drinks too as we were on a "flat rate" basis.

Oh, goodness. I don't even know. Bubbly after the ceremony, wine with dinner, and a champagne brekkie the morning after are included in our package, which also includes accomodation for everyone. It works out at about £80 per person.

For our receptions, we're having an open bar at both. Fiancée is American, where a cash bar is considered the height of rudeness, and my father-in-law will not stand for a cash bar even at the British reception. He got terribly indignant at my poor partner and called her a poor hostess for "allowing" it. So he's covering the bar tab at both receptions. The reception here is being held in a venue with a notoriously inexpensive bar, and I'm honestly worried about the damage my family will do to an open bar, but we'll have people pay for doubles, bubbles or shots, and hope that they behave themselves. The American one won't be too bad, but my poor fiancée had never seen binge-drinking like it until she came to a wedding in Glasgow as my guest. And she went to a "party school" for her undergrad. Eeek.

Most wedding's I've been to have had a standard drinks package, and the bride's family have paid for a round of drinks for everyone at night. That's very much the norm for here, and I'd have been quite content with that.

I don't really know. Our package per head in Australia included beer, red & white wine and sparkling wine then we spent another couple of hundred dollars on rose wine, vodka, gin and whisky (although most people were perfectly happy with wine and beer - we had loads of the spirits left).

For our home party (no sit down meal), we had a pay bar, although we spent about £300 (I think) on Pimms and bottled beer as welcome drinks. We'd been given a Methuselah of champagne by a friend which the bar staff somehow forgot to open, so in a moment of madness, H and his father decided to announce a free bar for an hour. They came to some deal between them, but I reckon that'd be another £500 or so.

We get a drink before or after the ceremony, a glass of wine with the meal and a glass of bubbly for the speeches all in with our wedding package. We are paying extra for another glass of wine for everyone during the meal but that's it.

It never even occurred to me to put any money behind the bar for later on purely because i've never been to a wedding where this has happened. I've always paid for my own drinks at weddings and i just thought that was the norm because i've never known any different.

I really hope no-one is expecting an open bar otherwise they're going to be very disappointed! ☹️

L x

I don't think people (in the UK, on the whole) expect it (I know Jewish weddings tend to have an open bar over here, and I know that across the pond it's different).

I've just looked at what we're spending on booze, and it's a LOT.

2 reception drinks, almost a bottle of wine, and the corkage for the champers for the toast (my champagne was a present from work) is adding up to just over £3k *gulp*

As part of our per head cost, we had half a bottle of wine included with the meal and a champagne toast.

On top of that, we had pretty much unlimited kir royales (well made with prosecco) in our reception drinks, and we had dessert wine with our dessert as well. Reception drinks maybe £1500?

We also put about 1k behind the bar, but only for wines, beers and soft drinks. It was perfect amount as we got some money back afterwards, but only I suppose because half the 110 guests were French.

Amaranth - the way the British drink is always a bit of a shock to foreigners. My husband (french) is more used to it now. Your poor father in law won't know what's coming.

Chris G - I would be really confused by an invite that told me free bar but to bring something if I wanted. Plus, where would it all be stored if needed to be chilled (eg if I *had* to bring some alcohol to a wedding, I would probably bring 2 bottles of prosecco)

For 120 day guests:

Welcome drinks sorted by our caterers (pimms) - £300ish I think

Current Budget for 60 bottles of wine, 30 bottles of bubbles, 20 bottles of port & 10 cases of beer - £800

We're also considering having a tab running at the bar that only we can use, that we'd use between us to buy most people a drink each so probably £1.1k - £1.4k

About 10% of our budget. Would love to have an open bar but decided to spend money on having more people there instead.

We are planning to have an open bar up until the wedding breakfast. We have half a bottle of wine per guest for the meal but will put a little bit of money behind the bar for those on soft drinks(those planning to be pregnant and the grandparents lol) but wont tell everyone this as we're paying for the wine so dont want them drinking pints instead! So from guests arriving before the ceremony (they will wait in the bar upstairs until they go into the ceremony room, haven't agreed time for invites as my family are always late so want to be safe) we will provide the drinks and any extra drinks for after the ceremony ontop of the one drink provided until we sit for the meal. Hope that makes sense!