Is anyone doing their own bar or buying all their alcohol?

We bought our own wine but not spirits. We used Majestic wines but their warehouse in Calais, France. So so much cheaper. But we live about 2 hr drive from Dover. The ticket plus the petrol costs included we saved about a third on what was available in the country. Definitely worth doing. We're doing it again just before christmas again too.

We chose Prosecco as not a fan of the taste of champagne and costs about the same as cava. Tastes nicer than cava too x

Our venue is running the bar at night so didn't need to worry about that x

Hello!

We're doing all our own bar (my house currently resembles a pub's cellar! Lol!)

We originally decided to get mainly beer and wine (as most people drink these) and then soft drinks, but PILs decided to buy spirits themselves so we now have a little of everything!

We got most of our wine whilst on supermarket offers (Sainsburys is fab as they often have half price bottle offers, and then at selected times do another 25% off when you buy 6 bottles! We also used their Calais store, where we got the same wines that were selling for £8 a bottle over her on a 6 for £12 offer!

Supermarkets also do cracking offers on the champagne, we got ours when it was on offer in Sainsburys for £16 a bottle! Just bought enough for toasts and using Pimms as a welcome drink. By I remember a lot of people saying that a nice Freixenet sparkling wine is a good alternative to champagne, is more drinkable and a lot cheaper!

When working out quantities, I found this site helps for alcohol - just type in how many guests, how long and how many heavy, average or light drinkers you have attending! We've over compensated what they said to be safe!

/pages/party/drink-calculator

With soft drinks I have no idea if we have enough, but we'll have a car on standby to run someone round the nearest supermarket to get more if we need it!

Spirits wise we have a bit of most popular spirits (vodka, gin, whiskey, brandy, malibu, archers) but we're doing it on a when its gone its gone basis, most people will drink beer and wine and if they're not paying they can't really complain!

If you need any other advice give me a shout - the wedding is in 2 days so will be able to give you more advice on how to operate it once I see how ours goes! xxx

Thats fab thanks. I will have to have a proper look into going to France then - I knew they had a warehouse over there but wasnt sure if it'd work out cheaper or not but it obviously does!

xxx

Might be worth noting that Magetsic in the UK offer a buy back service - saved ourselevs a fair bit when we were able to send back a few boxes.

We're hiring a village hall so we're going to run our own bar too - or rather we'll set it up and then get one of the ushers to oversee it. Wedding is 2 years away yet so not really got into the logistics of it, but we're planning to have trays of welcome drinks (Pimms probably, and a soft drink, maybe traditional lemonade) then we'll put a bottle of each red and white wine on the tables and get our caterers to serve glasses of Prosecco for toasts. We're also going to have a keg or two of beer from a local brewery and some jugs of ready made cocktails - that way we can have spirits without the cost of having to buy one of everything. Oh, and some soft drinks too! Hopefully that should sort out most people, even the fussy drinkers.

For ice, I think we'll probably hire an ice machine or at least a freezer to keep it in.

Thanks Cocochiquita - you've been super helpful!

It just seems like so much to take on but this way we get to have what we want and not just the cheapest one the caterers do!

xxx

Honestly MrsB_2B, its not as daunting as you might think, like you say it means you can still have everything you want without being mugged off by caterers or expensive venue drinks!

Just make sure you have friends and family who are happy to store (not drink!) it all for you as the only problem we found is it takes up lots of space!!

I'll come and report back after the big day to let you know how it goes! xxx

Yeah good point - think I might have to give up my spare room for a while!

Would really appreciate it if you'd let me know how it all goes and any tips you learn from your day.

Good luck for in 2 days! And thanks for helping me out when you are so close to your wedding!

xxx

DITTO!!!!

We are providing alcohol + soft drinks for our own ' free bar'. Wedding is 9 days time. eeek. Current in my lounge is 4 X packs of J20's, 4Xpacks becks. More soft drinks arriving saturday evenign with H2B mate (who's wife works for Sweppes!)

Majestic are delivery 27 bottles white wine & 27 bottles red wine + 12 bottles cava + more beer to our venue the day before our weddding. Caterer gonna bung wine & cava into fridges for us!

Caterers girls are 'serve' our bar and collect/wash glasses

Our caterers wont chill our drinks - only if we buy them from them! Bit cheeky seen as we are paying them a small fortune. We're going to just hire a chiller van for the weekend and park it out the back of the venue!

Just a quick update on our bar - we've got SOOO much booze and soft drink left, we thought we'd run out because the bar was proving a big hit! Thankfully we've got lots of friends and family to take drink off our hands etc, but I think it's always a good idea to buy too much than not have enough!

Mrs B_2B, we did the same - hired a chiller van and parked it at the venue, I think our caterer even used our van too! If you haven't found a reasonable company local to you, there is a really decent priced company in Whitstable for vans I can give to you x

We're having a free bar at ours and are working on the following basis:

Champagne and G&T's served as welcome drinks (as to your Asti question, I don't know of anyone of my friends who likes it. Too sweet and no proper bubbles!).

Red/white/rose wine on the table.

Champagne for the toast.

Port to be served with the cheese course (red and white).

Kegs of bitter (from local pub), beer, wine to be provided in the evening along with vodka, gin, rum and whisky. We're also going to have a few bottles of really nice whisky for the menfolk later on in the evening. (The women can drink it too, but it's the decent stuff so needs to be drunk straight or with ice).

We're importing our wine for various wineries in France and NZ. We're planning on over catering. We are inviting lots of big drinkers and would hate to run out!

We are providing drinks would not go as far as to say a free bar because we are having our reception in the village hall, we are having 30 red 30 white, 12 asti spumante (it is the only sparkly wine i like - also having speeches with desserts requires a dessert wine???) some beer and cider and perry, not sure what we are doing about soft drinks yet.... We are also having pimms welcome drink. We are also "warning" are friends that if they want to bring their own they are welcome to(this allows for the fussy buggers who only like x or y), also once we are out of drinks we are going to walk the 2 minutes to the pub and people can buy their own

Thanks for updating me so quickly! It sounds like it was a success!

Our local van hire place charges £86 a day but do a 'weekend special' where you pay for Sat and Sun but get to collect it on Friday at 5 pm and drop it off Monday before 9 (I think). I'm hoping our caterers are as nice as yours and will just help themselves to the wine in the back of the van. They seem a bit unhelpful when it comes to the drinks though so it wouldnt surprise me if they insisted we unloaded it for them. We'll have to see nearer the time I guess.

Thanks for all your help xxx

We are buying all our alcohol. With the countries our families come from, it would be really rude and offensive to them to have to buy their own drinks.

Therefore for 60 people we've ordered.

10 x 2 litre bottles of vodka, direct from the Russan importer £200

A 25 litre barrel of Rakija, which my uncle will drive over in his car from Serbia £170

20 bottles of white and 20 of red from the local vinyard £280

2 firkins of beer (72 pints in a firkin) from the local brewery £180

A case of champagne (got lucky at half price) £96.00

Which leaves us about £75.00 to spend on soft drinks, bringing us into a nice round £1000.00 drinks budget.

It also feels quite special to us, because my fiance is Russian, where they traditionally drink Vodka at weddings and we have proper Russian Vodka. My family is Serbian and we traditionally drink Rakija or Slivovitz at weddings. And then because we are in England we have real English beers and wines. So its kind of all the countries, traditions and everything brought together.

Champagne is just something I thought would be nice to serve with the cake. Otherwise we traditional toast with Vodka / Rakija.

Sammy.

Hello!

We are also doing our own bar. Our wedding is in a marquee and we have caterers to do our Wedding Breakfast and then we are hiring 2 staff from them to man the bar in the evening. Our venue does not charge corkage which gives you fantastic flexibility and unless you or your folks are minted its normally the only oppurtunity to be able to offer a free bar, so we are seizing the oppurtunity!

Just to let you know I am a Wine Expert (lol) I am a product manager for an Italian wine specialist so you can judge for yourself on my opinions about Asti etc!

Our drinks for the day will be as follows: (70 guests in day and then 70 more at night so 140 in the evening but some wil be driving)

Champagne and canape reception - not actually Champagne we are serving Prosecco, this part of the wedding is normally my favourite at other weddings and will last about hour and a half, I have allowed half a bottle per person, and also beer and real ale will be brought in from the bar area for those who prefer beer to sparkling wine.

*A note on Champagne and Prosecco, and Cava for that matter: Champagne and Cava are both bottle fermented, which means that the wine is put in the bottle with a dose of yeast. The yeast causes a chemical reaction which makes the wine fizzy, but it also imparts a "bready" flavour, and thus you have a sparkling wine with quite a particular, heavy flavour. Not everybody is used to drinking CHampagne and therefore not everybody likes this yeasty flavour, so it is often wasted. Prosecco is put in a large tank with the yeast so not much of the yeast flavour is imparted, giving you a more fruity, aromatic, lighter wine. This is more pleasing to a larger range of palates. Bear this in mind when deciding whether to pay the higher prices for proper Champagne; if buying in a large chain or supermarket in the UK cheap CHampagne is not a bargain it is a waste of money - it wont be good. Better to buy a good vintage Cava for the same price you will get much better quality for your money. Prosecco is reasonably priced; a better quality one will be about £10 a bottle.*

Back to the point.

WIth the Wedding breakfast we are having wine on the tables, I have allowed half a bottle per person, and am going for two thirds red and one third white, because I know most of our guests are red drinkers.

For our toast I would definintely serve an Asti - dry CHampagne or Cava is horrid with dessert and is a total waste. I am going to source either a sweet Moscato (probably Asti) for mine. NOt only will it complement dessert better, it is lighter on alcohol which is better I think at the end of a meal, and it also is a nice touch to choose wine that goes with the food. If you think Asti has too bad a reputation, go for a demi sec Champagne or simply a Moscato Spumante (which is Asti without the name "Asti").

For the evening we are hiring am 8foot bar from our marquee people and a 6 foot chiller ( I am also borrowing a 3 foot chiler from work) and I am serving raspberry bellinis as a signature cocktail (mainly for the girls I suppose) and then we will have 2 kegs of real ale and about 200 bottles branded lager, for the drivers OJ and some flavoured mineral waters, then I am going to buy a small amount of spirits ( I am expecting my bellinis to be the most popular) gin, whisky, bacardi and vodka, cranberry juice, lime cordial and tonic.DOnt forget your lime garnishes etc either.

For the bellinis I am buying Tesco Cava Brut for about 4.50 a bottle (about 70 bottles) and then the Raspberry puree pouches from Funkin. Cost will be about 350 for this and then 350 for beer and about 100 on spirits and mixers. OUr total spend on booze will be 1500 for the day.