Outdoor Wedding Food & Free bar?

If you have a blank cheque...go for it. Personally I'd say a free bar for a large wedding is bonkers...but that's me. I guess you could try and work out what the average person could consume over the course of the day, 1.5-2 bottles of wine plus mineral water and sparkling wine for toast (if you're having it) for example X120=rough price. People don't hold back at weddings especially if it's a free bar.

If you're having additional guests in the evening I'd probably bring the buffet out earlier. But it sounds like a good idea for food

Nah having a van is fine, I've seen quite a few weddings with various food trucks and no one has ever grumbled, usually they enjoy the novelty.

I think it's better to buy and brew more than you'd expect, people tend to go for it at weddings and the worst case scenario is that you have another party the following weekend!

Sounds like a fantastic wedding :-) I wouldn't be too worried about guests not eating all at once as you can make it into a sort of chilled reception.

Im also buying all the drinks for my wedding and doing a free bar I have 85 adults in the day around 120 on the night but obviously there will be some drivers so not everybody having alcohol. Wish I had thought about home brewing!

my plan is to have big buckets of cider/lager/ale/cans of pop/wine at a makeshift bar where people can keep helping themselves. I've bought 3 big drinks dispensers which will have 2 cocktails and still lemonade. Also putting wine and fizz on the tables. I really wanted mini bottles of wine but it's too pricey :-(

anyway for my amount I'm planning on 400 bottles of wine (asda really does seem to be cheaper than any wine warehouse, cash and carry!) 30 bottles of fizz and 400 ciders/ larger ect our budget is just over £1k for drinks so hoping that's enough else we'll be sending fil to shops! Going to buy really cheap stuff to being out later on when every bodies all ready drunk! Hot ciders after the ceremony and we're also having a curry on the night time :-)

xx

I agree with Marianne, I've seen food vans at weddings and it usually goes down very well. I would always panic about there not being enough drink if we did it DIY - people do drink excessive amounts at weddings especially when it's free. Have you considered hiring a mobile bar and putting a certain amount behind it? I'm sure I've seen a few that offer the service free if you have over a certain number of guests.

Hi Amy,

We had a mini festival wedding in a barn this summer. It worked really well as people had longer to decide when to eat so no-one missed on on any music they particulalry wanted. We were originally going for fish and chips but changed our minds and had market stalls with different choices in the end: the caterer based each choice on minimum numbers so instead of committing 120 people to fish and chips we went for a stall of pulled pork baps (2 flevours) with salads amd a stall of paella (2 flavours). I think that fish and chips sounds fab but you'll need to make sure you have vegetarians/gluten free option covered too. We had a ice cream van for dessert which was really popular. Do overcater: becasue of the longer timeline people will go back for seconds if its really good: for 120 guests we planned 100 huge pulled pork baps, 80 portions of paella and enough salad for 120 plates. There was salad leftover but everything else went! We did find though that by the evening people were less hungry and we had plenty of evening food left over.

You will find it harder to fit in formal speeches if you don't have everyone in the same place at the same time. We did thank yous at a cake cutting, but otherwise we just eschewed speeches. Congratulations on your engagement and enjoy the process: it's an opportuntity to plan something which completely reflects you both.

This sounds fab! We will be doing some similar stuff, also in August 2016 (join the 2016 brides thread when you set a date!) - we're having a BBQ for our meal, but we will all be sitting down together for it. We're also going to ask anyone who wants to bake to bring a cake with them (and I will make two or three as well). I think bringing the buffet out a bit earlier is a good idea, maybe 8.30? 10 seems quite late to me.

Don't worry too much about people being miffed - it's your day, so do what you want! You can't please all of the people all of the time...

We're also debating having a free bar, or perhaps a donations bar - our venue isn't licensed, so rather than get a license from the council and pay some bar staff, the lady that runs our venue has suggested that we might want to run a donations bar, where guests help themselves and make a donation of whatever they think it's worth. We'll be buying in lots of prosecco and wine for the reception, meal and speeches, so we thought why not go the whole hog and buy some cans/bottles of ale, cider etc? Perhaps a few bottles of spirits, vodka, gin and rum? Plenty of soft drinks for mixers? And a nice bottle of whisky for late into the night! We're estimating half a bottle of wine each and half a bottle of prosecco each (two glasses at reception, one glass for toasts), and then I don't know about other drinks yet. But we're only having about 40 people, so nowhere near as many as you!

The only thing that occurs to me is that what if someone has a particular drink they like, that we're unlikely to buy? For example, my mum drinks a Campari and soda most nights before dinner, I don't know anyone else who drinks it! We might put a little note on the invitations that people can bring their own drinks - we will provide wine, beer, cider and some spirits, but if there's some obscure drink you like, bring a hipflask!

Hi!

The food idea sounds brilliant. Not everyone likes to sit down at a certain time, and it sounds like it's going to be a really relaxed style wedding so the fish and chip van would fit in perfectly.

I agree about the free bar, it could end up costing you a fortune! A mobile bar is a good idea, where you can set a limit and once that's hit, it's up to them to continue on with the partying! If you're allowed to take your own booze, you could probably stock up on the general stuff between now and then, so you would only need a small tab, and all the other booze available?

On a final note, def not bonkers! x

This sounds awesome .. I want to come!!

I love all of your ideas but I would be thinking where do you stop with the free bar ... How do you know when enough alcohol is enough? I really like the idea of 'bring a bottle' .. you could let everyone know that there won't be a bar when you send out your invites and just think how happy your guests will be to spend £12 on a bottle of Vodka and £3 on a couple of bottles of coke and they are sorted for the night! I know I would rather take my own booze than spend an extortionate amount on drinks at the venue ... last wedding I went to I ordered a cocktail for £13 and some of the ingredients were completely wrong!!

Either people bring their own and drink their own or bring a bottle and then drink whatever is at the bar. You may even find you have a few bottles of bubbly left over to take home and enjoy with your new hubby

Jumping back on to the thread to say that we did have a free bar. We had to source all alcohol through the venue due to licensing restrictions but we were able to pqay the 'bulk price' rather than by the glass: so many bottles fo red/white/cask of ale etc. AS people are there for the whole day instead of bowling up for the evening only you wioll find that people are more likely to pace themselves: provide lots of soft drinks: we had 200 individual bottles of water from Aldi on the side near the bar and they all went,k as well as cans of coke etc behind the bar. The bar bill came in at less than £15 per head not including the water, including kids who probably didn't have anything from the bar at all. We also had addiotional food about the place for snacking: lots of traybakes for when anyone fancied a cuppa (once these were spotted they disappeared immediately before a single tea was ordered!) and 120 bags of crisps (we took 4 home!). If you make choices of things which you'd buy anyway then having leftovers is less of an issue.

An event caterer will be able to advise what numbers to plan for, and then you can top up with DIY to keep the costs down.

Thank you sooooo much for all the great advice and suggestions I'm so excited about all this !

alexandra I don't know if you've bought yours yet but I was looking at Majestic Calais as they do bottles of wine under £3 (some are £1.99!). They have deals with p&0 ferries so you can take your car on the ferry, pick up your pre order then come home the same day or next day for £17 or £22. Amazing! They do beer and spirits too.

the kegs I have seen are £95 and hold 72 pints so I was thinking one ale, one lager, and one cider. 40 bottles of red and 40 white for starters. We're making about 40 bottles of mead too. So we could buy in loads of soft drinks and water then tell people on the invite to bring their choice of tipple if they're not keen on beer or wine? I'm hoping to do it for less than £1000 if possible.

glad to see we're not the only ones doing this tho

Sounds perfect, the Pizza vans go well along side the ship vans too!

Hi Melliemoo,

This sounds great!

We have seen a few 'queue up and get it' kinda meals and most guests love the novelty. We have also seen some excellent dessert style VW's that do ice cream and nice cakes etc. Also if you fancy later food why not go for a festival style food van with hot dogs/burgers or even an Asian food selection?

Whatever booze you calculate add about 20% on top. If it's drinks included you don't want to run out!!

Happy planning!

James

Ps. Def not bonkers!!!!

I wanted two food vans at first, wood fired pizza for later on. But OH said that was too much 'takeaway food' so not sure :-/

had not thought about hiring a mobile bar but putting some money behind it. Have any of you done that, how did it work out?