Wedding Costs- Cash Bar or Open Bar?

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  • meshashesha2012
    meshashesha2012 Posts: 8,326 Member
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    How about beer and wine and a signature cocktail, maybe in your wedding color.

    i like this idea. it's classy but still frugal without it being obvious.
  • micahnelson
    micahnelson Posts: 92 Member
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    Liquor Buffet, buy a dozen or so bottles of liquor, juices, and sodas. Have a drink menu.
  • susanstar88
    susanstar88 Posts: 14 Member
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    I've been an event planner for years & years... most anything is appropriate (nearly) but I'd suggest serving cocktails for 1-hour -- then, go with unlimited beer or if you can afford the wine -- that is totally acceptable. Everything else you pay for and if you want to be special, have a wine/champagne toast. If your wedding is family, they will understand, if they don't, they don't love ya too much or certainly don't love ya enough! PLEASE do not think of drink tickets (double tacky to that thought). Remember, this is your wedding to enjoy and the people you invite will be delighted to be there to celebrate your love with you & be at your celebration!

    Be happy & be loved.. wishing you rainbows & smiles. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary .... an Alaska love cruise!
  • victoria4321
    victoria4321 Posts: 1,719 Member
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    If I went to a wedding with a cash bar I'd probably leave unless it was close family or a best friend.
  • noketch
    noketch Posts: 11 Member
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    A cash bar is generally in bad taste. You can just serve beer and wine and no hard liquor at all. People understand that liquor is expensive, and should be happy with beer and wine. If they can't get through a few hours without mixed drinks, then they might have bigger problems than what to drink at a reception. :-)

    It is great that you guys are trying to be reasonable with your budget. I've seen people go into serious debt paying for wedding. Best wishes to you both!
  • victoria4321
    victoria4321 Posts: 1,719 Member
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    If they can't get through a few hours without mixed drinks, then they might have bigger problems than what to drink at a reception. :-)

    Weddings are generally pretty boring without a good party. Whats a good party without the booze??
  • Sapporo
    Sapporo Posts: 693 Member
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    For the booze provide wine with dinner and the rest can be cash bar. You are providing your guests with a meal. Wine goes with food. The rest is for them to get trashed dancing later and you do not need to pay for it if you cannot afford it. If any of your guests think this is tacky then they should look into AA programs if it really bothers them that much. I went with open bar and it was $1100 with a guest list of about 100 adults, so not too bad but you can't predict how much people are going to drink, better to be safe and order so much wine and champagne within your budget.

    Cut wedding costs: When ordering your cake, get a tier cake made for a large party, lie and say a sweet 16 or a bat mitzvah or something. As soon as you say wedding the cake prices triples.
    DJ = waste of money. Most halls can provide a sound system, plug an ipod or computer into it with a playlist.
    For flowers, check grocery stores, some have florist sections now with better deals than actual florists.
    Ultimate cheap but nice wedding: my sister had an 11am ceremony followed by a dry luncheon in the church basement. The ladies club made all the food and decorated. It was a beautiful wedding.
  • anacsitham5
    anacsitham5 Posts: 814 Member
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    My daughters wedding was on 07/21/12 - approximately 150 people. Where we live usually the grooms parents pay for the drinks at the reception. They are not from around here and didn't like that as they said "We are good baptists and don't drink". (Grooms mom was drunk within 2 hours of the start of the reception...) We ended up buying all the liquor, mixers, beer, pop and water. It was open bar. Within two hours they had gone through 4 bottles of vodka and 15 cases of beer. We made 3-4 extra liquor store runs that night. Should I mention it was a 12 hour reception? ( We rented the local church hall.) The only liquor we had was vodka, jim bean and captain morgan. We had boxed wine (it worked). We also made the margarita buckets which were a huge success! We went through 8 cases of water??!!

    All in all, it cost more than I planned but I would never have invited guests and had them pay for their drinks. If you do make them pay for their drinks, you better list BYOB on the wedding invites or you will have some not so happy wedding guests when they find out. When I go to a wedding I usually don't take more than $10-$20 with me. There's no need to carry cash.

    My sister in law got married at the justice of the peace and had a small get together with the immediate family afterwards. My niece couldn't afford a reception so they got married where they planned to honeymoon and had a picnic at home as an informal reception. It was casual and cheaper. A friend of ours had a dry wedding (no booze). The reception lasted about an hour. My best friends brother got married, the brides family served veggie trays and it was a cash bar. It didn't go well with the guests and yes, people still talk about the crappy reception.
  • deepfuture
    deepfuture Posts: 35 Member
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    Cash bar , open bar is no valued for the cost of it by people .. Congrats and have a great day
  • lecarter
    lecarter Posts: 15
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    congrats! Just go with beer and wine and skip the hard stuff. I am getting married in 9 days and that is what we are doing! ...way cheaper and it is still classy :) we are jazzing it up a bit by having peaches as an optional add-in to the wine...an old Italian tradition that makes wine a little more fun and summery

    Congrats!!!
  • bigswedeman
    bigswedeman Posts: 139 Member
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    First wedding, cash bar.

    When you're older and have more money, free bar!
  • victoria4321
    victoria4321 Posts: 1,719 Member
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    I'm curious about everyone who's for the cash bar. Why would you even have a wedding reception if you can't afford it? Why not a small little get together at your home instead? Invite close family and friends and you'll all have a good time. I don't see the point in inviting so many people that you barely see on a day to day basis.

    If you have the money to burn, then sure throw a big party and invite everyone and their friends. If not, keep it small.
  • SuzyQq02
    SuzyQq02 Posts: 64 Member
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    It will definitely vary greatly by moth geography and social circle.

    We had an open bar for the cocktail hour, champagne toast at the start of dinner, and non-alcoholic beverages all night (normally the bar would charge for soda, juice, ect). I'm surprised at another poster saying that they've never been to a cash bar wedding in MA, because that's where we are and I've been to very few open bar weddings (and most of those were out of state). We have weird liquor laws here that can make open bar somewhat expensive (and bringing in your own liquor isn't possible at venues with their own liquor licenses). It would have nearly doubled the per person cost to provide open bar for the whole reception. And when you have a wedding for 200 people (big families on both sides, it was inevitable), it just wasn't in the budget.
  • samf36
    samf36 Posts: 369 Member
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    No bar at all for any wedding I am paying for. : ) Not necessary in my opinion But then i am a non drinker . I have been to may weddings without a bar at all.
  • _stephanie0
    _stephanie0 Posts: 708 Member
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    wowwwww i cant believe all the responses!! thank you everyone for taking the time to write you replies...

    it seems like this is my conclusion from all the posts:

    cash bars--> tacky
    wine+beer-->winner

    thanks :D
  • pinkgigi
    pinkgigi Posts: 693 Member
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    I spent about $3000 on my wedding about 8 years ago. We have about 60 guests, it was the hottest day of the summer (which is very hot in Australia). This is what we did.

    Had it at my home, spruced up the deck area and put up a shade sail. Decorated with balloons and lots of tulle. I asked the caterer at work to do the food (which was top-notch), which was basically finger-food. I had a friend whose sister worked at a vineyard, and bought a couple of cases of good wine from her. I also bought beer and juice and soft drink. A friend was willing to be barman. We had a wonderful croquenbosche cake from the local bakery. As it was Valentine's day all flowers were very expensive, but I was able to negotiate a little and got a lot for what I paid. Glasses and other things we needed we bought on sale. We have beautiful desserts sourced at wholesale prices.

    Oh and one of my school friends is a vicar and she married us for the price of a good bottle of bubbly. We also had a organist friend who played, and my son sang. My dress was a cocktail dress bought on sale. A friend who loves photography, did the photos for nothing, and I made them up by scrapbooking. I made the pew decorations myself. Invitations were bought at a sale and handwritten by me.

    Be prepared, that if you are seriously into it being a cost-saving affair, that you will have top put in a lot of work yourself. Good advice, already stated is decide what is important to you and cut everything else to the bone.

    It also strikes me that if 95% of your guests are family, maybe some of them can chip in for the alcohol.

    Lots of people said that our wedding was the best they had been to, so although it was stinking hot (40 deg C), it was a blast.

    GG
  • Kat120285
    Kat120285 Posts: 1,599 Member
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    My cousin had a half open bar, half cash bar. I don't think it's tacky at all to have a cash bar. It depends on your budget and if people don't like the idea then they're not going for the right reasons. That said, luckily my fiancé and I don't have a budget and we're having an open bar which consists of 3 bars throughout the venue. For us, it wasn't much worth a second thought. We've been together for almost 9 years and we love throwing parties and this will be the best party we've ever thrown =] Do what works for you :smile:
  • nwhitley
    nwhitley Posts: 619
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    I would go with unlimited beer and wine and have them pay for anything else.
    Congrats by the way!
  • AggieLu
    AggieLu Posts: 873 Member
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    "Suck it up" and have an open bar.
  • rextcat
    rextcat Posts: 1,408 Member
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    Hi Everyone!!

    I have been looking on the web for some answers and I get answers all over the map, but the answers are really old. I would like some opinions. My fiance and I just got engaged a week ago so we are now looking at a budget. I am 22 he is 25 and we are renting, and paying for the wedding ourselves so we don't have a lot of money... We are trying to cut costs and I'm curious on your thoughts about booze...should we:

    a) suck it up and have open bar
    b) offer unlimited beer and wine, everything else you pay for
    c) give 2 drink tickets then they buy their own
    d) have a toonie bar

    or other!!

    also, any brides have other ways to cut costs? We are looking at around 100-120 guests (95% family members)

    Thanks :)

    B, also dollar dance, some people think its tacky but its a good way to have fun and make up some of the cost

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