Advice for Alcohol at the Reception

Ehh, you're going to get a lot of mixed responses. Can you do limited bar without hard alcohol? Not a huge fan of people opening their wallets at all OR being limited by drink tickets for consumption (especially since 2 is a pretty low number).

Not sure if we could do limited bar, but highballs are actually the cheaper drink at $5.25 so I don't think that would do anything towards reducing our cost. Plus my fiancé is a bit of a scotch aficionado, and we both love wine and beer. I'm not keen on the idea of limiting the bar selection, and I don't think my fiancé would be either.

Yea I think this is one of those "Its up to you" questions. A lot of people, my self inluded hate that thought of having guests pay for their drinks. Did you and your FH think about this before booking that venue? I know it was a BIG factor when we were looking for venues. Open bar was a must for us and I wanted a venue that would let us bring in our own drinks. Either way, I think 2 tickets/person is your best option. Just my opinion.

Toonie bars are the norm in western canada now, I haven't been to a wedding in the last 3 years that wasn't a toonie bar

I know that toonie bars are the norm, but they are the norm because typically the bride and groom pay for all the liquor themselves and then charge $2 per drink to recoup some of those costs. Unfortunately that is not our situation, as all of the alcohol is property of the bar.

I think this questions depends a lot on your region. You would never see a toonie bar in Nj. But I know in Canada they do toonie bars a lot.

Can you do beer and wine only? Is liquor a must??

Where are you located OP?

I think if you're hosting the guests you should pay for all their food and beverages. If you would be happy to go to a wedding and only have 2 drinks then go for it, but personally I would be pretty disappointed if I had 2 drinks in 4+ hours. (One bottle of wine can normally be split between two people)

@Tegan we are in the same situation that you are at a venue where we couldn't bring our own liquor, so I understand.

We're in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I just find this so frustrating because we are not wealthy by any means, and having an open bar is literally not an option for us. There's no solution that will please everybody. Also, limiting the bar to only beer and wine will not save any money as highballs are actually the cheaper drink. We also don't want to limit the bar as we both love beer and wine, and my fiancé loves scotch, so limiting the bar is not in the cards, nor is providing bottomless beer or wine.

@Teagan we are in Calgary, and lived in Edmonton for the last 5 years haha. We chose the toonie bar option, but mostly because we know people who's open bars cost over $10,000 with half due to wasted liquor. I hear you! Could you manage 3-4 drink tickets? What is your total budget for your bar?

I'd do the tickets-- I figure it's like offering everyone *one* steak-- you have provided drinks, but you're not obliged to provide as many as people can possibly consume.

We are definitely doing free wine at the tables with dinner - 1 bottle per 3 guests. Providing 3 drink tickets on top of that instead of 2 is definitely an option. I just worry with the toonie bar because there will be some people who will abuse it, thinking it works like your typical toonie bar and not realizing that it is costing us through the nose (and I don't want to pass that info along to our guests because that seems tacky ).

@Kassy I was thinking the same thing, that if some guests don't want some or all of their tickets, they can give them to someone who does.

@L&G We don't have an exact budget in mind for the alcohol, but we do want to keep the wedding under $20,000 and the venue is already costing us around $8,500 not including the alcohol (that includes venue, all food, and a coordinator to do all set up/take down).

@Teagan can I ask which Edmonton venue you've picked?

The tickets seem to be your best option. They did this at the casino party I went to a couple of weeks ago. Everyone seems to fine with it. I didn't over hear anyone talking about it.

@L&G we picked Yellowhead Brewery!

I also think the drink ticket option is the best, preferably for 3 tickets but 2 is okay, decent, especially with the wine on the table, if that's your budget. People want to enjoy but those that are there for you will be flexible. Wine and two drinks each is perfectly ok. I would suggest three tickets though if you can swing it and if your crowd are drinkers.

I just found it my fbil for his wedding had a keg, drink tickets then cash bar. out of the people that went I never heard a single one say it was so horrible that they had to pay for their drinks. In fact most if them talked about how smashed they ended up being.

I don't see the big deal about drink tickets, no one is required to drink alcohol for free. If you were hosting a dinner it wouldn't be a unlimited supply of drinks(it mostly likely would not be hard liquor) or if you paid for a dinner anyone with class would not order more than two drinks anyways.

I think the 2 drink option is your best option. 2 drinks is PLENTY for me, if your guests need a third or fourth ,don't feel bad about them having to buy it. You're giving them 2 drinks plus wine!!! (That's enough alcohol).

My problem with Open Bar is, guests are not aware that the bar is (most likely) per consumption for the host to pay and grab a drink, put it down to dance, grab another...they didn't have to buy it so who cares right??? I'm with you on not choosing full open bar, unless you have the money to spend upwards of $10000 just on alcohol (depends on your crowd too...), don't do open bar, despite the naysayers on WW that are against guests "paying" for drinks.

@e+mc, really you would be mad going to a wedding that only gave you 2 drink tickets and need a whole bottle of wine for 2 people?? wow...

As long as you give them SOMETHING, there's nothing wrong with guests paying for more...