DIY Open Bar?

The caterer should be able to advice how much you need.

One venue, open bar is $40pp. Most venues I've been to seem to include it in the PP price.

Here's some calculators to help figure it out:

http://www.thealcoholcalculator.co

https://apracticalwedding.com/how-to-buy-alcohol-for-your-wedding/

We DIY'd our modified open bar and spent about $680 for 65 people. We did 2 beers, 3 wines, 3 signatures cocktails and 2 signatures shots. We bought from a large retailer and they accepted returns so it made more sense for us to have bottles of beer so we could return unused portions. We orginally bought about $1300 worth of alcohol so being able to return roughly half the alcohol was a big win for us.

I also called and spoke with the store manager about buying a lot of alcohol. They recommended us looking at their exclusive wine list from local vendors. We were able to buy with a discount because they were exclusively through the distributor. We also got a case discount by buying wine by the case.

Good luck!

We are doing something like this as well. We have a bartender through the venue and we are buying about $1,000 worth of alcohol. Tequila, whiskey, and 3 diff beers. If there is any extra, I'll be excited to keep it!! Haha

Tip: Check your state laws on returning the alcohol. It is not allowed in some states.

We had a partial DIY bar since our venue requires you to buy beer and wine through them on a consumption basis. Here's our cost breakdown for about 90 guests of drinking age:

$270 for beer and wine

$150 for champagne toast (Total Wine has coupons)

About $600 for hard liquor+mixers (mostly from Costco)

$150 bartender/tip

I rounded up what we spent for liquor since we brought a couple bottles of premium whisky that we already had in our personal bar. What saved a lot of money though, was that we pre-mixed two batches of our own signature cocktails, and that was what most of the guests drank, so our bar tab was quite low. So total alcohol cost was $1,020 (inclusive of taxes) plus service fees, and this is in a high cost of living area!

We are doing our own bar too, our caterer provided us a "suggested list", we plan on buying the liquor and beer from Sams (we can return unopen bottles) and win from Total Wine. It should be about $600 for that, we are paying $250 for the bartender and mixers. (75-85 people)

There are calculators online that should help you. I know that our liquor and beer stores allow you to return unopened bottles.

I did beer and wine for approximately 130 guests and walked out with a lot.

We did two kegs, 3 cases of Shock top variety and 3 cases of blue moon harvest pumpkin ale for beer. Kegs were not kicked and later given to family member to continue to enjoy. Shock top was mostly out, depending on the flavor. And about half the Blue Moon was gone. I also had one case of Elysian Space Dust for myself and limited guests to enjoy. That was also gone.

We offered 4 wines, I got 6 1.5L bottles of each. Moscato, Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Cabernet. Whites were gone. Moscato actually ran out first. Had about half the red left.

I spent $250 on the wine and $500 on the beer. Beer came from a family member distributor so they discounted the beer a little (nice surprise!) and did not charge us keg deposits for the equipment and ice.

I did spend $500 on two bartenders for a total of 6 hours. I don't recommend self serve and it might not be possible legally depending on what state you live in.

ETA: kegs were Miller lite and yuengling.

We are.

We found a liquor store that will buy back all unopened alcohol. So, we plan to over buy. This way we are not paying for anything that goes unused. Our bartender has been great in telling us how much of each thing to buy. Also, the place you purchase from should have someone there. Our alcohol, no bartender fee included in this, will be around 800. This is for 120 adults.

ETA: We are doing 2 signature drinks, beer and wine.

Yeah, I originally thought I'd have to budget several thousand for alcohol for our bar for the reception here in the states, but when I put it into an online calculator for 100 people, it estimated $850 (I budgeted 2 drinks for every person for 4 hrs even though some of those people don't drink), so much more reasonable than I expected

Also, have you thought about minimizing the liquor with signature drinks? This way you only need 2 or 3 different liquors to buy. Sometimes the same mixers can be used, too! We are doing vodka and whiskey. So there is a dark and light option.

We did this. All I can say is the majority of our guests had wine, beer, and our two signature drinks. We had an abundance of liquor left (I'm talking about 15 bottles) and unfortunately in the state of Ohio they do not allow you return it. So now we have plenty of alcohol for parties ha. We went off of one of the calculators and I kept telling H the majority of my family does not drink so you can cut the list down for it, but he didn't listen. So make sure you know your crowd and you will not be left with a ton of alcohol!

We are doing the same. Our venue is BYOB and we are renting our cater's liquor license for the day as well has hiring four of their bartenders. From my friend's wedding, also in the same area (DC metro) with the same amount of guests (150), they spent $2000 on their purchased liquor, beer, and wine and that was a lot as they returned a quarter of it (refund for unopened bottles) but they rather buy over than run out.

In Georgia, we were able to exchange, not return, unopened bottles. That was great for the wine, but what are we going to do with the bottle of vermouth that was opened and poured one martini? Hope my dad likes his slightly used Christmas gift. ;-)

We did the same. We chose about 4 kinds of beer, one red and one white wine then a whiskey, bourbon, vodka, gin, rum and tequila. The bartender provided the mixers as part of her fee. We had a lot of compliments on our bar service. Our venue is BYOB so bar service varies and our DOC said that ours was one of the best she had seen. We had about 50 people there.

What retailer was it?

It's truly incredible how overpriced the open bar packages at venues are, especially if you have a sense of how much your guests will drink. To charge the same price per head is obnoxious.

Hi Jake we did Total Wine in Delaware