Drink Tickets Logistics

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I see... I think you need to, at minimum, have a full soda bar open. Even if the under 21 crowd doesn't normally drink soda, a wedding is a special event and they deserve to have a special beverage too.

For alcohol, I think you are getting some good advice, but are confused on how each "type" of bar works.

1.) Open bar- this is paid per person and there is no limit to the number of drinks a person can get. This tends to be a good option if there are a lot of drinkers, low number of children, and the drinks on consumption are high priced. The types of open bars are full, modified, and limited. Full= all alcohol choices available, modified= beer and wine, plus a few liquor choices (like signature cocktails), limited= beer and wine only. You can discuss with your venue what they offer and if you can negotiate how this works in order to fit in your budget. For example, the open bar may only be open for 3 hours, since you have wine service at dinner, and a champagne toast later in the evening. So you would only be offering it during the dancing basically.

2.) Consumption- this is paid to the venue based on the number of drinks sold. This is a good option if you have a small number of drinkers or the price per drink is small. However, this does not seem to be a good idea if soda is included in this, or if you think the venue will try to stiff you, because I could see this climbing quite quickly. But if the number of alcohol drinkers is low enough, it might work out better this way. Honestly, if you are that worried about the venue being dishonest, you might want to think about a different venue.

3.) Cash bar- Guests pay for their own drinks. Not a good idea at a wedding at all, because you don't want guests to have to pull out their wallet at your wedding.

4.) Dry wedding- No alcohol served. Only appropriate in very specific circumstances, in my opinion.

This might be more information than you needed, but if I were you, I would do a modified open bar during cocktail hour, and after dinner, since you have wine service during dinner. No drink tickets, because it seems like a logistical headache in your situation. Consumption also seems like a bad idea based on the price of the drinks ($4 for soda? wut?) and people get thirsty dancing and laughing and taking pictures. It really has nothing to do with people wanting to get blackout drunk, but rather you tend to drink more at special events in general.

Do you mind telling us the options the venue gave you for alcohol, and the prices? Maybe we can help with the budgeting

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I've worked through a spreadsheet to calculate drinks per couple but I'm worried about the irresponsible ones to be honest, and they're not the important family. I'm paranoid/concerned/don't know if I trust the venue to not inflate the price because I still am shocked at my friends bill of $10,000 with 220 guests. By my estimates we would sit around $3-4k or so. I know it's not completely rational, but knowing the group we have and how little most of them care about alcohol, it seemed easier to do tickets and also have a set amount.

Okay OP, I'm gonna help your math here a bit.

Let's go with the max amount/drink. $12x150 people x 4 hours is $7200. Plus the 20% service charge is $8640. That's the MAX. Don't know where you're getting 10k from.

Now this is also assuming everyone is old enough to drink, and everyone has one drink per hour. Not quite what will happen at your wedding, most likely, but at the point the max you will pay is not impossible to afford.

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Right. No one advocated going broke for a wedding. What is advocated here is to HAVE THE WEDDING YOU CAN AFFORD. Yes, I am yelling.

If that means a late night super formal white tie 100K affair, then do that.

If that means having a brunch reception at a lovely restaurant, then do that.

If that means having a cake and punch reception in a church hall, then do that.

If that means city hall and a lunch for the two of you at White Castle afterwards, then do that.

It does not mean that you should pass any cost on to your guests.

If you can't pay for any part of your wedding out of your pocket (here the OP says she can't afford an open bar) then you can not afford that particular vision. You need to change your vision, not pass the costs on to your guests.

On a non bias answer.

1. Do the tickets move hands pretty easily on their own? (I know 2 drinks seems low but we are hoping/assuming some will likely drink nothing and they'll get passed on to the heavier drinkers).

This is a possibility If water & other nonalcoholic drinks are provided without tickets. I myself only drink about half a drink most of the time. This would make sense or maybe you can opt just for a signature cocktail.

2. How do we distribute the tickets? Right now we're thinking to put them on/under the name card that gives them their table number as well. We'd prefer for the reception hall not to get a hold of them to avoid unnecessary overcharging and we don't want to leave on the table since we're only doing assigned tables, not seats.

You can distribute the tickets in the wedding invite, or if you plan on giving favors you can attach them to the favors. Just make sure they’re filled out, so each person can get their tickets.

3. How should we communicate the fact that some wine and champagne will already be offered in addition to their tickets? Just put a simple message under their name placard with the drink tickets?

You can add that to the invite if you plan on mailing them out. Or have the the DJ/Master of Ceremony make an announcement.

4. For those who have attended an event or wedding with tickets, how was it overall?

Never Been to a wedding with tickets for drinks. But honestly for me it wouldn’t affect me. You’re not making them pay for drinks, you’re offering them something. At the end of the night as long as you enjoy your wedding that’s what matters.

View Quoted Comment Love you too Karilyn

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Since apparently free drinks aren't good enough I'm sure the "co-pay" of drinks wouldn't be accepted here. And honestly, with my family they don't expect a full open bar so we're more with you on expectations. It's definitely something I can bring up with the venue in case we do open bar for a limited time and then cash bar after that, at least then we can reduce the prices for the guests then as well. Thank you.

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House wine is $7.75 so the website must be out of date.

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I didn't mean geographically, I guess meant the people. Our extended family has had plenty of dry weddings and no one batted an eye. Yes, everyone prefers an open bar but I don't think tickets for a drink of your choice are any less insulting than only offering wine and beer to someone who only drinks liquor. Limiting to beer, wine, and signature drinks don't really lessen the consumption much.

Your venue is crazy expensive for open bar. Our venue is about $13/PP for the whole evening. Granted it's an all inclusive venue and it only includes beer and wine. We are allowed to bring in our own liquor though and they will provide the mixers and serve it.

No chance you can change your venue? For our 100 guests it totals $1295 plus the cost of our liquor that we purchase and can control the cost of.

You can ALWAYS cut the guest list. My FH has a bigger family than anyone I know, all of whom live in our hometown, and we cut a guest list of potentially 300 down to 30. Because that’s how much we could afford.

A big fancy wedding is not a right. It’s a privilege.

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It's just a big venue that's all, used to getting corporate events with more unlimited budgets and because of the $10k number we given because I have no idea how her 220 guests would have consumed that much because she even stated that many of them went to bars in the area beforehand because of a big time gap. I don't trust any of them though; which is why we liked the one where we bought our own liquor.

View Quoted Comment Perfect!!!!. Yes I'm also going to scream. Therefore if you want to have a wedding with 4 drink tickets you can. It's your wedding and it's what you want and can do. She's not telling them to pay, and even if she is so what? She's giving them 4 tickets and that's enough for a night. A role of a guest is not to come get drunk. They got food and for drinks so what's the biggy? She wants to invite all 150 guest and that's her way out. She doesn't have to deny others the opportunity to celebrate with them because others wanna get drunk.
This is coming from somebody who is having an open bar with 200 guest because I can afford it but I am putting myself in her shoes to understand her situation. Like I said, if a guest wont come because its just 4 drinks then you really deserve to stay home.

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Apparently on this site 150 seems to be referred to as small-ish. I'd say its in the middle/average sized. But since a big bulk of the 150 are family that could NOT be cut, it really leaves no room for people we'd like to invite and have with us on that day. Plus you all say it's rude not to invite a guest for everyone and their kids so that adds up too. I've considered the capped bar but was just afraid we'd run into a situation where the heavy drinkers use it all up while my bridesmaid goes to get her second drink before the end of the night. But if you've seen it used successfully I might go back to the drawing board and assume that if the limit does get reached, it won't be until later in the night when people have already started heading home.

View Quoted Comment Your right and I understand where you are coming from but what if they are not the one footing the bill for the booze and etc what if it is the future parents in law footing the bill and this is a requirement or maybe they have a lunatic sister like mine who want to get drunk and beat up your guests

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I appreciate the information and your time, and yes on one or two replies I realized afterwards I read it correctly but was thinking something else.

After looking again, sodas are actually only $3.25 lol but I rounded up because of service fees and bartender fees; however, after the feedback here (and I probably would have come to this realization eventually) to include soda since it would take a lot longer for sodas to reach a high amount than it would $8-10 drinks.

Like you said, after some of the feedback I think we could do a combination of these options because one single option just does not work at all. Open bar definitely didn't work but if we did it for an hour or two we could try to get it to match the same price we'd spend on tickets but at least guests could go back for more (I'm pretty sure they quoted me $20/hour/person for just beer and wine so I kind of threw that idea out the window because it ends up being way too much after 3 hours considering how most of the guests don't drink much). Like you said, I'm not convinced they will stiff me, but I honestly was trying to avoid it if I could because I wouldn't fully trust any venue.

I don't have the per/hour pricing on me like I said because I wrote it down and it's at home scribbled down and they pretty much said it's not a good idea for weddings.

The main staples that people would be ordering would be:

$3.25 Soft Drinks

$4 Juice

$4 Bottled Water

$7.75 House Wine

$5.25 Domestic Bottled Beer (our guests would likely want premium liquor over imported beer)

$7.25 Call Brands (on rocks $11)

$9.75 Premium Brands (on rocks $13.50)

$8-10 Signature Drinks

View Quoted Comment Why would you sign with a venue you can't afford then?

With a trained bartender no one is getting that wasted

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Alcohol is not an assumed part of our wedding for our family. Alcohol was budgeted, to allow for 4-5 drinks per person because we do not want people drunk and stumbling which is all too common.

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Thank you. We will probably add soda consumption in addition to the beverage table options. Someone else mentioned the DJ which I hadn't thought of so no matter which plan we go with thanks for pointing it out so they can help communicate throughout the evening so everyone is well informed.

Sorry I was busy replying to your comment at 6:13pm? I also refrain from responding to comments that use foul language which was your first one.