How do I Fill the bar and save money

Costco! That's what we're doing. You can get quality name brands at volume for a good price. For example, a handle of Titos is $28 at my Costco.

There are some online calculations on average drinking. You also know your crowd so you should be able to see if they are light, heavy or medium drinkers.

If you want to save money, find a place that you can return unopen bottles/cans or alcohol.

You can also reduce some options of the alcohol. You can limit option on hard liquor or just offer wine/beer and no hard liquor.

You can also minimize non-alcoholic beverages to just some juice options and a couple of soda options to cover the general range.

Costco!

Reduce the options of alcohol as VC stated. Costco and sams. Sams will let you return any unopened bottles after, and apparently Costco does to depending on location. That way you can get a great price and not worry about over-buying.

Thank you all so much I appreciate all the helpful information to costco and sams I go !!!

I also recommend Costco!!

Just an FYI, many of the Costco brands (Kirkland Label) are actually major name brands with the Kirkland label on it. For instance, their large bottle of vodka is actually Grey Goose.

@La Tasha

You need to do your homework and price out all liquor stores near you. Call them and ask about bulk discounts. People say Costco and Sam's are cheaper, but I found that it is not. I recently moved to Texas and discovered Total Wine. Total Wine has all prices online, and then I went to Costco and took pictures of all tags for top shelf liquor handles and price compared. It was literally $10-15 cheaper a handle for Maker's Mark and Grey Goose at Total Wine. The prices at the Texas Costco were the exact same that I encountered at a Kentucky Sam's last Christmas. I am buying all of my liquor at Total Wine.

My wedding will be in Kentucky where the regular CVS and Kroger prices were the exact same price as the Texas Costco. These stores offer continuous bulk 10% discounts if you buy 6 or 12 bottles or more at a time, which is a huge savings. Kroger offer 20% off cases of wine once a month. Wait for these sales and buy well in advance of your wedding. If you live near a state border, compare prices and find which one is cheaper. Backend state taxes are what affects this. It is completely legal for you to buy alcohol for personal use, aka your wedding, and transport it across state lines.

Thankfully, I was able to find a liquor store local to my reception that was willing to offer a huge discount on beer and wine commensurate with the much lower prices I am seeing in Texas. It was going to be too difficult to drive the number of cases of beer and wine I would need, but I contemplated it and priced it out.

I organized a professional group's annual 200+ person Christmas party for 2 years where I was able to stretch the budget by getting huge savings on the alcohol. I looked at the prior organizer's receipts and saved about $500 by following sales and buying all of the alcohol myself at stores rather than making a Costco run. Spending some time and doing your research on the alcohol will save you a lot more money.

@Lauren

At the Texas Total Wine Tito's is $22 a handle. In Kentucky, at CVS/Kroger it is usually $25 plus you get a 10% discount when buying more than 6 bottles at a time. You might want to price out other places than Costco to make sure you are getting the best deal.

^ good to know, thanks!

Also keep in mind that depending on your state, you may not be able to return unopened bottles of liquor. Here in GA, Costco does not allow alcohol returns per state law.

Total Wine is an awesome store, I think some of their stuff is even cheaper than Costco

I'm a huge fan of the Costco Kirkland brand vodka.

I live in Ohio we got some dumb laws no shipping to home

Check with your local liquor distributors! Our local one not only provides a bulk discount for liquor and wine if you buy it by the case (even if it's different bottles in each case), but they also allow returns of unopened bottles. That way you can buy extra (so you don't run out) but get some money back if your guests don't drink it all

Sams club!!!

Agreeing with pp about Costco !

Trader Joe's has cheap wine!