Open Bar during Cocktail Hour

Is your bar open after the 45 mins? Or cash or what?

Will your venue even let you do this? You may want to check with them first. Also, is your cocktail hour in the same location as the reception? I honestly am not sure how you would go about doing this without creating a ton of confusion.

I would think 45 mins may not be enough time depending on your wedding size. There may be a line for drinks. How many people are you expecting? After 45mins is the bar closing down completely?

I'm confused at what happens after 45 mins. No bar at all? Cash bar?

I would not switch to a cash bar after only 45 mins. That's pretty lame. You will also have people stocking up on drinks and a big line for the 45 mins.

If you're intending to switch to cash after - I'd ditch the open bar and instead give people X amount of free drinks (via tickets, if your bartenders will take them). Work it out so the amount of drinks = the cost of the open bar for 45 mins. That way people can use them whenever through the night and won't feel like they need to make the most of that 45 mins of open bar by standing in line during cocktail hour instead of mingling and getting settled. Having an open bar for only 45 mins could really change the flow of cocktail hour and not make it fun for anyone.

I agree with @Munkos. Every thing will change about cocktail hour once people find out the drinks are free for only 45 mins. For people that drink, standing in line will be their main focus.

It would be cash bar after. We're going to be circulating champagne after the 45 minute period for toasts/speeches. Essentially, my mom just wants to provide a drink or two to each person to start off the evening on a high note. We have about 120 people and they have a pretty big bar and usually put 3 people on it. I think the 1-2 free drink tickets is probably best. We're telling people that the wedding will be a cash bar and thought it would be a nice touch to give a couple rounds on us (we were going to do it before my mom offered to pay for it).

Also, I've seen it done before where there was open bar during cocktail hour, but that was at a sit-down dinner and we're having a cocktail reception. I was telling my mom that I thought it would be confusing to do it open bar style because there's nothing to distinguish the difference between the first 45 minutes and the rest of the evening.

Doing drink tickets at a wedding reminds me of a carnival and confuses me- I guess it makes it easier to limit how many drinks you pay for but I've never seen it done (and probably for a reason). For so many reasons stated on many forums in the last 2 weeks- please just don't do a cash bar. Provide beer and wine- even if you do consumption, it might come out close in price to an open bar for 120 people for an hour.

45 minutes is definitely not enough time for 120 people to get through one bar, even with 3 bartenders. Think of a night out at a bar and how long it takes to get a drink then, and those bars are usually set up for more volume (more mixing wells etc.). And not everyone will go get a drink right away.

IMO, changing the type of bar at any point in the night is confusing to your guests. You can search for past posts on all the arguments about different types of bars, so I won't rehash them here.

I'm generally against drink tickets because it's a wedding, not your high school reunion, but in your situation I think drink tickets are a better option than the 45 min bar.

@8815wedding Open Bar for a wedding of my size at this venue will cost like $7 to $9Gs and we were only willing to put in about $3Gs. I've been to a couple weddings locally that have done it, and people seem to really appreciate it when they're expecting cash bar.

How much will it cost to do a soft bar? It will probably come out to about the same as a 45 min open bar for that many people.

Personally I think it will be a little confusing. & while I don't like the idea of the drink tickets, out of the 2 options, I go for the tickets. But beer & wine bar trumps both.

@Lucy since the venue is also a restaurant (our hall is next door but they're attached), is an enoteca (wine bar) and their cheapest bottle of wine is $36/bottle (they won't allow us to bring in our own liquor because of licensing), so even to do a soft cash bar would be a lot. It's something I'll definitely look into though. I can look into matching my mom's contribution and see how far that will go.

@Erin it seems to be much less common in this area to have an open bar than a cash bar and we have some serious lushes in my family, so I'm trying to avoid some overly drunk embarrassing situations, while still paying for a few rounds.

I agree about soft bar. If you were going to pay for cocktail hour, now your mom's willing to match that, 2 hour top shelf liquor should be close to 4-5 hours soft bar for sure.

Ugh .. Here we go again .... Nothing wrong with a cash bar and giving your guests a few drinks. But maybe consider doing a signature drink instead of the open bar ? If they don't like the drink you chose they can buy what they want after that 45 min. I do agree open bar for 45 min might get too hectic.

Sig drink best option !! IMHO no drink tickets

You could also determine the amount of money you can afford to cover and give the bar that limit. I have been to a wedding where this was done and yes people grab an extra drink when they hear the limit is close. A positive is that everyone was hitting up the dance floor after and nobody complained about buying the drinks after that. You can't monitor how people will drink, the venue should prevent over serving.

^^ Exactly what I was going to say! Either:

1. only supply beer and wine - eliminates the hard alcohol drunks

2. put a dollar cap on it... say i'm only going to pay for this much..then the rest is on them.

I think it's ridiculous that people expect free drinks and gormet food to be served to them for celebrating a loved ones/friends wedding. So ridiculous!

Prices sound crazy! $9000 for 120 guest? What are they serving? Check again with your venue! Most places charge $30 pp for open bar, a little more for top shelf. Booze and mixers are cheaper then wine!

Oh joy, this again...

So, question, what is a cocktail reception? Does this mean no dinner? So you are not providing dinner for your guests and having a cash bar?

Sooo no dinner AND I have to pay for my drinks? You don't expect me to stay very long, right?

Another suggestion is to have a signature drink that can be made ahead so that you have waiters circulating who greet the guests with an insta-drink. This will help cut down on the line at the bar, although I've only seen it done at receptions with open bar or beer-and-wine bars. Although I guess not feeding them is a great way to keep the reception short and then only have to pay for 2 hours of the bar.