The Open Bar Question: How much does it REALLY cost?

I just had mine this weekend. I had $2200 leftover for our F & B minimum to meet. We had our social hour start at 4:30 PM. With 115 people, at $2.00 per person for unlimited soda and $7/$8 per drink, we lasted about 9:30PM for it open. Our wedding lasted maybe another hour and a half or so after that.

I'm in MD and the venues we looked at had open bar from $25 - $40 per person depending on the type of liquor. We had to find a place that let us bring our own liquor. You can get around this by having liquor only served during cocktail hour or limiting the number of drinks. $4200 is a lot of money!

We are having an open bar but we are providing our own alcohol ........We are going to DE no sales tax so I would suggest if your venue allows you to provide your own alcohol that would be the best way to go...you would save a lot of money then using what they are providing.

Lol $1000 for open bar.

ours was included in the per-person price. We asked them to estimate a cost breakdown so that my in-laws that offered to pay the bar bill would know how much to write out. They estimated it was about $4500 for 175 people for 5 hours of open bar. This is in Philly

ETA: this was also top shelf liquor, wines and soft drinks.

If i go with the venue i want my open bar is $42pp for beer, wine, champagne, and soda for 4 1/2hrs which if i did my math right comes to $5460

OHHHH I saw some other posts here that said like $20 and then i realized that was per hour so i was freaking out as that would bring my open bar cost to $22000!! So i went back to check and it says flat rate per person for 4 1/2hrs so im hoping that means for the whole 4 1/2hrs and not hourly cause there is no way im paying that !

ANNNNNND I just realized this post is 8yrs old hahahah

Unfortunately that's pretty accurate. Liquor really ups the cost at an open bar. We're only doing beer and wine and hope to have the total to under $1000 or around that. We're in the restaurant industry so we can get our wine and beer at cost, which is definitely super helpful.

My own bridesmaids said exactly that, Don't do a completely open bar all night long, guests tend to waste it not thinking that every time you 'loose your drink and just get a new one" its costing someone. I know I've been guilty of it.

Have you thought about doing a stock the bar bridal shower? It will save you a lot of money. One of my friends did it for her wedding, and she still has left over alcohol a year later.

Our consumption bar bill was 4k at the end of the night for 160 guests. However, in our package it included wine service, a keg, and a champagne toast that was not included in the 4k bar tab. So if alcohol was not in our package at all I'm sure the total would be closer to 5k.

Location: San Diego

We're doing an open bar with just beer, wine, and champagne! It's the liquor that makes the open bar costs increase quickly.

We purchased all bottles of beer, wine, and champagne ourselves at Costco, and we definitely purchased more than we probably need. With the cost of the licensed bartender included with the alcohol, we'll be spending about $600.00

Hello! I'm an event planner for a hotel and I would say that realistically before tax you are looking at somewhere between $2500-$3500 for your bar. A lot of the time what my brides & grooms do is they just host Beer, Wine & Soda and then if guests want spirits they pay for that on their own. The other thing that they do is they put a limit on the bar and then once it reaches that amount it switches to cash.

Open bars are super tough to budget for because you honestly just don't know!

Good luck and happy planning!

Wine and beer and a signature drink, girl! People will have a plenty fine time on that.

My venue charges $9 pp for the cocktail hour, then $3 pp for every extra hour we want our open bar (right now it's at another two hours, might make it three). For 85 guests we are coming in at around $1275. Your math seems to be fairly accurate.

We are planning on 1 drink per person per hour for the cocktail hour and reception time. Those prices seem about what we are paying if not less.

I did the same, I priced drinks @ 9.25pp for a 2.5 hour bar and came up with my own figure. Got to the meeting and she gave me a $4257.00 total. I was told she that was with tax and even though underage guest wouldn't be drinking, they still had to be included in the bill. I thought that was a bunch of bull. Then we still would of had to pay for the bartender.

Ours is $35 per person for 4 hrs. With over 100 guests and throw in the $200 for soda for kids pricing its about $4,000

It's close to 4K here in Dallas for a 4 hour open bar. :-/