Wedding Cost

I want an open bar and I’m trying to convince my fiance that it’s the only way to go if we have alcohol. We’re probably going to have at least 200 guests. We’re on a budget so I believe the most inexpensive way to go is to buy everything wholesale and hire a bartender. Anyone have any experience with this, did it go as planned? I need to have estimated numbers for my fiance when we sit down and talk about this.

We provided our own alcohol for 80 guests. The catering service we used for the buffet dinner included a bartender to serve the drinks so I don’t remember how much that portion cost by itself. We didn’t want to do a cash wedding because I’ve hated it whenever I’ve seen it at weddings.

But we didn’t have a full bar with mixed drinks, we only had beer and wine. It was far cheaper to do that because my father-in-law homebrews beer as a hobby and we bought the wine/champagne in bulk from Costco.

If I had to throw a number at all the alcohol I would say around $600 for about 30 gallons of beer, 2 cases of wine, and a case of champagne. The bartending service (including setup and equipment) was probably another $500 for a 5-6 hour long reception.

So overall, around $1100-$1200 total.

It went great, the bartender had a table (with a tip jar) to serve wine from the bottles and beer from the kegs. The caterer also had coffee, fruit punch, and ice water (late July wedding so it was hot that day).