Have any of you done this with the bar at your wedding?

Question

We are trying to find a way to save a little money without being tacky. We are having a 5 hour reception. One hour is the cocktail hour while we are taking pictures and stuff. The other 4 are the dinner and the reception. We can only afford 4 hours of bar service (open bar). the original plan was to have no bar during cocktail hour, just regular refreshments (everyone will be coming in off the beach and will be hot), then have the 4 hours of bar for the reception. My coordinator just suggested having the bar open for cocktail hour, then closing it during the hour that dinner is being served and people are talking, toasting, etc. Then reopening it for the last 3 hours of the reception. Does this seem strange or tacky? I kind of like the idea of people sitting and talking rather than running back and forth to the bar during that hour. Thoughts?

Answer 1

As people have already said, it is acceptable and done to shut the bar down for dinner.

Have you already booked the exact set up (open bar)? If you are still flexible about the setup you have a few options.

Open bar, which you said you are doing, is the most expensive.

Limited bar, is where you offer a selection for set times (i,e, like your idea to have it open  the whole time except during dinner). An option here is to have waiters pass drinks around on trays instead of having people get up. You will have to pay for the waiters, but it will most likely be cheaper, because people will tend to drink less. As to shutting down during dinner, just make sure waiters are moving through the tables to refill water and non alcoholic drinks.

Of course there are also no-bar and cash bar options, but you don't want to charge people at a wedding for drinks. There are other creative ways.

So anyway, you said you are paying per person per hour so unless you can change it to limited bar, you are paying a flat fee per hour for unlimited drinking. The only way to save in that respect is cutting out the bar during dinner.

If there is any creativity in the fine print of your bar portion of the catering contract, maybe do signature drinks during cocktail hour and be paying for what gets used, not per hour. Then keep non alcoholic drinks open during dinner, and/or pass around drinks on trays at cocktail hour instead. Not sure how flexible they are.

Also ask if they take back any unused alcohol and reimburse you.

Good luck and congrats!

Answer 2

The coordinator's idea makes perfect sense.

Closing the bar during cocktail hour will be a little off-putting to people--this is usually the time when people start drinking.  

Answer 3

I think closing during dinner is perfect.. mine was closed during dinner but we had bottles of wine for each table for dinner so that is something to condsider too... people are there for you not to get drunk

Answer 4

I was at 2 weddings where the bar was closed during dinner and in my opinion, it was terrible! I couldn't even get more pop to drink with my dinner!

I guess basically find out what "closing the bar" really means? No water, or pop?

I think you should stick with your original plan, open the bar for dinner and the reception.  

Answer 5

People can actually survive without a bar.  In fact it might behoove you to reevaluate the reasonability of even having one at all.  I would say open for the cocktail hour.  Leave it open for about an hour or two into dinner, then close it.  

Answer 6

I've been to alot of events where the bar is closed during dinner.  It can also give people a breather from the drink- and may help prevent some alcoholic-induced incidents!

Answer 7

I've been to quite a few weddings where they did that. I think it's actually pretty standard. It's harder for the staff to serve food, take away plates, etc, when people are constantly getting up and down, and they can't tell who's sitting where and who's done eating. Closing the bar during dinner makes everyone stay seated a little more.

Answer 8

What if you had a regular open bar during cocktail hour and then switched to wine/beer for dinner?

Answer 9

I've seen that done at most of the weddings I've attended. It's expected where I'm from, to be honest.

Answer 10

Does the bar close before the reception finishes? Some places close the bar half hour before the end of the reception to help to get people out earlier. Or you may even try to have subsidised drinks for the first hour. Maybe pay half of the cost of the drinks or a few dollars off each drink. Most people don't mind paying for their drinks when their cheaper.

Answer 11

Where I'm from, it's very usual to have the bar closed during the dinner and program. People just have the last drink they've gotten from the bar, then drink the wine which is on the tables during dinner.

We had open bar for cocktail hour, closed for dinner, then reopened for the dance for another five hours.

Answer 12

I love the idea of the caterer. It's the best solution IMO. no one is going to notice anyway, as they will be very busy eating.

Good luck

PS/ BTW, "C" finally returned the ins. card and the RSVP yesterday. Uff!

Answer 13

most people liek to drink with their dinners. try serving one or two signature drinks during cocktail hour. name one fruity drink (your name) and one not so fruity drink (hubby name) thats what im doing.  

Answer 14

That does seem to make sense would not be tacky at all, but unless you are having a pay-per-person/hour open bar, I don't think that would save you much money.  People tend to just drink wine with dinner anyway, not necessarily hard liquor like they do at the cocktail hour and after dinner, so closing it for that hour won't really reduce the cost if you are paying consumption.

We were planning to have our open bar not open until after dinner (it's a pay-per-person/hour kind of package thing).  The package we could afford for our wedding included non-alcoholic beverages for cocktail hour (more like 1.5 hours) and then unlimited wine with dinner and then 4 hours of open bar after dinner.  I was perfectly happy with this, people can wait 1 hour after a 4 o'clock ceremony to start drinking the unlimited wine and then open bar.  I mean, it's not like we were planning to have a cash bar or anything.

But my fiance's father would have non of it.  "People will want to have a beer or something right away", personally I think that someone that HAS to have a beer at 4:30 in the afternoon at a wedding, is a bit of a lush, but we just couldn't afford the extra $1000 for the extra open bar hours. His parents ended up offering to pay for that hour of open bar because they were so insistent, but I really didn't think there was anything wrong with not having unlimited alcohol until the reception actually started.

Long story short, the extra hour is really expensive, it might seem like just one hour, but it adds up, especially if you are paying for a consumption bar, the cocktail hour will be pricier that then dinner hour (because you have wine at the tables). So you might want to weigh out the savings.

You could also consider closing the bar an hour before the reception ends.  You can save a lot of money that way too, and it is safer for people that have to drive home, because they have an hour to have a coffee or water or whatever.

Good Luck!

Addition: If it's a per/person/hour bar then closing it at dinner makes sense because you are providing wine so people won't even notice, and you will save the money for it.  One thing to check is if you CAN close it in the middle.  

I know the place we booked only allowed "continuous" bar service, so once it opened, it stayed opened and you paid for all the time in between.  That is why we couldn't afford to pay for the cocktail hour ourselves, because opening the bar from 4:30-6:00 meant we would also have to pay for open bar during dinner too (on top of the wine), until the 4 hours of open bar that was included in our package (so we would be paying for 2.5 - 3 hours of open bar just to have drinks during cocktail hour).

Just something to discuss with your venue.