Don’t underestimate your Bar Tab!
My co-worker just got back from his honeymoon and relayed an interesting story to me from his wedding, which I attended.
They originally expected about 275 guests so had planned the open bar accordingly to have approximately a $4,000 bar budget. The final head count for the wedding turned out to be about 225 guests. Their wedding coordinator assured them that reaching the $4,000 limit would be an almost unattainable feat. Well guess what, their final bar bill was $8,000!
How did that happen?
This particular wedding had a 2-hour cocktail reception which probably increased the number of drinks "sold" because people were lingering and waiting for dinner.
Billing was on a per-bottle basis, meaning that the bartenders kept track of the number of bottles cracked open. At the end of the evening one of the bartenders had cracked at least a dozen beers (not directly ordered by any single person) and left on a cocktail tray for people to just come and grab. At one point I personally had 3-simultaneous beers in hand (1 bud light, 2 Heineken if you care to know). Looking over various pictures, the groom also noticed that guests had near-full bottles of liquor for takeaway. This is a clear violation of the hotel's policy and worked heavily to the the host's detriment.
The per-bottle arrangement is probably common. However, for my wedding the cost of alcohol was included no matter how much people drank.
The bartenders allowed people to linger and take pictures and continue drinking. As a guest I loved it but we drank quite a bit during the 20 minutes of lingering in the lobby.
The bartenders were paid additionally for the amount of drinks sold, I suppose to keep them efficient. The side-effect being that they were incentivized to crack as many bottles as possible.
Takeaways:- Don't underestimate your guests' capacity to drink.
- Be weary of shady bartenders. I wonder if the bartender was double-counting bottles-opened?
- Ask your wedding coordinator what happens if your party goes over-budget for alcohol? Hopefully the hosts were not held responsible for the full $8,000 when the coordinator was so certain that $4,000 would have been sufficient.
- Maybe tell your venue that once the budget is reached, the drinking is over. Your guests will likely be soused by then anyway.
- If you have a heavy-drinking party, try to negotiate a flat rate for drinks.