Wedding Best way to serve alcohol?

[newbie124]

I don''t know why this seems to be so complicated, but the whole beverage issue for our reception has been driving me nuts.

Currently, we are planning to BYOB and serve beer, wine and sparkling at our reception. Beer will be served at the bar throughout.

For the wine, though, we are thinking of serving a nicer white and red to pair w/ the meal (salad and main entree) and that will be poured by the servers as opposed to people getting up and going to the bar. But if we do that, should we offer different wines at the bar for the cocktail hour?

Or, I was thinking maybe we have the bar only serve sodas, beer and either 1 signature drink, just sparkling wine, or something like a nice rose to go w/ the hors d''ouevres and no wine served until dinner? Would that be odd/too few options?

Part of my thinking for not serving wine at the bar would be to save costs (can put towards the nicer dinner wines) and also, what if someone gets the wine, brings it to the table, then sees that another wine is being poured for dinner?

If we serve the sparkling during cocktail hour, then I''m just going to forgo the formal "toasting" and people can just use whatever they have. If we do the rose for cocktails, then I guess we could do the formal toasting at the end of the meal...

Thoughts/suggestions? (It probably also doesn''t help that we have to rent our glassware separately so that also adds to the confusion...)

 

[jcarlylew]

the wedding i went two i think have 4 different wines (2 reds, 2 whites) but was served by the bartender only. The only time it was "served" by the waitstaff was if someone sitting down requested it. Personally i didnt think anything (bad) of it!

 

[NewEnglandLady]

How many guests are you having? I think that makes a difference...

We had a full bar, but only 30 guests and whle my husband wanted a bartender, he didn't book it fast enough and we did without. It really wasn't a big deal since our wedding was tiny and everybody was having a ton of fun mixing each other's drinks at the bar. I didn't want a toast, but did buy quite a bit of champagne and my sisters kept offering to fill everybody's glass. If we did have a toast, I would have had my MOH or sisters just fill the glasses.

So I think that if your wedding is smaller, it's completely fine to go without a bartender and I think having everybody be able to get their own alcohol adds to the fun of a casual type of wedding. If the wedding is large, however (100+), a bartender might help to keep the bar area from getting too crowded since it would be more efficient.

By the way, we also rented our glasses and I had a water/soda glass, a champagne flute and a wine glass. (plus mixed drink glasses at the bar). People generally used 2 or fewer glasses. Go figure!

ETA: Ignore my post, I think I completely misread your question. I went to a wedding in wine country where they served different wines throughout the dinner. Then after dinner, people just went to the bar and got whatever they wanted. The only time they served the wine was at dinner. I actually really liked that setup because it was a wine-paired dinner, but afterward we could get up and mingle and drink whatever we wanted.

 

[newbie124]

Date: 9/11/2008 5:43:13 PM
Author: jcarlylew
the wedding i went two i think have 4 different wines (2 reds, 2 whites) but was served by the bartender only. The only time it was ''served'' by the waitstaff was if someone sitting down requested it. Personally i didnt think anything (bad) of it!

I''ve also been to a couple weddings where the wine wasn''t poured at the table (1 wedding where it was left on the table for guests to serve themselves). But since we''re getting married in wine country, I feel like the "paired" pouring sort of fits in better w/ our theme/style of the wedding.

I guess I''m mostly curious if it''d be odd to NOT serve wine at the bar and only at dinner?

 

[jcrow]

Date: 9/11/2008 5:49:13 PM
Author: newbie124

Date: 9/11/2008 5:43:13 PM

Author: jcarlylew

the wedding i went two i think have 4 different wines (2 reds, 2 whites) but was served by the bartender only. The only time it was ''served'' by the waitstaff was if someone sitting down requested it. Personally i didnt think anything (bad) of it!

I''ve also been to a couple weddings where the wine wasn''t poured at the table (1 wedding where it was left on the table for guests to serve themselves). But since we''re getting married in wine country, I feel like the ''paired'' pouring sort of fits in better w/ our theme/style of the wedding.


I guess I''m mostly curious if it''d be odd to NOT serve wine at the bar and only at dinner?

would it be available after dinner?

 

[newbie124]

Date: 9/11/2008 5:48:52 PM
Author: NewEnglandLady
How many guests are you having? I think that makes a difference...

We had a full bar, but only 30 guests and whle my husband wanted a bartender, he didn''t book it fast enough and we did without. It really wasn''t a big deal since our wedding was tiny and everybody was having a ton of fun mixing each other''s drinks at the bar. I didn''t want a toast, but did buy quite a bit of champagne and my sisters kept offering to fill everybody''s glass. If we did have a toast, I would have had my MOH or sisters just fill the glasses.

So I think that if your wedding is smaller, it''s completely fine to go without a bartender and I think having everybody be able to get their own alcohol adds to the fun of a casual type of wedding. If the wedding is large, however (100+), a bartender might help to keep the bar area from getting too crowded since it would be more efficient.

By the way, we also rented our glasses and I had a water/soda glass, a champagne flute and a wine glass. (plus mixed drink glasses at the bar). People generally used 2 or fewer glasses. Go figure!

We''re expecting around 70-75 guests, so unfortunately I don''t think that option would work for us. Plus, the venue requires that the alcohol be served by the caterer so we''re kind of stuck paying for a bartender. (Not to mention, I''d be a little scared about how much alcohol would be consumed if we let people pour their own!)

Oooh, I was hoping someone might chime in about renting their own glassware! Did you have to rent any overage? I''m just wondering how much I need to factor for the bar. To save money, I think we''re just going to have the beers served in bottles (rather than poured). But I don''t know if I ought to say rent 75-80 glasses per beverage rather than exactly 1 per guest? Of course, not all of our guests are drinkers...but I know people sometimes have a tendency to leave their used glass somewhere then go up and get another drink.

 

[newbie124]

Date: 9/11/2008 5:51:31 PM
Author: jcrow

Date: 9/11/2008 5:49:13 PM

Author: newbie124

Date: 9/11/2008 5:43:13 PM


Author: jcarlylew


the wedding i went two i think have 4 different wines (2 reds, 2 whites) but was served by the bartender only. The only time it was ''served'' by the waitstaff was if someone sitting down requested it. Personally i didnt think anything (bad) of it!

I''ve also been to a couple weddings where the wine wasn''t poured at the table (1 wedding where it was left on the table for guests to serve themselves). But since we''re getting married in wine country, I feel like the ''paired'' pouring sort of fits in better w/ our theme/style of the wedding.



I guess I''m mostly curious if it''d be odd to NOT serve wine at the bar and only at dinner?

would it be available after dinner?

Good question....Yeah, I guess if there is any left after dinner, we could have the bartender pour from the bar? Or maybe there could be a waiter walking around in case anyone wants more wine?

 

[NewEnglandLady]

We actually ordered 50 of each kind of glass (for 35 guests, I think) because we were worried about running out...plus we had plastic cups as a back up. NOBODY used a glass for the beer, they all drank out of the bottle. People sometimes used 2 glasses for mixed drinks, but not really. Same with wine--if somebody switched from white to red, they might grab a new glass, but we had a lot of unused glasses at the end of the night. I read to rent 20 - 30% extra, I think?

 

[pjean]

If you''re serving several kinds of wine, I might be concerned about people wanting clean glasses to switch from (say) white to red. One glass per person might give you some problems with that.

 

[Pandora II]

I did sparkling wine for the cocktail hour, then red and white with the meal and all three after the meal.

 

[Guilty Pleasure]

One glass per person is definitely not enough.

Personally, I would offer more than just beer during the cocktail hour (if I was having a cocktail hour). Either wine or a signature cocktail. There are many people who do drink, but do not drink beer. However, if your particular crowd is not that into drinking or usually just drinks beer, then sodas, tea and beer should be fine.

I also would want my bartender to pour beers into glasses, but that''s probably not a big deal, just a personal opinion.

 

[Izzy03]

I went to my cousins wedding and she did something I had not seen before. She had open bar during the cocktail hour only. Then when we sat for our meal, there was a wine list with 5 types of wine, and each table could pick two.

So....... you could always have a bottle of white and red that the server will open and serve. If the cost of not serving wine at the bar will be significant, then I really don''t see a need for you to provide it through the bar as well.

 

[clop]

Date: 9/11/2008 8:11:06 PM
Author: Izzy03
I went to my cousins wedding and she did something I had not seen before. She had open bar during the cocktail hour only. Then when we sat for our meal, there was a wine list with 5 types of wine, and each table could pick two.


So....... you could always have a bottle of white and red that the server will open and serve. If the cost of not serving wine at the bar will be significant, then I really don''t see a need for you to provide it through the bar as well.

That''s a neat idea! This is slightly off topic, but thought I''d share. If your guests are not big wine drinkers, I''d make sure the servers know to ask if they want wine. At our wedding, or wine sales were $3000 over what we estimated. The servers automatically poured wine for every guest without asking. Our relatives were slightly confused, and thought it was part of dinner. Whey the hubby told them it was not, they felt bad, and tried to finish it, which led to the servers refilling the glasses. In any case, something to look out for.

 

[newbie124]

Date: 9/11/2008 6:33:11 PM
Author: Pandora II
I did sparkling wine for the cocktail hour, then red and white with the meal and all three after the meal.

Yes, this is the option I''m sort of leaning towards....Pandora, did you guys serve any other beverages during the cocktail hour?

Even if we didn''t serve wine at the bar, we would definitely have at least beer and sodas. It''s just a matter of if we also offer a 3rd option of the sparkling wine, a signature cocktail, or something like a rose that would work well w/ the hors d''oeuvres (although the sparkling would probably work well, too...but then that would take the place of us pouring it during the formal toasts later on).

Glassware-wise, what I was planning was to have 2 wine glasses and 1 water glass at each place setting if we do the poured wines w/ dinner. Then for the bar, I guess we would maybe have 70 wine glasses or champagne flutes (depending on what we decide to serve) knowing that we''ll have about 10-15 people who don''t drink any alcohol, so that might hopefully take care of the overage issue?