Liquor laws in CT for at home wedding?

Jessa3

I am planning an outdoor wedding at home.  Can anyone point me in the right direction to see if I can just hire a college student and buy my own alcohol?

MrsF0831

You have to be 18 to handle alchohol 21 to drink (obvi lol ) but i dont know what direction to point you in sorry. I just know the 18 thing because I work in a restaurant and you cant serve until your 18 because you cant touch alchohol if your younger thant hat. hope this helps somewhat

DiLynn83

I would check with your local town hall.  Normally it's NBD (think backyard BBQ - people drink, bring in kegs, etc) but once you start making it an "event" with hired staff and vendors, you may run into some legalities.

cdbishop

I agree, contact the town to see the laws for getting a special permit.  I know some may require the bartender to have a bartenders permit. 

akulaji

I agree with PPs.  Also, you should get liability insurance, since you will be the sole provider of the alcohol.  It's a very very small investment to have peace of mind in case something happens.  We used wedsafe.com.  For example, for $500,000 worth of liability insurance that includes liquor liability it costs $150.  That is their lowest coverage, but you can also get higher amounts of coverage.

Also, if you're in Fairfield County, we purchased our own liquor too.  I can give you the info on where we went.  The company pre-chilled all the beer and delivered everything.  We paid a 50% deposit up front, and after the wedding they picked up all the unopened liquor.  The remaining balance we paid after, and that was only for the liquor that we used or was open.  Anything unopened (excluding the chilled beer) they took back and didn't charge us for.  It's great because we didn't end up with a huge stockpile of liquor we wouldn't use.

calindi

I would recommend hiring someone who is TIPS certified - someone who bartends as a job for example.  You also want to invest in a lot of liability insurance in case someone gets injured or property is damaged as a result of alcohol served at your party.  It's a much bigger deal than you'd think, and it's best to be super careful.

There are companies like Two Pour Guys who you can hire to bartend and they are simply an hourly rate, or they can bring all the booze.  Your choice.