Dry wedding reception

chescam · September 2010

Hey knotties, I need some advice. My fiance and I plan to have a dry wedding reception. We do not drink neither do 95% of our guests due to our religious beliefs. At our prospective venue, we can bring our own licensed caterer but all drinks have to be bought through the venue (they have their own liquor license). However, we do not care for sodas but would rather have fruit punch. Just something simple. And for the toast we would like to use sparkling cider.

The problem: the venue is suggesting that we give them the ingredients to make the punch and have a bar set up for unlimited punch for guests and will charge $3 per person for the sparkling cider. I don't know how much one bottle of beer costs much less the costs associated with serving punch and sparkling cider at a wedding, but I think that $3 per person for the cider is a bit much considering that one bottle costs less than $2. In addition we will be charged nearly 200 for the bar set up plus more money for unlimited punch.

Are the prices quoted reasonable?

Bre2Be · September 2010

I am in the same boat. We decided to basically have a dry wedding. The only alcohol that will be served is for the champagne toast. Our venue (Mirror Lake Lyceum) also provides their own beverage vendor that we have to go through. We were quoted $2.50 pp for unlimited soda, juice, tea, & water. The champagne toast is another $2.50 pp and that is one glass pp.

Does the $3 quoted mean 1 glass pp or is that unlimited? If it's unlimited I'd say that is not unreasonable, but it does seem steep for 1 glass. Our caterer quoted us for punch @ $10.00 per gallon (1 gallon per 10 ppl), so $1.00 pp. Maybe see if they can quote you per bottle/gallon instead...?

GL!

chescam · September 2010

The $3 is only for 1 glass of the sparkling cider pp. They have not quoted us yet for the punch but $160 will be added to have a bar set up. I'll have to ask about quoting us per bottle/gallon.

Thanks

bananafanafofashley · September 2010

what can you do? if you want a toast you really dont have a choice, right?

babybchbum · September 2010

Sparkling cider is something you should be able to provide as well. They don't need a Bartender for you to have alcohol free punch (that you are providing) or for Alcohol free cider. My only suggestion is to ask how they would be able to chill the cider for you prior to serving it (if you would like it cold)

chescam · September 2010

Thanks for the advice. Will be sorting this issue out soon. I don't need the added stress or costs.

TTnoles · September 2010

I htink you should nix the venue serving the punch and the cider and just put them in nice decanters on the table. They are around $6 per decanter at BB&B. The reason i say this is that i find it absolutely unbelievable that they would charge you that much for non-alcoholic beverages that are pre-mixed. I htink what they are essentiually doing is making up for the servers that are working and won't be getting tipped on serving alcoholic beverages. tlel them to skip the bar and serve chilled beverages right on the table, you can make them part of your centerpieces or comething and have it be very cute. I don' tknow..thats just my opinion.

Dry wedding reception

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