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alcohol

akirkenakirken member
100 Comments
in Ohio-Toledo
If you went with a caterer or venue that did not provide alcohol, what did you do? My venue definately does not provide alcohol or any kind of bar service and I'm still unsure about the catering part, but I am just curious.
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Re: alcohol

  • MerinMerin member
    100 Comments
    edited December 2011
    My ILs purchased the alcohol from a local liquor store.  I'm pretty sure they got a discount because they bought so much at once.   It was actually nice because we got exactly the alcohol we wanted, and it was definitely cheaper!

    If they don't provide bar service at all, you'll have to hire someone to do that (or if you hire a caterer, some can do that too, just ask).   If you do need to hire a bartender though, I know a really good one that I could give you contact info for. :)
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  • cschuma2cschuma2 member
    Fifth Anniversary 1000 Comments
    edited December 2011

    Our hall did not provide the alcohol and my DH's mom and stepdad took care of this for us.  They bought a variety of liquor and beer from Indiana since the tax is lower there.  We took it to the hall the day before so that it was all ready to go and the beer could be refrigerated.

    Our hall did not include a bartender, however they provided bartenders for $60ea.  We had 90 guests and had 2 bartenders.  The bar was busy early (during cocktail hour and dinner) and then really slowed later in the night.  We needed 2 to begin with but did not need 2 at the end of the night.  If we could have paid a bartender half to only be there for like 2ish hours, that maybe would have been the way to go.

    We did get really low on something (rum maybe?) part way through the night.  The bartender let one of our parents know and actually ran out to the the nearest liquor store to buy more for us and we just reimbursed them.  That was awesome and another perk of having the extra bartender.

    Planning how much to have is kind of difficult IMO.  Here is a calculator to get you a basic idea.

    http://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/weddings/wedding-wine-liquor-calculator-00000000008314/index.html

    You know your guests better than this calculator though.  If your family is a bunch of wine drinkers, adjust the numbers accordingly.

    Also, ask your reception hall if there are any restrictions about what you can and cannot serve.  We were not allowed to serve bottles of beer due to the risk of broken glass.  We weren't even allowed to have the glass bottles if the bartender poured it into a plastic cup.  Just make sure you don't buy something that your hall won't let you use!

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  • akirkenakirken member
    100 Comments
    edited December 2011
    Thanks ladies! This is really helpful!
    cschuma2- I know we are not allowed to have glass bottles as well. So as far as beer goes (if you had it), did you get a keg? Or just poured from cans?

    Merin- I would LOVE the contact info! Thanks!
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  • cschuma2cschuma2 member
    Fifth Anniversary 1000 Comments
    edited December 2011
    We just poured from cans.  We wanted to have a little more variety and they didn't think that we would have enough people to have multiple kegs make sense.  Cans also were nice because it was easy to take the extras home and/or give it to someone else to take home.
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  • akirkenakirken member
    100 Comments
    edited December 2011
    Good point. Thanks!
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