Raise your hand if you are all for free drinks! Flowers and food might be an important part of a DFW wedding party but can we be honest here for a second? The first thing 90% people do at a wedding is make a beeline for the bar! Okay, so we might have made that statistic up..a bit..but you know it’s not that far off the mark.
We guess it’s the stress that drives guests straight to the bar; single folks are stressed out by all the ‘so who are you seeing?’ Q and A coming their way; introverts are stressed out because they have been seated at a table with strangers; the rest of them just want to enjoy the free drinks.
Now for the bride and groom, providing all your guests with adequate liquor without breaking the bank might seem like a tough feat to accomplish. That’s why we contacted some experts and came up with these golden nuggets of advice on how to avoid the wedding cocktail pitfalls.
Self-serve drinks option might backfire
If you think giving people easy access to drinks will ease the pressure off the bar, think again. We have actually seen this tactic go so wrong that it’s not funny. People put up these huge nooks filled with beer or punch and hope that guests will help themselves. The problem is guests end up drinking way way more than they should!
It’s like giving an ice-cream lover a tub of Ben n Jerry’s, and hoping they will only eat one scoop out of it! If you don’t want to end up with an out-of-control (and expensive) situation at your hands, don’t do it.
Champagne toast is highly overrated!
Yes, you heard that right. A lot of our event organizers confessed that they end up throwing most of the champagne away because not all people enjoy the same kind of sparkling wine. What might be a favorite of one person could be too tart or too sweet for another.
If you think an expensive sparkling wine will be loved by all because well, it’s expensive, think again. Most people don’t even notice the difference between expensive champagne and less-expensive wine! So, instead of pouring your money on champagne, let your guests toast with whatever they are drinking.
Having only one bar
Unless you are going to have a small wedding party, it’s imperative to have a second bar. Why? Consider this real-life situation: the one-and-only bar is totally packed and guests know that they’d have to wait a long time to get their next drink, so they end up ordering a double or triple of what they originally planned to save that extra trip!
Serving expensive liquor to specific guests
Other than the fact that it looks super rude when bartender pours a pricey single-malt whiskey for your favorite uncle and less-expensive liquor for guests standing right behind him, this tactic also creates a strange kind of vibe.
Instead, choose to serve the pricey stuff for a certain portion of the party, like the first couple of hours.
Consider the changing weather
People love getting married in fall and spring – two of the most fluctuating-temperature seasons! If you are unsure about the weather on the day of your wedding, consider having two options for the signature wedding cocktails; one for cold weather, and one for warm weather.