Is open bar worth it?

Open bar was the way to go for us. It seems to save money and you know exactly what your total bar cost will be without any suprises!

I would give my right arm for $55/3 hour open bar...stupid Fiesta Americana charging us more for alcohol than the food! (Obviously I am being slightly sarcastic!) But if our numbers dip enough, we might just go w/ open bar instead of consumption.

 

I never thought about Janet's view of getting secretly angry as the night goes on and people keep misplacing their beverages and going for a new one. Good to think about!

 

Hmmm...now this has got me thinking again!

I think it is certainly worth it. Think about it this way- your guests are paying a lot of money to be a guest at your wedding, at least be a proper host and buy them a drink or few.

Oh, I hope you didn't think we weren't paying for our guests' drinks, but we were going to use a consumption based bar, not an open bar, same thing, but we pay by the drink, not the hour.

I think that's what the original poster was referring to...not whether she was going to pay at all.

I was not saying I was doing a cash bar, just if it was worth it to pay the tab at the end vs. paying for an open bar. To make it worth it, each guest would have to drink 9 drinks. We are all big drinkers...but that just seems like a lot!

I am also getting married at the Hilton and my quote is $89 per person for Premium Open Bar for 6 hours. We're going with it because we definitely have a lot of heavy drinkers coming to the wedding (hello, we're Irish!!!) Although that seems like a lot of $$$ (and the Hilton is trying to convince us to pay on consumption) we like the idea of knowing exactly what we'll be paying when the bill comes in. We want to avoid any surprises too so that we don't end up pissed off during our honeymoon.

 

A few months ago when I was having the same concerns, Kash told me about how she ended up paying on consumption (because that's what everyone in Cabo says to do) and she ended up paying more per person than if she had just done the Open Bar. So, I definitely think it's worth it. Especially with what Janet said about the empty bottles laying around. $55 is a great deal.

Take the pp open bar. In the end it will be cheaper.

 

We did open international bar based on consumption. Even after removing bottled water from the menu (the waiters come around and fill everyones glass with filtered water) it actually went way over what it would have cost to do the pp open bar. AND we set a limit which at the time they did not honor (though they gave us a refund later).

 

Even if you have people who don't drink they WILL be drinking other items and those soft drinks are that cheap either. They also serve wine with dinner (charged by the bottle).

I guess it really just depends on how much the open bar costs - $55 for 4 hours does seem like a great deal and i'd take that. Like Fiesta Americana, the Gran Melia was asking for some outrageous amount per person (i forget exactly what) which we calculated would mean every single person at the wedding would have to drink 2-3 drinks per hour for every hour. I estimate about 1 drink per person/per hour (b/c we have a lot of drinkers but a lot of non-drinkers). So since the average drink is about $8, I decided I wouldn't pay for open bar that was more than about $8-10/hour per person. Even though it may have been less stressful, I am just pretty confident we will not spend as much as the Gran Melia is asking.