Welcome back to our series on planning your London Dry Hire Wedding. By now you should have a grip on choosing a caterer, working out your timings, deciding on entertainment and most importantly your budget. Today we’ll look at how to provide a bar in a blank canvas venue.

For many couples the major advantage to selecting a dry hire venue is the ability to provide their own alcohol without paying a corkage charge. This is seen as the most economical way to provide an open bar for all guests. Let’s look at how to avoid the pitfalls of providing your own bar.

More than just the drinks…

Remember that with a dry hire venue you’ll need to hire in everything you need for your party - and that includes the bar and barwares. You’ll need glassware, a bar, ice buckets, and other bar equipment as well as a physical bar structure. You’ll also need ice, garnishes and soft drinks on top of your booze, so do ensure that you are budgeting for all requirements. Dry hire venues will not have glasswashers, so each glass will only be used once - that’s a lot of glassware that we’re going to need! Remember we’ll need to pay staff to serve your drinks too.

Leftovers…

For most people, the idea of having leftover drinks is no real hardship! However, we’ve seen on numerous occasions that there are enough leftovers to run the entire event again - on a few occasions enough to run it again twice. You’ll need to organise collection of any leftovers - sometimes the next day, sometimes in the following week and at some venues it must be removed on the night itself. If you are providing your own drinks it’s worth talking to an experienced planner on how much to expect to buy.

Where to buy your drinks…

Unfortunately the days of the booze cruise are over. Since the UK’s new trade deal with the EU kicked in on 31.12.21 the new limits are:-

• 42 litres of beer (5.3 cases of 33cl bottles)

• 18 litres of still wine (24 standard bottles)

• 4 litres of spirits OR 9 litres of sparkling wine, fortified wine or any alcoholic beverage less than 22% ABV (12 bottles of fizz OR 5.7 standard bottles of spirit)

Retail prices on drinks are still preferable to bar prices and of course there are always offers and multi-buy savings.

Bottomless Bars from The Wedding Arrangers

At The Wedding Arrangers we have teamed up with Hackney’s Behind This Wall as well as some of our favourite independent wine merchants to provide Unlimited Bars to our clients. At less than the cost of a London pint per person per hour we supply:-

• 90 minutes of Prosecco or Cava

• Unlimited red and white wine - we’ll take you for a tasting to choose your favourite

• Unlimited beers

• Unlimited spirits (served as single measures with mixer)

• Unlimited soft drinks

• Glassware

• Bar tenders

• A bar structure

• All barwares

• Ice & garnishes

• All transport and logistics

• Also available at a supplement - shots, cocktails, additional fizz, premium wines and artesian spirits

If this sounds like the ideal solution for your dry hire wedding, get in touch today

Cash bars at dry hire weddings

If you’d like to run a cash bar at your wedding (either for the entire event or perhaps after welcome drinks and dinner wine?) you’ll need to consider how this might look. If you expect that all the expenses of running a bar are covered by the takings (stock, staff, glassware, tills etc) you’ll likely be asked to guarantee a minimum spend. Drinks will then be sold at London bar prices to cover costs.

Many clients feel that London bar prices are on the expensive side to ask their guests to pay, but at the same time do not have the budget for an open bar.

The Wedding Arrangers can provide cash bars for after dinner drinking with reduced price drinks and no minimum spend on the basis that welcome drinks and dinner wines are purchased through us and that base costs are covered. We’ll also ensure a licensee is present to supervise the bar (your venue will require this). For many clients this represents an economical middle ground where neither they nor their guests are left feeling fleeced. Talk to The Wedding Arrangers today to discuss how this can work for you.

Thankyou!

Thankyou for taking the time to read our dry hire bar guide. Don’t forget to bookmark the page and do look out for the next missive in your inbox from The Wedding Arrangers.

TWA

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