Wedding Forum - Shocked!!...

Is there anything you can cut back or down on? Guests don't mind buying a few drinks themselves.

How much wine per head have you ordered?

Take the wine out of the package, we did. Even with corkage we saved over £1000 supplied our own bought from supermarkets when on offer! And our wine was better quality too.

They can't refuse!

My venue wanted £13 per bottle and as we have nearly 200 people, with one bottle serving 6 standard wine glasses each, it came in at a lot of money and that was just for one glass each for either the arrival drinks or toasts - we could only realistically afford one or the other with their prices!
Our original plan was to provide our own wine and just pay corkage but apparently their alcohol license doesn't extend to people bringing booze onto the premises from outside sources....
So plan B! We've bought god knows how many bottles of Shloer and loads of cartons of orange juice! The latter will be for arrival drinks and the Shloer will be served for toasts!
We've paid about £25 for the lot as T3sco had a 3for£3 deal on the Shloer and we bought T3sco cheap orange juice as no one will know the difference lol!
There will be two bars available for the guests too buy their own alcoholic drinks should they wish them!
We're already giving them free food and non-alcoholic drinks lol so the basics are covered

Annoys me when guests expect to have free drinks all day. Ours only had so much because it was all included in the package, otherwise I think we would have supplied a lot less. Especially when they get so drunk too.

I honestly think you don't need to have half a bottle per person. Limit it to one glass per person for drinks reception, one glass at the meal and a fizzy for the toast. Forget bottled water, just get jugs or iced tap water which should be free.

We have took wine off our package as I know some of them don't drink, others don't like wine and I don't like waste. Corkage was just as expensive £15 per bottle!!! so we aren't doing that either.

I think we will have the cut down on the wine we cut out the sparking wine for the as we thought they could use the wine they have. We have asked for tap water and not bottled tap waster is fine for people at home so it can be fine for meal too lol! The house wine is £20 per bottle! They never mentioned that when we were agreeing to house wine! I assumed house wine was the cheapest they do. You can tell I don't drink as I don't have a clue! X

Fingers crossed you get this resolved, I would request a price list of their wines first and foremost.. see if you can swap the house for a cheaper bottle. If not id certainly reduce by about half if that helps you?

I don't know many wine drinkers at all if any actually coming to think about it. Some will drink it if given but most definitely prefer other beverages. x

Year that's a good idea elinor. I am going to dig out the 1st quote we got and out contact to see what they say. We just think there is some thing wrong some were...

Hi :). Glad it not just us! I don't thu I people will be that botherd tbh. At my cousins wedding we just brought our own drinks I don't think any one really noticed. Xx

So I have emaild the venu back, I have asked them for a cheaper alternative to the alcohol. E.g bucks fiz/pims for the drinks recepton. We have also asked if they have a cheaper wine for the tables. If worse comes to worst we will have to cut the alcohol for the dinks recepton and just have Orange juice and water. We will also reduce the wine to one glass per person for the meal so they at least have a dink for the toast. We have also asked them to reduce the evening buffet of they can. The quote caters for 80% of the guests but that includes day guests too. We have asked if they can cater for only 50% of the guests. Out reasoning is that the day guested will of had a 3 corse meal with coffee and pettifors. There will be cake cut for every one and a sweet table (we are doing that our selves so not costing very much). So I don't think every one will be hungry for a buffet just some of the evening guests will appreshste some food.
So lets see what they come up with.. X

Yeah our corkage is £10 per bottle so it will actually work out cheaper to buy everyone a drink of choice for the toast, people will always have opinions on what you should and shouldn't have you just have to go with whats best for you... times do change

my best man will be taking the drinks order when everyone is seated so I know they will only get 1 and half of them will be soft drinks anyway

A bottle of wine per person??? Jeez, we had two bottles put on a table of ten!

We are trying to reduce the amounts of wine. Still waiting for a email back from the venu to see what they say. I have probly up set them asking for cheaper wine lol! Still waiting for a email back...

You're well within your rights to ask for it Clair, and not being funny but they are the ones making the money, so they don't have any right to be upset. They will have had this before, I'm sure, so don't worry about it :)

I've already cut the amount of alcohol our guests are getting after reading this thread! Lol. xx

So I got a email back.. She have us a quote for pimms instead of Prosecco, and complety ignored the request for cheaper wine :(. So we have emaild back to ask for a quote for bucks fiz for the dinks reception (to work out what one is cheaper). We have also asked to reduce the wine at the tables as we know a few people that wont drink wine. Every one should get at least one glas of red or white wine. Now let's see what she comes back with, tbh if they don't corporate with the wine then we will just say for Every one to have one glass of wine with there dinner and just leave it at that. X

We are having 8-10 people to a table with 2 bottles of wine on each. After that they will have to pay for their own drinks.

Yeah we are having one red one white too. I think that's all you need,

Exactly, weddings are expensive enough!

Aww Clair it's a nightmare to know what to do, we have gone with corkage but only because our caterers are only charging £2.50 a head for corkage so it was cheaper to buy our own wine on offer in tEsc0 usually 7.99 but we got it for 4.99 and storing in our friends wine cellar. We felt massive pressure to fuel wine for the whole day as our friends all did the same, eek. But with all the savings for red and white wine - 2 bottles per person (I know excessive) and 2.5 glasses of prosecco each at our drinks reception it's only cost us £1,500 for the whole day so we just thought we may as well do it. We too are asking guests to charge their glasses with the wine for the toasts. Timings wise the speeches are all split over the meal so it's hard to give them a glass of fizz to keep toasting as people will drink it during the farther of the bride , have main course and need another for the grooms and best mans.

We had a nightmare with our venue just two weeks ago who "failed" to mention that we could not serve red wine in the castle! WHAT! So now have 90 bottles of red wine that we could not use, luckily my fiancée is a Great negotiator and they have agreed to let us have the wine at the dinner (we are serving steak!) but it has cost us an extra £509 deposit just incase any gets split. So basically our guests have to get through 90 bottles of red wine in 2.5 hours!


Anyhow I'm hoping it's the last stress now and all will be fine. Hen weekend this weekend whoop! Xxx

ouwh!! thats bad!! it's an dilemma.

How cheeky! Hope they cooperate!

This has been a difficult one for us too. Our venue doesn't charge corkage (major selling point to us lol) so we will definitely be providing our own drinks and then theres a bar in the evening for guests to buy their own. Because people are having to choose their food options when they rsvp, we're also including a selection of drinks to pick from for the meal so includes beer and soft drinks. Its probably a bit late for you to do this so I hope the venue get back to you with better options as you've asked. Otherwise, and especially as you don't really drink, just put posh soft drinks on the table like elderflower cordial. There's no need for you to pay for people to get drunk. X

So the venu are finally cooperated :)! We are going to have bucks fizz for the drinks reception, instead of having cheaper wine we have reduced the amount of wine that has been surved, due to family members saying the are not botherd about drinking. And managed to reduce the evening buffet by quite a lot too :).
It's still a bit more then we expected but it's a bit more mangable then when we first got the quote.
It shows persistents pays off :). X