Economic Wedding Ideas

12 responses so far ↓

• 1 ♥December Bride! // Jan 30, 2009 at 3:48 am

  I’m having a nicely decorated table set up with already filled champagne glasses, and apple cider. (glasses will be chilled)

  There will be another table for the other drinks.

  The champagne glasses will have a charm around the bottom to tell the two apart.

  If you do beer, don’t do beer in the can. Lol

• 2 Mlle.BMW // Feb 2, 2009 at 6:08 am

  If you are having the food buffet style, there’s nothing wrong with also having a drinks table. I’d suggest champagne, already poured in glasses as another poster said(that way, no one sees the bottle and you can get an inexpensive brand! ) The same could go for the wine, as far as having it pre-poured.

  I’d do without the beer if I were you, unless you and your fiance have a favorite kind that you always drink together or something. In that case, I’d have JUST that kind (in bottles) and have it in a pretty galvanized bucket with lots of ice and a ribbon around the bucket.

  Also, have pitchers of water with pretty slices of lemon, and plenty of glasses and ice. You could also do sparkling water, like perrier or pellegrino (or even plain seltzer water!) in pitchers with pretty sliced fruits.

• 3 elfgarden7 // Feb 5, 2009 at 4:41 am

  i would appoint someone to mix the drinks or be the bartender. you could ask certain friends to pitch in as a wedding gift an bring some alcohol to be served at the wedding. if possible its best to hire a bartender for a couple of hours. sometimes they can include what you want to drink for a set price. ask around local pubs or college campus or phone book. you might even ask the place you are having the reception and they can help as well. hope this helps.

• 4 My thoughts // Feb 5, 2009 at 8:41 pm

  Nobody says you need to have a full bar. Your choices sound quite fine, especially if the event is fairly casual.

  Seventy-five to eighty really isn’t all that small so consider your finger foods. Perhaps an afternnon reception rather than evening. If people aren’t eating much, and drinking, things could get dicey.

• 5 dic9na // Feb 7, 2009 at 11:58 pm

  How about BYO (hard liquor) then serve wine, water, juices, soda etc. That shouldn’t be too bad cause there’s nothing wrong with being cost conscious!!

  More money going into the honeymoon !!

• 6 jlcon // Feb 10, 2009 at 6:42 pm

  I’m not sure of how formal your recption will be, so it’s a little hard to be too specific. But, champagne would be a very nice touch–it screams “wedding” and you can find some nice sparkling wines at really good prices, and you really don’t need much more than 1 glass per guest. If you are having a casual enough wedding, you can consider finding nice containers to fill with ice and bottles of beer and wine. Place appropriate glasses next to them, since you probably don’t want people walking around with beer bottles during your reception. I’m not sure if you are having dancing or not, but if it is strictly finger food and cake, you don’t want to purchase too much alcohol for guests, because they won’t be eating much and you don’t want them to get drunk.

• 7 fizzystuff // Feb 12, 2009 at 5:18 am

  Dont worry, you are on the right track!
  You are right to keep the drink selections simple and limited. As far as the wine, it is not necessary but try to think how its going to match your food. Sometimes finger food can be overpowered by wine. You could serve just beer in glass bottles, then you dont have to worry about it going flat and it will still look nice.
  For presentation, I think a clean white tablecloth and a few flowers will do the trick. Set out the sodas in glasses or clear plastic cups, in nice straight rows. Every 4 or 5 rows, leave some space and lay one long-stemmed flower down, or if you have the budget for it, a tiny bunch of flowers. Continue alternating rows of drinks with a flower. Good luck!
  You might also consider borrowing a large self-serve coffee warmer, churches usually have one for their social hours. You could set out cream and sugar.

• 8 zenobia2525 // Feb 13, 2009 at 11:12 pm

  We’re getting married in 2 weeks and were faced with the same situation. We ended up making our own Merlot and Chardoney wines at one of those wine kit stores that practically do all the work for you - you just have to do the fun part. My fiance and I made a small sample batch last fall to see if we’d like it and were really surprised at how good it was. So a couple of months ago we made approx. 30 bottles each of red and white wine. It cost us about $130.00 all total for each batch - labels are usually included but I preferred to make my own on the computer (I just used large address shipping lables). We’re also going to have a large keg of beer - about $175. from a local micro-brewery and includes the refridgeration device that will give us cold beer on tap. We’ll also serve each guest a small glass of champagne to sip on for the toasts only. We’ll have coffee, tea, soda pop, and jugs of water as well. Doing it this way allows us to have an open bar at a reasonable cost and still provides something for everyone. Just make sure to know what your local rules are for serving home made wine and that the location of your reception will allow you to provide your own alcohol. We’ve rented the grounds and main floor of a local heritage house (now an arts and cultural centre) from Friday at 4pm until late Sunday afternoon, for only $400. (allows us time for set up and clean up). Hope this helps. Oh, and making the wine was actually quite a fun thing to do together.

• 9 Erica S // Feb 16, 2009 at 1:08 am

  i had 75 people at my wedding which was $5,000 for the whole day.

  i served a few kinds of beer and 4 kinds of wine, with bottled water, soda, and sparkling grape juice available.

  if you wwant to go the wine route, check out sams club or costco for big savings. i had 36 bottles of wine and 2 cases of beer and there were leftovers for weeks after. my group was much more into wine than beer, but you could striek your own balance for your group.

• 10 Lydia // Feb 17, 2009 at 9:45 pm

  No, don’t have people serve themselves. It’s well worth hiring a bartender, they’re professional and know what they are doing.
  Just remember, best is not always cheapest. You’re already not feeding dinner to your guests, maybe you should be having a full open bar.

• 11 Kat // Feb 18, 2009 at 2:56 pm

  I recently attended a very casual wedding reception with about 75 people. Drinks were just a variety of sodas, bottled water and light and regular beers placed in large tubs full of ice. Beer was kept seperate from water and sodas. No one was offended, those who wanted to drink, drank beer. It isn’t trashy, and if that is what you can afford, do it.

• 12 JAYNE C // Feb 20, 2009 at 11:48 am

  I got married last year in our backyard. We had an informal wedding reception with about 70 people. We were not going to do alcohol but at the last minute decided to and now I thank god we did because it was such a big hit. We did soda, beer, wine and Then we put a variety of bottles of alcohol on a table with ice and mixers and everyone helped themselves. Our day was perfect. Having it informal made for a very relaxing day for everyone. Good luck and congratulations to you.

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