Cheapest way (in the UK?) for providing alcohol for 200 wedding guests?

exet0626

Hi,

My fiancee and I are getting married in August, and will be providing a free bar in a marquee reception for 200 (raving alcoholic!) guests. Therefore, we will need to buy LOTS of champage, wine, spirits, lager, pimms, mixers etc. Could anyone please offer advice on how to go about bulk-buying as cheaply as possible? If this includes free delivery and sale or return, all the better.

Thanks in advance.

Rods

ickster

Hi - we had the same type of wedding! Basically, we borrowed a van, got a cheap crossing to Calais and picked up 300 bottles of wine at about £1 each, 50 bottles of champagne at £7 each and 100 bottles of water for 25p a litre. Everyone was plastered and consequently had a great time...it was a shame we had to leave to catch our plane!

Have a great day!:beer:

Sarahjovi

We spent £200 on assorted drinks - Lager, Wine, Alcopops etc., for our 40th party, approx 40-50 guests, I shopped around and got lager, Bitter, Cider, spirits and soft drinks from Tesco - Alcopops from Netto's. We had more than enough and were still drinking the left overs at Xmas!

Although £200 x 4 would be about £800, perhaps you should shop around abit more!

Sarah

inkie

Do you really need the spirits? Why not look at providing wine/sparkling wine, beer and then soft drinks. I would look at Netto/Aldi for the boxes of wine - probably more economical than buying bottles.

VickyA_2

We did roughtly the same, but we had on offer: red wine, white wine, soft drinks, 1 beer and 1 lager. The red wine and white wine was bought in offers in Tesco and Morrisons and the beer and lager was supplied in kegs from the local pub (who were also the caterers). At the end of the evening, they just charged us for the beer that was consumed. For 150 people, the beer and soft drinks total was just under £400. Total drinks for the whole day was £650 (including champagne, wine on tables for the meal).

angchris

could you make some huge bowls of alcoholic punch making the booze stretch a bit further? you could get away with making it up with squash as well as fruit juice keeping the cost down , so long as it looks lovely with lots of sliced fruit bobbing in it you could even make a non alcoholic punch for the kids.:beer:

belfastgirl23

Tesco's wine festival is on at the minute if that's any use to you. You can also use offers to get points or money off if you check the vouchers board. I'd say consider using prosecco instead of champagne - it's an italian sparkling wine which is a proper drink in itself rather than a cheap champagne and very nice. I think it's part of the tesco offer at the mo. Otherwise Pimms is a good idea since you can add a lot of lemonade and fruit which looks good and cuts down on cost. I wouldn't go too mad on other spirits though, I think wine and pimms (and some beer) should probably be enough for most people. And if they want spirits it's reasonable that they bring them themselves.

BTW there are tips here on buying cheap vodka etc and filtering it through a water filter to make it taste premium, then rebottling it. Never tried it myself since spirits don't agree with me but sounded interesting.

Have a lovely day.

i_wanna_save_money!

BTW there are tips here on buying cheap vodka etc and filtering it through a water filter to make it taste premium, then rebottling it. Never tried it myself since spirits don't agree with me but sounded interesting.

Can you give me the link to this please it sounds interesting. Thank you.

belfastgirl23

Here's a link to a scientific site

http://www.ohmygoditburns.com/

But if you search the threads for the chat forums for vodka and filter you'll find some more info - see the top of the page for the search tools.

sanfrancisco

Hi,

We brought all our alcohol in Calais, at Majestic. We ordered it online and when we arrived to pick it up, it was ready and waiting for us. When we did it (june 05) they were also doing a deal where they refunded the ferry ticket, if you did a day return.

I just asked hubby, and he said when you go to the .co.uk website you have to click on Calais. (We have just looked and the deal still exists (spend over £300 free ferry)).

We did decide (as others have said) to only serve soft drinks, beer, bittter, white wine/red wine and champagne (we got some good stuff and some cheap stuff). No one cared and the champagne did not run out till midnight.

LisaT186

We just shopped around and kept an eye open for offers. Tescos for the Champagne, half price when we bought it, Sainsburys for the red wine on offer and Threshers for the white. Got an idea of what we liked and kept our eyes peeled for a few months when shopping and in the papers.
We didn't provide spirits though, so not in the know on those, but I expect the supermarkets have offers on those too, check out the aisle each time you go.