Supplying own wine for wedding - thoughts please

GlamGirlie

Hi all,

We are getting married in December and almost everything is sorted.

The venue is supplying the wine and champagne; the wine is £15/bottle x 40 bottles (i.e. £600), the fizz is £21/bottle x30 bottles (£630).

The wine is split on paper 20x white and 20x red although the venue is flexible and if people drink more of one than another, it may end up being 30x red and 10x white for example.

Now here is my dilemma -

We recently had a bottle of red wine at a friends' house which was delicious, and it turns out it is from Aldi, at £3.60/bottle. I assume you can get similarly priced white wine, so 40x bottles would come in at £144.

Asda has a Prosecco that we like for £7, so that would be a total of £210 for the fizz.

The venue charges £10 per bottle corkage, so for x70 bottles this is £700.

This is a saving of £176.

My question is this - is it really worth saving £176 for all the aggravation it would cause to buy our own and deliver it to the venue (an hour away from our home)?

We would also need to buy more than 20x red and 20x white in case one was more popular than the other - there is nothing worse than being a guest and being told the red wine has 'run out because it's only two glasses per person'.

What do you all think?

lisajane8482

Have you tried the venues wine? You could be providing them with something that tastes like vinegar.

We provided our own wine (and cava for the toast) as the venues wine was awful and expensive too. Could you not put bottles on the tables? We did that and put one bottle of each (red, white and rose) on each table. It did work out that some tables had slightly more wine than others due to numbers of people/children sat around each table but no one complained as non of them expected free wine.

HTH

GlamGirlie

Hi, yes that's what I'm worried about! We've had duff wine at other people's weddings and it was awful.

Our tasting meal is the first week of November, this is when we get to try the food & wine. But I'd like to start buying it sooner than that, if we decide to buy our own, that way we can at least get the Prosecco whilst it is on offer.

We're not having Rose, just Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc. We have allocated 3/4 bottle per person as we have always found 1/2 bottle per person insufficient.

The wine waiters will serve the wine so they will distribute the bottles according to what people ask for.

I'm certain no one would actually complain, but that's not really the point, in my opinion. We want everyone to enjoy the meal and have sufficient vino to see them through all the courses, not just the starter!

Lookingtobrighterthings

Hi,
I bought my own wine and paid corkage for my wedding (£12 for wine and £14 for champs). I think it was worth it.

I waited for the wine to be on offer and bought it with a cashback credit card. The venue didn't charge for any bottles unopened.

I have 90 adult (all day) guests. I supplied 20 bottles of fizz, 30 bottles of white and 30 bottles of red BUT I deliberately brought more to the venue as I wanted there to be complimentary wine to use up in the evening if anybody wanted some (I couldn't afford - and wasn't prepared to pay for - a free bar).
I ended up bringing home 1 bottle of fizz, 11 bottles of white and 8 bottles of red home.