DIY Wedding Bar: questions to consider
“This is designed to give an idea of all the elements there are to running a bar at a wedding, something we think we are pretty good at. Hire The Bar was started out of frustration at going to numerous weddings where the drinks hadn’t been thought through, which, believe me, results in queues of frustrated guests.”
Make your big day one to remember!
The beauty of a dry hire venue is that you get to do everything, the downside is that you have to do everything!
How to provide drinks for your guests can either make it a day that you and your loved ones will remember forever, or one you’ll to too stressed to remember, and they’d rather forget!
And let’s be honest, you’ve already got enough on your plate organising every single last detail.
By the time you’ve managed to get all your nearest and dearest together in one place, wouldn’t you want to be able to celebrate with them, rather about worrying about watering them?
You wouldn’t expect to spend a single second of your day in the kitchen preparing or serving food, so why would you want to do the same when it comes to the drinks?
So, why not leave the crucial task of ensuring your friends and family have the drinks they want, when they want them, to the professionals? To people who pride themselves on providing the drinks, the service and the smiles that will guarantee every single one of your guests creates memories they’ll cherish forever.
That’s where we come in: because with us on your team we’ll take care of keeping everyone in high spirits so that you can relax and make the very most of your big day!
Creating a DIY bar
To help you make the right decision for your event, let’s look at the key elements that will have to come together so that everyone can celebrate with you in style.
How to stock a wedding bar..
You need a bar stocked with a selection of drinks that offers something for everyone, right from their first drink through to their last.
How many people are coming? What do they like to drink? Are they any non-drinkers and what will they have? What about those with allergies? Where will you get all the booze from? And how much of each type do you need? When will you order it and where will you store it? How much should you charge for different drinks? What’s the plan if you run out of supplies? Or what will you do with any leftovers? Will people be happy with beer in cans? Or bottles? Or do you need draught lager? And glasses - how many of each type will you need, and where will you source them from?
Cool drinks for weddings..
There’s not much worse than a warm drink, you need to consider how you’re going to keep everything chilled. If you’re serving spirits, and you’ll likely need to, you need ice. Lots of ice. But exactly how much? And where will you get it? Where will you store it, how will you transport it, and what’s the plan once you get it to the venue? If you’re serving bottles of wine, lager, mixers or any other beverage, then refrigeration is the only option. Yes, a wheelbarrow filled to the brim with ice and beers looks great to strangers on Instagram, but it’s a mistake unless you want your guests to have sticky hands and clothes from all that label adhesive that’s now on them and not the bottle, and how many bottle openers, how will you display them? Are lots of discarded bottle caps part of the design? So you need to ask yourself will the venue have a fridge available, and how much it costs. If not, you’ll have to hire one externally, then manage all the logistics around that, including stocking it up, then refilling it all night as more and more drinks get drunk. And again, what happens if you run out of cold drinks or have a huge amount of booze left in the morning?
Who can staff your wedding bar?
Who will serve your guests their drinks? Do you have friends that you haven’t invited to the wedding but you could ask to work at it? Have they any experience in serving drinks or, more pertinently, would they still be your friends after you made such a request? Unlikely.
The better option is to hire staff - but from where? How much will the cost and how long do you need them for? What will their exact job be, who will brief them, and when will they do it? Will they wear a uniform so they can be identified, and how will you ensure they work as instructed, and not slope off to the dance floor at the first opportunity?
Other questions you need to have answers for include whether the venue has a counter bar, and if not how you’ll hire one. Do you have the spirit measures and bottle openers and corkscrews and ice scoops and juice and fruit containers? Who is going to get all the fruit? Who will chop it and when? And if people are helping themselves will there be enough space for more than one person to make a drink at one time? These are important questions - and there’s a lot of them to answer!
How much will a DIY bar cost?
Now the Brexit has scuppered peoples favourite identical rhyme, the booze cruise. Where else to source the drinks from? Options include a big supermarket shop or specialist wine merchants, but they can be expensive, and you again face uncertainties about how much you need of each type of drink. Then can you or someone (ideally someone you trust very well!) safely store the delicious drinks before your event? Then how much do you charge your guests? Are you compliant with licensing laws? Most people will accept that drinks won’t come for free, but surely you don’t want to appear like you’re ripping them off, or even profiteering from your own party!
Minimal queueing
It’s a party - no one wants to waste a single second in a queue, least of all for another drink! This is why the quality of your serving staff, and how many you have, as well as the bar layout, is so important to the smooth-flowing of your event. So, do you have enough staff? Are they fast enough, and able to keep smiling even when rushed off their feet? How are the drinks arranged? How many people can you serve at once, and how many drinks can get served in an hour? Your production line - clean glass, ice, fruit, beverage, garnish, next drink - needs to be up and running at full capacity with a minimum of time and fuss. Oh, and what’s happening to all the dirty glasses? Who’s picking them up and getting them washed so they can be used again?
Clean glasses
You need glasses, and lots of them. Where can you hire them from, how much notice do they need, and how much will they cost? What types of glass do you need and how many of each? You’ll need flutes for the fizz on arrival, then water glasses for the wedding breakfast and wine glasses on every table. Then more flutes for toasts, and fresh glasses for beer, spirits and soft drinks. So how many different drinks will each person have and can you guarantee a clean glass will be there for them when they need it? How are they going to be washed and dried before and after each use? Who is going to collect and wash them all day and all night? Where are they stored beforehand? How are they transported to and from the venue?
Clean and safe environment
People will dance, drinks will spill, glasses will break - these are inevitabilities of any party. But who will keep the dance floor clear of broken glass? Will people be dancing in barefoot? Will kids be about? Will anyone wipe the tables? Someone has to. Same for mopping up all the spillages? Have you got cloths and cleaning spray? Do you have a lobby brush and glass disposal plan? Who will take away the recycling and rubbish? Do you want to end your big day sweeping all night long? Then spend the next day at the bottle bin?
Hire The Bar will help, so you don’t have to!
As you now know, there’s an awful lot to think about, plan and deliver before - before, during and after - your big day to ensure an amazing time is had by all. So if the only alcohol-related headache you want to have is the morning after your big day, let Hire The Bar take care of everything, so you don’t have to worry about keeping your guests well-watered for a single minute longer!
If you’d like to know more about how Hire The Bar can solve all your big day drinks problems, you can get in touch with me here.
Tom