A lot of your guests are looking forward to the bar at your wedding. It’s the hangout zone– it gives your guests some courage to get on the dance floor! With that said, you might have a lot of questions concerning the operation of the bar. Hidden Creek has some wedding bar tips and tricks for maximizing its efficiency and making it a pleasurable addition to your wedding.

When Should the Bar Open?

The first of our wedding bar tips is that we recommend opening the bar immediately after the ceremony. That’s how you get people inside or how you get them to arrive at the reception on time. This gives your guest some direction on where to go next. There’s a reason it is called “cocktail hour.” If you have your wedding at our venue, we include security that operates for five hours, while the bar is open. If you want to keep the bar open for longer, you definitely can! All you need to do is add more time to your bar service and we will add those additional security officers. 

How Long Should the Bar Be Open?

Five hours of open bar is a sweet spot! That’s plenty of time for your guests to loosen up and get on the dance floor. We all know how people can get when there’s too much alcohol in their system–you don’t want them to push their limits. 

If your reception is six hours long, you might be wondering about that extra hour. No drinks for a whole hour? Although your guests might miss the free drinks, it’s a good idea to give them the last hour of the reception to sober up, drink some coffee, and be ready to roll out safely.

If you want to increase the amount of time the bar is open, you definitely can. We just recommend at least having the bar closed for the last 30 minutes before your grand exit. This will save you a lot of problems, guaranteed!

How to Stay Within Budget

If you are dealing with a tighter budget, you can limit the drinks your bar serves. For example, having a beer, wine, and signature cocktail bar will save you lots of money compared to a full bar. You won’t need to buy all the different mixers and hard liquor. Instead, pick out your two favorite wines, your three favorite beers, and then your favorite signature cocktail and your partner’s favorite cocktail. Then, you can have cute signs that say “His” and “Hers” signature cocktails, and you will only need to provide the liquor and mixers for those two drinks.

Late-Night Snack

One of our last wedding bar tips is to consider providing a late-night snack if you are providing alcohol at your wedding, especially if the bar is going to run for longer than 5 hours. People are going to need a little bit of something in their stomach if dinner was 5 or 6 hours ago, and they’ve been drinking that whole time.

Create Lifetime Memories at Hidden Creek 

We hope these wedding bar tips were useful and we can’t wait to help you plan out one of the best days of your life. Schedule a tour at our venue today, and give our wedding tips and tricks a shot!