mmmm.. beeeer..

just channeling Homer for a sec..

Miss National Harbor reminded me of our own booze dilemma. We decided early on that we had no interest in paying a per-person "open bar" fee (usually upwards of $25/person), which is one of the many reasons we chose Old Town Hall - they don't care how we handle the alcohol situation as long as we are having a private party and not selling anything. So we are having our caterer provide the bartender and "set-ups" (soft drinks, mixers, etc.) at $3/person, and then we are going to Total Wine or Costco or possibly a local mom & pop store (we'll see what we can afford), to buy all the alcohol we'll need - so our guests will do the drink-till-it's-gone thang. But we're not going to do liquor, just beer and wine (so the mixers provided by the caterer are basically useless but we will have a number of non-drinkers who will welcome juices and soft drinks so hopefully it's worth it).

I had wanted to do a signature cocktail but so far Mr. Fairfax has convinced me beer and wine is good enough (we'll see how we're doing on budget, I may bring him around in the end). So all we have to do is deliver the booze to the caterer a day or two in advance, and they'll take care of getting it to the venue. At the end of the night, if there's anything left, we'll take it to the "HQ" hotel and let the guests have a nice after party.

So the question is, how do you figure out how much you'll need? I've found a few sites that provide calculators - 3000 Drinks, Evite, and then a WeddingWire.com forum where there seems to be a pretty helpful conversation going on about calculating consumption.

By the way if you're not familiar with WeddingWire.com - it's awesome! I've used it a lot in my vendor searches, and they have a great budget planning tool, calendar, etc - and they host wedding websites. We ended up making our own site using Google Sites but the WeddingWire one is pretty great - it even has a function where you can collect electronic RSVPs, and it pulls from the guest list you uploaded (so if someone tries to RSVP and they're not already on the guest list, it won't work for them).

Sidebar: just found this etsy shop and I am in love. Custom bridal flats! uh! eco-friendly and totally affordable.

happy weekend everyone! I'm off to the beach with the future in-laws. :) :)