Food & Drink
Drinks logistics: welcome drink, the bar, corkage, when the free bar stops
Drink is the line where couples most often lose control of a budget, because it is the only thing being consumed continuously for nine hours and the only line priced three different ways at once: per head, per bottle and per drink.
This page is the operational version. How much a room actually drinks, how corkage works and when it pays, what a package is really pricing, and the single decision that most affects the second half of the evening, which is when the free bar stops.
How much a room actually drinks
The working planning figures used across the trade are these. A welcome drink is roughly one and a half glasses a head, because people take a second while they wait. Wine over a meal is about half a bottle a head, which is three medium glasses. Toast fizz is one glass a head, and it is the drink most often over-ordered because it is bought by the head rather than by the pour.
A bottle of wine gives six 125ml glasses or four 175ml. A bottle of fizz gives six flutes. Those two facts do most of the arithmetic, and they are the reason a hundred and twenty guests need around twenty bottles of fizz for the toast and around sixty bottles of wine across a meal.
The variance is enormous, and it is driven by the guest list rather than by the venue. An afternoon wedding with a lot of drivers, small children and older guests drinks perhaps half what an evening wedding with a coach and a hotel drinks. Anyone applying a standard figure to an unusual guest list will be wrong in one direction or the other.
Corkage, and the arithmetic that settles it
Corkage is a per-bottle or per-person charge for drink the venue did not sell you. It is a legitimate charge: the venue’s margin lives in the bar, and it is still supplying glassware, chilling, staff, service and breakage cover.
Whether it pays is a two-line calculation almost nobody performs. Take the corkage rate, add what you would actually pay for the bottle, and compare that total against the venue’s own list price for something comparable. On house wine the gap is frequently small. On champagne and on anything the venue marks up heavily, the gap is usually large.
Note that corkage is not always per bottle. Some venues charge per person for the duration of the stay, which changes the arithmetic completely: a per-person charge rewards heavy drinking and penalises a moderate room, and a per-bottle charge does the opposite.
The hidden costs of bringing your own
Storage, chilling capacity, transport, insurance, and the fact that unopened bottles are usually your problem to remove. A venue that charges no corkage but has one small fridge has set a real limit on how much white wine can be served cold, and that limit is discovered at about four in the afternoon.
The approach by budget
Supply the meal, sell the rest
The arrangement that works at this level is a welcome drink, wine on the tables and a toast, all provided, with a cash bar afterwards. Guests understand it, it is common, and it caps the spend at a knowable number.
Two decisions make it feel generous rather than mean. Announce it plainly, because uncertainty is what makes guests uncomfortable rather than the arrangement itself. And put a good jug of something soft on every table, because the drivers and non-drinkers are the guests most likely to feel forgotten.
If the venue allows it, buy the wine on a sale-or-return arrangement from a merchant. Over-ordering then costs nothing, and running out is the more expensive failure.
Do the corkage arithmetic properly
At mid budget the corkage question genuinely matters, and it is worth the twenty minutes. Get the venue’s corkage rate in writing, get its list price for a comparable bottle, and price your own supply including delivery.
Where corkage is charged per bottle, the saving concentrates at the top of the list. Bringing your own house wine may save little; bringing your own champagne usually saves a great deal, because that is where venue mark-ups are steepest.
Where corkage is charged per person, the calculation flips. It becomes a fixed cost per guest regardless of consumption, which suits a room that drinks heavily and penalises one that does not.
Buy the service, and keep control of the finish
With a generous budget the temptation is an unlimited package. They are priced for the heaviest plausible consumption across the whole room, so they are excellent value for a heavy-drinking guest list and poor value for a mixed one.
The better generous-budget purchase is usually staff and glassware: enough people pouring that nobody queues, and enough clean glasses that service never stalls. Both are cheaper than an open bar and both are more visible.
Where the money stops working is on spirits before the meal. They accelerate a room considerably faster than wine, and the practical consequence lands during the speeches rather than at the bar.
What the licence lets the bar do
Last orders, whether alcohol can be served in a marquee, and when music must stop are all licensing matters, settled long before the day.
Read the licensing guidanceWhen the free bar should stop
Earlier than most people plan, and at an announced moment rather than by quietly running out. A free bar that ends without warning reads as an accident; one that ends at a stated time reads as the arrangement.
The practical answer is to run it through the drinks reception and the meal, then move to a cash bar for the evening. By then the room has been drinking for five or six hours, the marginal drink is doing less for the party than the first one did, and the spend from that point rises steeply for very little return.
If a free bar is running all night, put a cap on it and ask the venue to tell you when it is approaching. An open tab with no ceiling is the single most common way a wedding budget is exceeded on the day itself.
What actually makes the difference
- Doing the corkage arithmetic rather than assuming. Two lines of sums, and it frequently reverses the obvious answer.
- Chilling capacity. The constraint on serving cold white wine is fridge space, not supply, and nobody asks about it.
- Announcing when the bar changes. A stated arrangement is hospitable; an unannounced one reads as running out.
- A capped tab. The only reliable protection against the one line that can be overspent on the day itself.
- Something good for the non-drinkers. Drivers, pregnant guests and non-drinkers are a real proportion of every room, and jugs of tap water are not hospitality.
Common mistakes
Buying an unlimited package by reflex
It removes a decision and it is priced for a heavier-drinking room than most guest lists actually are.
Instead: price the same drinks by the bottle for your real guest list, then choose whichever is lower.
Assuming corkage always saves money
It is framed as a way around a venue mark-up, and on house wine the corkage rate frequently absorbs most of the saving.
Instead: compare corkage plus your bottle against the venue’s list price, bottle by bottle rather than in general.
Over-ordering the toast fizz
It is bought by the head rather than by the glass, and one bottle pours six flutes, so a bottle per four guests is a large over-order.
Instead: order to one glass a head and keep a few spare bottles rather than a case.
Letting the bar close before the taxis arrive
Licences and last orders are set independently of the transport plan, and a room with nothing to drink and nowhere to go empties unpleasantly.
Instead: align last orders, the end of the music and the transport within the same half hour.
Forgetting who is driving
The soft drinks are ordered as an afterthought, and the guests relying on them are the ones getting everybody else home.
Instead: specify a proper non-alcoholic option and put it on the tables alongside the wine.
What corkage actually costs
Corkage is published far less often than it is charged, which makes the examples below useful mainly for showing that the charge takes more than one shape.
| What it buys | Published price | Source | Captured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corkage, per bottle, covering opening, pouring, serving and glassware | £10.00 per bottle, invoiced after the event | Fylde Borough Council, North West England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| Corkage, charged per person rather than per bottle, covering handling, storage and service | £12.00 per person over 18, for the duration of the stay | Drumtochty Castle, Scotland | 13 Aug 2026 |
Every figure above is a price the supplier publishes openly on its own website, captured on the date shown. Published prices change, they often exclude VAT, delivery and setup, and they are not a quote. Treat them as a guide to the shape of the market, then confirm anything you are relying on directly with the supplier.
Sample: 2 venues, in North West England and Scotland, captured August 2026. Treat this as a regional guide rather than a UK-wide range; corkage is set venue by venue and varies widely.
Those two rows are worth more as a demonstration than as a benchmark. At £10 a bottle, a room drinking sixty bottles of wine pays £600 in corkage. At £12 a head, the same wedding of a hundred and twenty pays £1,440 regardless of how much is opened. Same charge, entirely different arithmetic, and the second one is invisible unless you ask which basis the venue uses.
Most venues do not publish corkage at all, so for the great majority the position is price on application. Ask for the rate, the basis and whether it differs for wine, sparkling and spirits, and ask for it in writing before the deposit.