Wedding Open Bar Dispute / Hotel Ops Question
Hello All,
Does anyone here have experience on the ops side of hotels and would be able to give context on the outrageous final reception alcohol bill we received?
From the outside contacts (wedding planners etc) we’ve surveyed, any drink count over 6 is extremely unusual. The event we had the previous night was just under this and was a harder drinking night from our guests recount.
The reception night was much more chill, but they have given us a bill showing 9.4 drinks per person over a 4 hour event. Seems insane - people would have been stumbling all over each other which no one was close to.
We plan on disputing this and trying to escalate as much as we can including by looping in the REIM that owns the hotel and the hotel flag corporate regional contact, but hoping others may be able to provide context.
"looping in the REIM that owns the hotel and the hotel flag corporate regional contact" lmao
OP is about to become the office joke for the next few years.
"Hey remember when that dork complained to us about his guests drinking too much of his liquor?"
ngl 9.4 drinks per person over 4 hours doesnt seem that high. Maybe I hang out with degens but 3-5 drinks/ hour for a night out is pretty standard practice in my friend group.
Think wedding not night out with the boys. Half the guests are women, half the guests are over the age of 45.
You don't think women and old people throw it back at weddings?
This is an absurdly high number dude. You are applying top of the bell curve for drunks to everyone.
9.4 drinks per person at a wedding doesn't seem that high, especially if shots were being offered. Remember that a ton of these places also water down the hard liquor to avoid people stumbling all over the place BECAUSE people typically drink more at an open bar.
Yes I'd say 9.4 drinks is pretty reasonable per person in 4 hours. They definately water down drinks. Not to mention lots of people are drinking light beer too. I was at a wedding last month and had at least 12 drinks and was still sober. 4 hours is a lot of time.
lol not even remotely close. Only at the very high end would people drink that much.
That is an absurd number to even think that's normal
These things are a power distribution. Everyone isn't having 10 drinks. But there's a few guys that will do 5 shots and 3 light beers an hour, coming out to 30+ for them
Lol, a board full of a bunch of real estate bros was the wrong place to ask what a reasonable number of drinks is in an open bar scenario.
All of us reading this thinking "9 drinks over 4 hours. That's a pretty chill night."
Any kid in any industry can drink 2 drinks per hour
How about you don’t cheap out on your wedding? Worst case just ask your dad or father in law for help. Assuming they are not broke losers of course. Also, what kind of cheap event doesn’t have you negotiate a flat rate for an open bar ahead of time? Next time don’t go with cheap vendors for an important life event.
I've honestly never heard of this either. I always figured how these vendors make their money is comically overcharging everyone and counting on most of the people not hitting the per head number.
You're talking out of your ass. Our wedding was over $300k and my wife and I covered $100k of it ourselves.
This is the only bill we have disputed for the entire wedding because we know it's incorrect and that we're being taken advantage of. A 70% increase in alcohol consumed between nights and this average is unheard of from every single wedding expert we've talked to.
Sounds like you got ripped off multiple times then
$300K.....Did you get married at the Taj Mahal?
You should find a better wedding expert because you spent $300k for a wedding.
My wedding cost almost a mil, and I contributed 125k cash myself.
I was involved in all the planning and payments, and every single event was open bar and the alcohol was paid for ahead of time, in some cases we even pre-tipped. So no drama.
How the heck do you drop 300k and not have a flat rate for the open bar dude? If you really think you got ripped off, just stiff them.
9.4 drinks/pp is at a wedding is ridiculous. No idea what other people commenting are on. Seems like they are trying to shaft you or you have married into a family of alcoholics.
Couple questions/comments:
1. If its open bar, were you paying per drink?
2. Not saying which side is right, and I don't think this happened, but at an open sometime people grab a drink put it down and just go get another one. So they could have ordered 8 drinks but only drank enough to amount to 2.
3. As said above, could be distribution, not average. So 9.4 drinks a person, would be ~3 one person and ~15 someone else.
4. Maybe I go to the wrong weddings, but I've need been to a wedding or open bar where they give you shots. Maybe you can get one "shot" equivalent on ice, but they usually don't give out multiple of those because people would rip through them and then drive home, the venue is still responsible.
5. Who was at your wedding (average age), and what was the headcount. To OPs point, it does seem excessive that some people are drinking that much. I know there are some power drinkers on this forum (shoutout Roadhouse) but 9.4 seems like a lot of liquor, and theres probably people who didn't drink, or had 1 (grandparents).
9.4 drinks per person for how many people and how much was the tab?
It sucks you just got married to the girl of your dreams and instead of relishing the moment, your mind is clouded by your wedding bar tab. How much more was it than you thought?
depends on the size of the drinks. I've been to bars where drinks are very small. that's usually expensive bars as well. where you pay $20 for a flat glass that is gone in 5 minutes. I could totally drink 10 drinks like that, especially if someone else was paying.
Not unreasonable. Comes out to a little over 2 drinks per hour at a wedding. Could see this being quite realistic especially if everyone thought it was open bar or needed more drinks to get along with the others at the event, like eh why not get another one - someone else is paying for it anyways
9 drink average is absurd. There are more people having 1-2 than 15+ too for all the people above rambling about power laws. I'm from an Irish family, and I've never been to a wedding where that was even close to average.
I often drink that much every time I go out for a long period of time. If you’re out from 9pm til 2am, it’s quite normal to consume a couple drinks every hour, especially at an event like a wedding where you and everyone around you is celebrating.
Sounds like it was over the course of many hours and many likely assumed it was open bar.
Could easily see a guy getting everyone nearby a round of drinks, orders a couple dozen drinks, and then later one or two people order 2 drinks each individually. Averages to around 9 drinks that way.
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