By Hunter Stiebel from The Broke Ass Bride

Gentlemen, congratulations on deciding to make the commitment of your life to your one true love! That is some manly s*#t you are pulling off. Since the moment you got down on bended knee, I bet you’ve had a bunch of  Conversations with your girlfriend, ahem pardon me, Fiancée, about the wedding. While your wife may be
transfixed as to how every detail must be perfectly beautiful, your top priority is more likely “How can we make this the funnest damn party I ever did throw?”

If that’s not the case, WAKE UP BROTHA!!! If this is going to be the most cash you’ve ever thrown down on a party, don’t you think it should be the most fun party humanly possible? Right. So, how do you make sure your wedding is a blast? Two simple words my friends: Food and Booze. A well-fed and buzzed wedding guest is an ecstatic, loving guest. As I write this I’m stuffed but sober, so lets focus on booze.

This groom knows that booze is important even before the wedding - photo Shannon Lee Images

“But Hunter” you say, “I’m trying to have a budget wedding.” Fear not my friend, the wedding that only serves pizza, wine and beer will beat out the tea tolling wedding where diamonds are hung from every corner any day of the week. But As the old saying goes, “Ya want booze? Cash you’re gonna loose.” Hmmm I’m not sure that’s a saying, but the one thing I do know is that when it comes to a wedding, couples are taken off guard by how much the holy spirits of the party end up costing them.  So here are some tips so you don’t get caught in the money pit behind the boozy curtain.

1) Location Location Location. Its sad how many times I’ve heard a couple think they’ve found the perfect location at the perfect price with no knowledge of the numbers they are soon to see. The rental was a steal, they even put down the deposit but then they found out that no outside liquor was allowed and the bar cost up to tens of thousands of dollars.  One of the first questions you want to ask a location is what is your catering/liquor policy. Some are flexible others are not.

2) The best way to pull off a cheap wedding bar will always be to bring in your own booze. Some locations will charge you to do this rather than use their services. Pop out the calculator and see if it’s worth it. Most likely it is. Sometimes it’s an insurance issue. See if your caterer or your planner has insurance that will cover you doing your own bar.

3) If the facility has no lee way on their bar policies, an easy way to save is by closing the bar after cocktail hour and serving only wine and beer with dinner.

4) Another route is to nix the full bar and go with a few signature cocktails plus wine and beer. We did a pear martini and called it… wait for it… “The Perfect Pear”.  Have a cocktail with the taste preferences of the bride and one of the grooms. Folks will love this bit of wedding inspiration and by drink two they’ll be everyone’s favorite.

5) Still trying to save a few more dollars? Doing just wine and beer is just fine and don’t let nobody tell ya different. No matter what your guests are into, they should be cool with one or the other. Consider tapping a keg to keep costs down, and don’t be afraid to cleverly re-label your cheap neighborhood wine and suddenly two buck chuck is a unique wedding vino.

Going one of these routes should make everyone happy. If someone isn’t happy with those choices, then that’s their problem and they were going to find something to complain about no matter what. Why did you invite that person anyway…? Oh right, they’re your third cousin. Yeah, third cousins are the worst… unless they are the person you happen to be marrying. If that’s the case may you live happily ever, and may I be the first to make a toast to your future children with lovely large chins.

Cheers!

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Hunter Stiebel A.K.A The Fresh Hubby is president of Broke-Ass Media and regular contributor and editor of the award winning The Broke-Ass Bride. The Broke-Ass Bride website inspires and empowers readers to make the most of what they have by using creative, outside-the-box ideas rooted in practical advice to have a bad-ass wedding on any budget. Also, The Broke-Ass Bride has non-stop weekly giveaways and deals… it’s kind of nuts.

Guest Blogger Profile: Simon Daykin

Spice up the wedding reception with a signature cocktail.

Sure, everyone has champagne at the cocktail hour…BORING!  Add some of your personality by designing your own signature drink for your guests.  This is not a scotch bar, or tequila tasting bar, this is drink that you have created (or borrowed) specifically for your wedding.  Choosing the drink can be just as much fun as drinking it.  If you are a Vodka lover, add some vodka into the mix, maybe you can have the drink match your wedding colors or the theme of the wedding.

Ice, Ice Baby

I like my drinks cold, but I dislike ice in my drink.  Martini’s are cold and they have no ice in them, that’s because they are mixed with the ice, then poured out.  Well that’s pretty standard fare huh.  Let’s take that up a notch.  Gentlemen, I present to you the Ice Luge.  It’s cooler that a plain ice sculpture and booze comes out of it!  Cold booze!  Plus you can really get creative with the design, just remember to run it by your fiancé first…she may not appreciate an ice bust of her and the booze comes out of the nose.  You can work the design of the luge into your theme, we did a wedding where the couple loved to swing dance and music was a big part of the wedding so we had a saxophone ice luge designed for them.

It’s Was a Shot, But Now It’s a Cocktail

This is a trick we used at our wedding, we had a shot that both my wife and I loved.  But it isn’t too classy to be doing shots at the cocktail hour.  So we simply increased the amounts and turned it into a cocktail.  It was Jagermeister, peach schnapps and cranberry juice.  We had it mixed in a martini shaker (so it’s cold without ice) and served either in a martini glass or a rock glass.  It tasted great, was 1 of our signature drinks and we called it the “Groomsman Surprise”.  So if there is a mixed shot you like, grab the ingredients and turn it into cocktail…and no, adding 3 ounces to your 1 ounce shot of tequila and putting it in a bigger glass does not make it a cocktail fellas.

His & Hers & Theirs

Now, there is no rule that says you can only have 1 signature drink.  You can have as many as you like without it getting out of hand.  I would max it out at 4.  This way you can have a drink named for the groom, one for the bride and one for each bridal party.  You could do 3 and have one for the couple and one for each of the bridal parties.  Keep it fun, name them something silly (not vulgar though), maybe have a separate menu printed up to go on the bar stating the name and ingredients of your signature drinks.

Simon’s Gutsy Groom Advice

Signature drinks are great at a cocktail hour, they get people talking, they taste good and they will leave an impression on your guests.  I find a lot of people talking about the signature drink and what the name was and did you have one???  Plus with posting your wedding photos on Facebook now, people can tag the drink if they want.  It really just opens up a lot of possibilities for fun and adding that little bit of unique to your wedding day.

You could also incorporate this into your “man shower”, have your guys bring their favorite drink recipes with them and then mix the drinks, pick a winner or 2 and hand out the prizes.  Just make sure that after you’re done tasting, you have places for the guys to crash, so they don’t drink & drive.