Some free tips for anyone that may be planning a wedding, bar mitzvah, or any other banquet style event that will include alcohol:
1. If you are having a "champagne" toast, ask them brand they will be serving. I know most Americans just think "champagne" and sparkling wine are synonymous, if you're one of them you can ignore this one as you'll likely be perfectly happy with what you get. If you're aware of the difference and care about it, know that you're likely to be disappointed if you just assume it will be the real deal. Many banquet halls/hotels/etc will use the least expensive bottle of whatever says "brut" on the label they think they can get away with because they know most folk just want bubbly wine. If you're paying less then $100/bottle it's definitely NOT the real deal (if you're paying by the glass, most places can get 10 glasses out of a bottle when doing a toast pour).
2. When they ask whether you'd like house/call/premium/top shelf liquor on the bar, ask which brands are standard for each option. Not all places use these same terms and not all the ones that do use all of them, but there is no industry standard for what liquors may be used at any level. Some places will even use the same bourbon or gin for more then one price point (for example, the hotel I work at used to include Tanqueray as both the call and premium brand gin), so knowing that might save a bit of money. Also, you don't want to be surprised the day of when you discover the house brand vodka is aristocrat or bowmans (even some 5 star hotels aren't above chasing that profit margin).
3. Unless you know for a fact that that your guests will drink more then 3-4 drinks per person, per hour (it very rarely happens, though I have witnessed a few such groups in the last 15 years).... NEVER opt for an "unlimited" or per hour bar. That is exactly the type of consumption the hotel is basing their prices for such a bar off of. It might be nice to know exactly what your paying in advance, but you'll very near always save a lot of money paying per drink.
4. Unlike restaurants, buying wine by the bottle isn't always cheaper. You can usually only get the house wine by the glass at banquet functions, but if you can do it by the glass rather then the bottle, do the math to see if it makes sense. My hotel assumes the bartenders are getting 5 glasses out of every bottle that goes out to the bar (and they usually do), so when we calculate how many glasses were consumed at the end of the night that's the number we use (no, we don't charge for the whole bottle if there's wine left, just the number of glasses missing. Assuming you're paying by the bottle). We used to sell wine by the glass for $6.00 and wine by the bottle for $32, making it $2/bottle cheaper by the glass (the per glass price has since gone up while the per bottle price remained the same, however).
5. If you order something we normally carry, we won't charge you for open bottles that aren't consumed. However, if you request that you something we don't normally carry be made available for your guests, we'll charge you for every last bottle opened. Keep this in mind if you asked for a dinner wine that's not on the wine list you're given and you look around the room to see a bunch of open and mostly full bottles sitting on tray jacks as the main course is going down.... that would be a good time to get ahold of the manager and tell them to stop opening wine. We'll usually be happy to give you any open bottles that weren't consumed for you to take home, however (so long as the state ABC laws allow it).
6. Many banquet venues will allow you to provide the wine and they will open and serve it at your event for a corkage fee. Usually you save a bit of money, but not always enough to make it worth the hassle of buying the wine yourself and getting it to the hotel in advance. If the price of the wine + corkage fee isn't significantly less then the venue would charge otherwise, it's prolly better to just let the venue provide the wine so you have one less thing to worry about (keep in mind that corkage fees can be as high as $20/bottle).
7. Either pay for the alcohol at your wedding or don't offer it at all. There's nothing tackier then having a cash bar at a wedding and even the servers will be talking smack about you.
Starchitin
A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.
