All open bar, all the time.

Yeah my fiancee is Christian, her family are Christian, they don't drink so they aren't paying for alcohol. Will be a cash bar. Meh, I have no say, so I have to go with it.

Christian has nothing to do with it. They sound more like the judgmental one-true-religion fundamentalist evangelical type. If so glwt. Weddings on the Christian side of my family have always involved obscene amounts of alcohol, with unattended self serve bar and an open tap. Lots of drunk teenagers as you might imagine.

They most definitely aren't the fundamentalist evangelical type. They just don't drink, and don't see the point in paying to get people drunk. It's their money, I have like 20 people at this wedding, I can't have much say in that kinda stuff.

In that case take a flask and some single malt. Problem solved

Oh I'll definitely have some high-end whiskey on hand, but I don't want to get drunk anyway because, you know.

Alcohol ****s me up in the boudoir.

Yeah. I consider myself a devout Christian, most of my family is, most of the bride's family is. We'll be drinking a-plenty.

As do I, and I enjoy a drink or ten as well. Her family just doesn't drink. I don't care to be honest.

Talk them into giving you extra money for the honeymoon for the money they saved on the bar tab.

Open bar, dude.

I know you're into booze Wookie, what is your bar going to look like?

Klavs has apparently never been to an Italian or Irish Catholic wedding.

Open. Not closed.

Lots of homemade liquor.

For beer, my bro is currently brewing two batches of beer: a pale ale, and his "triple double," a Belgian-style tripel but with a darker malt. We might also get a quarter keg of either a Scotch ale, porter, IPA, or dark mild ale from a local microbrew.

Wine, we have two cases from, of all places, the Mario Andretti winery in Napa Valley, a sauvignon blanc and a dry rose'. We picked them up when after we toured the winery over Valentine's day weekend, and not only was the wine great, but they were having a big sale on it. We'll need a case of a red, and that's not quite set yet, but I'm leaning towards a case of Nugan Estate's Shiraz, a favorite inexpensive wine from the land of Oz. Oh, and we'll have Jaume Serra Cristalino Cava for the toast. At the head table, though, we're going to be drinking wine from our favorite Napa winery from that same weekend, Vincent Arroyo. We'll have their chardonnay, petite syrah, and zinfandel. And we'll have Pommery champagne.

Liquor isn't quite set yet, but it's the centerpiece. The plan is to feature two cocktails, a bride's cocktail and a groom's cocktail. They are not quite set yet, but we have some possibilities. Ideally, the bride's cocktail would be something white in color, that features a home made liqueur, and that the bride herself invented. That's not all that easy, as most of our liqueurs are colored, and the bride has no interest in making home made coconut rum ever again (it's a huge hassle). Also, the bride isn't as good as I am at mixology.

The drink that's definitely going to be served, whether it's as the groom's cocktail or if it's slid over to be the bride's cocktail and we bring up another one of mine, is something truly unique. It needs a name yet, but it's made from gin, lemon juice, and two home made liqueurs. The main one was known in the recipe we found just as "love liqueur." It's made from rose hips, dried hibiscus flowers, star anise, coriander seed, honey, high proof vodka, and brandy. There's nothing available commercially that's anywhere near similar, to my knowledge, but it's delicious. The second is a straight hibiscus liqueur, which is used primarily to give the drink a much deeper red color instead of a more pale red, but it also gives a bit more floral character (the wedding colors are red, black, and white). This actually ties into our favors, too, as we're giving everyone the ingredients and directions to make their own batch if they wish. And, for the people who don't drink, the ingredients also make a really tasty tea (we checked).

We might also feature a cocktail that uses our Millefiori spice liqueur, that uses, among other things, coriander seed, thyme, mint, and mace, maybe mixed with one of our berry liqueurs, brandy, and a dash of lemon juice.

Beyond those for liquor, I'm not totally sure. They'd certainly be enough, imo, but we could perhaps throw in a few more token mixers that might enable a few standard cocktails to be made. We'll be serving soft drinks, so we'll at least have Coke, e.g. But we're not going to feature the fullest of bars.

Just booked the videographer. Whew, it's good to know someone inside the Wedding Industrial Complex. Our photographer, who's also a friend from grad school, knew a guy who was working on breaking into the game who she'd worked with at another wedding before and knew he did good work. His website also had some sharp looking work. So I call him up, and he's willing to offer twice the service of one of the other videographers for just over half their price, or service comparable to one of the more expensive ones for less than a quarter of their price. Snap accept, and we're done.

For you guys getting married, it may be a good idea to ask any of the wedding people you've hired if they know someone good who's getting started out doing something you still need to hire someone to do. That's been a great way for us to save money.