Planning a wedding reception is a part of wedding planning that both bride and groom often take part in. Usually the bride worries about food, flowers, cake, etc., while the groom worries about one thing, the booze. After all, what's a celebration without drinks, right?

      Sometimes drinks or beverages come with the menu of the caterer. They are either part of the catering package or can be ordered separately. Often, they can be offered separately or be taken out of the package entirely. Some people see the addition of drinks to the catering as really convenient, and choose this option. But sometimes, beverages that come with the caterer can be very expensive. Even if the drinks are ordinary drinks, the caterer will still add some cost to the drink. So, if you are cost cutting, know that there are tricks to getting great drinks without the extra cost!

      First, buy wholesale drinks, and buy it yourself! This might sound crazy, but it really comes out cheaper in the end. Many venues will let you bring in any number of bottles without asking for a corkage fee, especially if you are already getting an outside caterer. Plus, most caterers will not mind if their waiters also hand out drinks, even if you didn't get the drinks from them. They may even give you a bartender for the night.

      If they don't offer a bartender, ask about it, or look into getting one for the evening. It's pretty easy to find bartenders for the evening. You can go down to a bar you know that has a bartender that makes good drinks, and ask if they would be willing to do it. They will have to take the night off from their regular job, so be sure to ask well in advance.

      To buy drinks wholesale, go to or contact the warehouses or depots. Buying anything by the case will make it much cheaper. Let's say you have 200 people attending, total. Buy enough drinks so that everyone can have a drink or two. Calculate this by glasses. That means you will have to make 400 glasses.

      Once you have all your cases, you can simply ask a friend or a relative to bring it to the reception area on the day of the wedding, making sure it gets there well before the guests arrive at the reception. You may even want to drop it off yourself!

      Not sure what you should be buying? No problem! Following our 200 guest example, for alcoholic beverages, you have several options:

      ONE: You can buy two to four cases of beer. There are 24 bottles or cans in one case. With two cases, you already cover a quarter of your guests.

      TWO: You can buy two to four cases of wine, making sure you get an equal number of white and red. There are about six glasses of wine in each bottle. With 12 bottles in a case, two cases means serving almost 75% of your guests.

      THREE: You can also choose to buy a case of assorted alcoholic beverages (like scotch, vodka, rum and gin), in which case you will also need a case of mixers. Depending on how you mix your drinks, one bottle of any liquor with two bottles of soda or mixers can make about ten drinks. With a case of each (one case alcoholic drinks and one case of mixers), you cover about 60% of your guest list.

      The three options only cover a certain percentage of guests. This means you can combine options in order to cover all guests. Calculate how much you will need of each type of drink in order to keep costs down to a minimum.

      Buying wholesale will make things much easier, even if you buy an assortment of drinks. However, if you are really cost cutting, you can stick to just one or two types of drinks, it will come out much cheaper because you are only buying one type of drink. For example, you can just serve wine and beer, skipping out on the hard drinks. Or you can choose to have wine and only two hard drinks like scotch and vodka, for example. Or simply have wine. Choosing one or two drinks will help you cut the expenses by a pretty large margin, and still keep your guests pretty happy.

      Finally, don't forget the water! You will need several gallons of that. You should see if your caterer provides water and ice, since many of them usually do!

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