Planning a wedding bar on a budget can feel overwhelming, but using a dry hire service combined with obtaining your own liquor license can offer surprisingly large savings. From personal experience helping friends plan weddings, I noticed that alcohol costs often skyrocket when relying solely on venue-provided bars or catering packages. Dry hire means you rent the bar equipment and hire bartenders, but buy and supply your own alcohol. This gives you full control over what and how much to buy. The key to success is getting a temporary alcohol license, which allows you to legally serve your own alcohol at the event. Jen from Maebell's offers excellent insights into this process, explaining that while it requires some paperwork, it significantly reduces costs by cutting out the markup venues add. When determining how much alcohol to purchase, it helps to estimate based on the number of guests and the duration of the event. For instance, assuming each guest consumes around 3 to 4 drinks during the reception helps create a realistic buying list without over-purchasing. Overbuying can lead to waste, while underbuying can create shortages and disappoint guests. Using dry hire also opens up options to customize drink menus, including offering signature cocktails, and even allows for bulk purchasing from wholesalers to further lower costs. Remember to consider the logistics of storage and responsible service. In my experience, couples who take the time to manage the bar themselves often end up saving thousands, sometimes cutting their alcohol budget by half or more. While it requires some extra effort, the financial and creative benefits make it well worth considering for weddings that want to balance cost and quality effectively.