Wedding bar pricing, from $15 per guest

Four variables move the number more than anything else: which of the five packages you choose ($15 to $35 per guest), how many hours the bar is open, whether you rent glassware, and how many add-ons you take. Package tier and glassware are the two biggest.

A 150-guest wedding ranges from about $4,400 on the Non-Alcoholic Bar to about $9,300 on the Platinum Call Bar with elevated glassware — the same room, the same night, a different bar. Glassware in particular is priced per glass rather than per guest, so a decision about two glasses per head versus three moves several hundred dollars.

• → Run your own numbers

Moving up a package tier, extending past four hours, renting glassware (which also obliges a busser), adding batch cocktails at $400 each, and per-guest extras like a champagne toast at $5 or a coffee bar at $6 a head.

Guest count multiplies almost everything, so it is the one number worth being accurate about early. Batch cocktails are stepped rather than smooth: each batch serves 75, so guest 76 costs another $400.

Choosing beer and wine over spirits, keeping the bar to four hours, using the included disposable cups instead of renting glassware, and going BYOB if your venue allows it. Dropping from the Premium Call Bar to Beer & Wine saves $7 per guest.

The single largest saving available is usually glassware. On a 150-guest wedding, elevated glassware at three glasses per guest plus the required busser adds around $800 before the service charge. Disposable cups are already included in every package.

Usually because the quote covers fewer things. The common exclusions are the supplies package, ice, mixers, garnishes, setup and teardown labour, and enough staff for the guest count — all of which reappear as costs later, either as add-ons or as a bar that runs badly.

A genuinely cheaper quote is not automatically a worse one. Compare on four things: how many bartenders are staffed per guest, whether supplies and mixers are included, whether setup and teardown hours are billed, and whether the service charge is in the headline number or added at the end.

• → How Shaker compares to other DFW bar companies

Higher-priced companies are usually selling either top-shelf spirits, a higher staff-to-guest ratio, or design work — custom bar builds, branded menus, uniformed teams. Some of that changes what your guests experience; some of it changes what the photos look like.

Shaker sits in the middle of the DFW market on price and publishes its rates, which is not the norm here: of the six competitors we could verify, three publish no pricing at all.

The five that catch couples out: the 20% setup and service charge, ice at $25 per 50 lb on tiers that do not include it, lemons and limes at $50, the busser that glassware requires at $50 an hour, and mixers on a BYOB bar at $7 per guest.

None of those are hidden on Shaker’s rate card — they are all published — but they are the items that turn a "roughly $4,000" mental estimate into a $5,200 invoice. The estimator includes every one of them by default so the number you see is the number you plan against.

The sixth, and the one nobody prices: whether staff setup and teardown hours are billable. Shaker’s rate card does not say. The estimator assumes they are not, and flags the assumption on the page.

Honest answer: not always. BYOB is usually cheaper if your guests drink modestly, you can buy alcohol well, and your store takes back what you do not open. A package wins when you want a wide spirits selection, or when you would rather not carry the estimating risk.

The costs BYOB does not remove are the ones people forget: bartenders and the supplies package are required for every BYOB event, and most couples add the mixers package at $7 per guest. So BYOB is not "free bar, pay for staff" — it is retail alcohol plus roughly $275 plus staffing plus mixers.

Where BYOB reliably loses is a large guest count with a broad spirits list. Buying eleven call-brand bottles across five categories at retail, plus mixers and garnishes, tends to land close to the Premium Call Bar price without the stock management.

• → BYOB bartending

$2 per person per hour, up to a six-hour maximum. On a 150-guest wedding that is $300 for a fifth hour. The published package prices all assume four hours of bar service.

Published. Every package rate, staffing rate, add-on price and glassware rate is on the pricing page, along with an estimator and four fully worked examples. Custom packages are quoted, and a handful of items — table-side wine service, upgraded wines, bespoke cocktails — are priced individually.

• → The full rate card

No. The estimator applies the published rates to the numbers you enter and shows its arithmetic line by line, but it is an estimate, not a contract or a final proposal. Your written quote is the binding document.

It also states its three assumptions on the page, because the rate card is silent on them: staffing is added rather than bundled, staff are billed for bar service hours only, and the 20% charge applies to the whole subtotal.

The rate card on this site was last reviewed on the date shown at the foot of the pricing page, and the flyer states that pricing is subject to change. Prices quoted in a signed contract are the ones that apply to your event.

Every price on this site lives in one file, so a rate change updates the pricing page, the estimator, the package pages, the FAQ answers and the structured data together. There is no second place for a stale number to survive.