How Do You Find a Wedding Bartender?
When newly-engaged couples and hosts begin the process of planning a wedding reception, it’s often a juggling act. People who are planning a wedding reception or getting married for the first time often don’t know what they don’t know, and scramble trying to make sure that all of the details are covered.
The process of planning a wedding reception often begins after a couple books their venue. Most venue owners and managers have a list of preferred partners or vendors, and are kind enough to give novice hosts and couples guidance in identifying and booking vendors.
Bartending service at a wedding reception is often one of the last considerations. While couples and hosts make a point of booking caterers and DJs relatively quickly, hiring a wedding bartender is not always at the top of their to-do list.
Top Shelf Bartending, of course, provides bartending service and setups for events, private parties, and wedding receptions. We work with an array of different caterers, distributors, vendors, and venues, and help couples and hosts coordinate leading up to the day of the event or reception.
While we would love to provide bartending service to each and every event and wedding reception, our main bartending service areas are greater Pittsburgh, PA and Wilmington, NC. It wouldn’t be feasible, in most cases, for us to provide service at a wedding reception in Nevada or North Dakota.
The intention of this article is to walk first-time hosts and newly-engaged couples through the process of hiring a wedding bartender: the questions to ask, pricing guidelines, and what to look for prior to signing a contract with a bartender or bartending service. Read on to learn more.
Hiring a Wedding Bartender Through Your Caterer
Top Shelf Bartending is fortunate to work with some exceptional catering partners, such as Penn Bistro in New Brighton, PA and Christy’s Catering in Pittsburgh. Often times, our catering partners will refer couples or hosts to us, if they speak with a client looking to hire a wedding bartender.
There are a growing number of caterers who roll wedding bartending service into their catering package. Liquor laws vary greatly from state to state, but depending on insurance requirements, some caterers will offer a pair of RAMP Certified bartenders along with the regular catering staff for a wedding reception.
I’ve seen different caterers offer different rates. Some are lower than Top Shelf’s standard pricing rates, and some are higher. It would be irresponsible to speak to the average quality of the bartending service offered by different catering companies.
But one thing that readers should ask any caterer offering wedding bartending service: does your catering company carry a Retail Liquor Liability Policy?
Depending on the state, the venue may require a liquor-specific insurance policy such as the Retail Liquor Liability policy required in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, not every venue in North Carolina requires this type of insurance policy, but a lot of venues make it their house policy for couples or hosts to provide an insurance policy that specifically covers alcohol-related claims. I’ll touch upon this a bit more below.
A lot of ignorant venue owners and hosts – as well as caterers not necessarily acting in their clients’ best interests – will try to skate by without the use of a stout liquor liability policy.
Sketchy caterers will promote the fact that their staff members are RAMP or SafeServ Certified, and that these certifications will protect clients in the case of alcohol-related litigation. This is definitely not true.
Other caterers while try to claim that alcohol is covered under their Commercial General Liability policies. The specifics here again vary a great deal from state-to-state.
Lastly, some caterers or part-time bartending services will try to get with the use of a 1-2 day Event Insurance policy. These policies are purchased by hosts to protect against damage to the venue, the bridal gown, etc. The price will vary based on the guest count and the state.
Most venues will require hosts to purchase one of these policies – which are usually between $100-$200 for 1-3 days of coverage – as part of their service contract. The issue is that these policies will generally not provide protection against alcohol-related claims in states that have Dram Shop Laws.
Top Shelf Bartending’s Liquor Liability policy is actually a rider on our Commercial General Liability policy. Our policy is written in Pennsylvania, and Liquor Liability Insurance is not available as a separate policy here. Our coverage limits are the highest available in Pennsylvania – $1 million per claim, $2 million aggregate, on both our Commercial Liability and Liquor Liability policies.
This type of talk usually makes eyes glaze over. But it’s crucial for both hosts and venue owners to understand why these policies are so important, and why they can’t – or at least shouldn’t – be worked around.
Anyway, bringing the topic back to hiring a wedding bartender through your caterer: this practice is fine, even encouraged, as long as the catering company possesses adequate insurance protection for your state.
Top Shelf’s recommendation to verify that your caterer has the requisite insurance – usually an annual policy with specific verbiage about alcohol protection – before signing anything. We end up staffing quite a few receptions every year where caterers have misled their clients about the protection their insurance policies provide.
Hiring a Wedding Bartender via Social Media
Using Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or your preferred social media, seems like a no-brainer way to hire a bartender or wedding bartending service for your reception or event.
In 2023 – and rapidly moving into 2024 – social media probably drives more business than conventional websites. To wit, Top Shelf Bartending’s Instagram account sees much more traffic than our website. And we book the majority of our non-referral business via Google.
So, we would encourage people to use social media to shop for wedding bartending service. A lot of professional services with have an array of photos, videos, and package options online for potential clients to sift through.
The trick with hiring a wedding bartender is that bartending itself isn’t nearly as proprietary as catering or even music or videography. The perception, right or wrong, is that almost anyone can bartend.
We regularly speak with clients who intended to have their niece or old buddy provide the bartending at their private party or reception, until the venue insisted on an insurance policy like the ones described above. The bartender or hosts then found out the hard way that short-use event insurance policies didn’t provide adequate protection.
I’ll repeat a line I use a lot when speaking with clients: hosting a reception or event without alcohol insurance is a lot like driving a car without insurance. If you’re making a quick trip to the store, it’s probably fine.
Candidly, I turn down a fair amount of business because our insurance policies don’t provide a lot of value to the hosts. Despite what you’ve read in this article, I am not an insurance salesman, and I do not try to make people pay for a policy if they’re having a holiday party with 20 of their friends and neighbors. In cases like this, it might be better for everyone if a friend or relative serves as bartender.
But back to the car insurance analogy: I might drive ten minutes to the grocery store without insurance, but I wouldn’t drive across the state uninsured. There’s just too much potential liability.
If you’re hosting a wedding reception with 100 or more guests, there’s almost certain to be a dummy in the crowd who will drink too much and try to drive home, or otherwise seek trouble. And RAMP Certifications or Event Insurance policies will not protect the host or the venue owner – to say nothing of the bartender – if an over-served dummy gets into an accident or fight and injures someone else.
To tie a bow on hiring a wedding bartender via social media: visual-media sites such as Instagram or TikTok can be fantastic places to hire wedding bartending services. Visual media sites such as these allow vendors to show off their skills and aesthetics. And the under-30 crowd absolutely starts with Instagram or TikTok and works their way back to emails and web links.
But you, as the host or venue owner, will want to make sure any bartending service hired via social media has the back end of their business buttoned up. Sometimes with social media, the sizzle is much greater than the steak, and flashier services will focus more on presentation than practicality.
Hiring a Wedding Bartender Through Your Venue
Venue referrals are a key driver of business for all wedding vendors. And this arrangement often works as well for venue owners as it does vendors, as the last thing venue owners want to worry about is if a given vendor will show up on a client’s wedding date and provide professional-quality service.
Couples getting married for the first time will naturally lean on their chosen venue for referrals. Many venues will have in-house services for bartending, catering, videography, and even DJ services. Others will have “exclusive” agreements with certain vendor services, while others might have a list of “preferred” vendors that they allow clients to pick from.
Top Shelf Bartending is fortunate to work with a handful of outstanding venues, which are listed above via the Preferred Partners link. Our preference is to form strong relationships with a limited number of venues, and to provide consistent, high-quality service at those venues.
In saying that, it would be hypocritical if we did not suggest that hosts go their venue first for vendor recommendations. Because they host wedding receptions and private parties regularly, venue owners and managers will generally have an excellent feel for which services are high value and professional quality, and which are not.
Closing Thoughts on Hiring a Wedding Bartender
On the other hand, everyone deserves an opportunity. If a given venue does not have an exclusive or preferred vendor list, our suggestion is that brides, grooms, and hosts get information and quotes from 3-5 vendors in each category.
In some cases, pricing will be a major selling point, while in other cases, a given vendor and host will have a really strong working rapport. That becomes huge, as hosts and vendors will often communicate a dozen or more times leading up to an event or wedding reception.
Reviews remain useful for hosts looking to hire vendors, but shouldn’t be the only factor in selecting a vendor. If a vendor has ten highly-positive reviews and one mediocre review – “too much ice in my drink” – the vendor is probably worth investigating further. Facebook and Google likely remain the top two sources for consumer reviews.
I’ve said and written it before, and I’ll continue to say and write it: the team at Top Shelf Bartending does not take our role lightly. We are often providing service for someone on their wedding day – ideally one of the most memorable days of their life. We are not pouring beers at an Applebee’s on a weeknight.
The people who bartend for Top Shelf with any regularity recognize this, and understand it fundamentally. While there’s bound of be a hiccup or two at most wedding receptions, we do our absolute best to make sure that the bartending service at all of our clients’ receptions is memorable and special, in the right way.
Potential clients and hosts who want to learn more about options for wedding bartending service are encouraged to contact us:
