Alcohol licensing, bars and corkage
Published
Whether you may bring your own wine is a commercial question. Whether anyone may sell a drink at all is a legal one.
The legal frame
The sale of alcohol in England and Wales is regulated under the Licensing Act 2003. Selling alcohol, or supplying it in some club arrangements, requires authorisation: either a premises licence held for the site, or a temporary event notice for a specific occasion.
A premises licence names a designated premises supervisor who holds a personal licence, sets the hours during which alcohol may be sold, and carries conditions attached by the licensing authority — in Oxfordshire, the district council for the area.
A temporary event notice covers a one-off. It is subject to limits on the number of people present, on duration, and on how many notices a premises or an individual may use in a year, and it must be given to the council and the police within a defined period before the event. Late notices are possible within a shorter window and are refusable. Confirm the current figures with the council rather than with a supplier, because the numbers have been amended more than once.
The distinction that decides everything
A sale requires authorisation. A gift does not.
If your guests pay for drinks — at a cash bar, a card bar, or a bar where drinks are bought on a tab that you settle later in a way that amounts to a sale to the guest — that is a licensable activity and something must authorise it.
If you buy all the drink yourself and give it to your guests, no sale takes place and no alcohol licence is required for that supply. This is why a marquee wedding on private land with an entirely free bar can proceed without a temporary event notice, while the same wedding with a cash bar cannot.
The line is genuinely thin and people cross it accidentally. A "suggested donation" bar is a sale. A charge for a wristband that entitles the wearer to drinks is a sale. Ask the council if your arrangement is anywhere near the boundary; they will tell you, and they would much rather tell you in April than find out in September.
Licensed venue, dry hire, and the middle ground
Fully licensed venue. The venue holds the licence, runs the bar, keeps the revenue and takes the risk. Simplest, least flexible, and the bar income is part of how the venue is priced — which is why hire fees at such venues look low relative to the total.
Dry hire. The venue supplies the space and no drink. You appoint a mobile bar company, which either operates under the venue's licence or obtains a temporary event notice. Check which, because "we have our own licence" from a bar company can mean either thing.
Corkage. The venue is licensed but permits you to supply some or all of the alcohol, charging a fee per bottle for the service of opening, chilling, pouring and clearing it.
Reading a corkage figure honestly
Corkage is quoted per bottle and is frequently quoted differently for still wine, sparkling wine and spirits. Comparing it to the price of the wine you intend to bring is the only calculation that matters.
Three traps:
- Corkage on unopened bottles. Some venues charge on every bottle delivered rather than every bottle opened. On an over-ordered wedding that is a substantial difference.
- Corkage plus service. A service charge applied on top of corkage changes the arithmetic.
- Selective corkage. Permitted on wine at the table but not on the reception drinks or the bar, which is where much of the volume is.
Corkage saves real money when you are buying wine at a meaningful price point and very little when you are not. On modestly priced wine, a corkage fee can exceed the wine.
Duty, delivery and the practical side of bringing your own
Buying your own drink means owning the logistics. Somebody stores it, somebody delivers it on the right day, somebody chills it, and somebody counts what comes back. Ask the venue whether they will accept a delivery in advance, on which days, and whether they charge for storage.
Sale-or-return arrangements from a wine merchant remove most of the over-ordering risk and are worth asking for. Confirm the return conditions in writing: many require labels undamaged, which is not compatible with sitting in an ice bucket for two hours.
Under-eighteens
The rules on serving alcohol to people under eighteen apply at a wedding exactly as they apply in a pub, and the licence holder carries the consequences. A venue that insists on ID checks and refuses service to a seventeen-year-old at a family wedding is not being difficult. It is protecting a licence that supports its entire business.
The questions to ask
- Do you hold a premises licence, and until what time may alcohol be sold?
- If we dry hire, does our bar company operate under your licence or its own notice?
- What is the corkage rate, on what categories, and is it charged on bottles opened or bottles delivered?
- Is service charge applied to corkage?
- May we deliver drink in advance, and is storage chargeable?
- What is the last order time, and how does it relate to the end time?
The last of those connects directly to the end of the evening, where the bar close, the music curfew and the site clearance time are three different figures. Noise limits and end times explains why they rarely coincide, and where the money sits covers how the bar arrangement changes the shape of a quote.