Best Wedding Cocktails: Signature Drinks For Your Reception

Offering a signature drink is a great way to add style and color to your cocktail hour or reception. It has a lot of practical benefits, too. Signature drinks are faster and easier to serve. If you’re trying to save money, offering them as part of your limited bar is a great way to save money, too.

But with so many drinks available to make, it can be hard to know right away what your guests will love. By reviewing some signature cocktail ideas and tips, you’ll land some marriage-worthy drinks!

Signature Drinks For Cocktail Hour

If you’ve got a lot of guests, lineups at the bar could get long. If your bartenders can simply pour wine, beer and signature drinks instead of mixing individual drinks, the line will move a lot faster. If your cocktails are pre-made, your guests can get them quickly and start enjoying the cocktail hour.

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Tips for Easy Signature Cocktails For Your Wedding Reception

If you’ve got a bartender, you might offer signature drinks in order to prevent long lineups at the bar. Or maybe your bartenders are family or friends who volunteered. If they’re not experienced, you could end up with long wait times or badly mixed drinks. If you offer signature drinks that are quick and easy to serve, your guests will be able to get good drinks, fast.

Don’t choose a signature drink that needs shaking, blending or complicated pouring. If it takes too long to make, you’ll defeat the purpose of a signature drink.
Choose cocktails that only need a few ingredients and can be stirred together to keep things fast and easy.
For the easiest cocktails, choose recipes that can be premixed and chilled ahead of time. If the drinks are made ahead in pitchers, the bartenders can simply pour the drinks and garnish them.

Easy Signature Drinks to DIY

When you DIY, offering signature drinks instead of a full bar will save a lot of money. If you plan a full bar, you’ll need to buy several bottles of alcohol and a lot of mixers. At the end of the reception you’ll be left with lots of half finished bottles. By offering signature drinks instead, you’ll only need to buy a few types of alcohol, mixers and garnishes. It’ll be easier and a lot less expensive to offer signature drinks.

You can make your cocktails ahead of time and serve them in pitchers to be poured by waitstaff or volunteers. Or you can fill pretty drink dispensers for your guests to serve themselves.
Look for recipes that use simple ingredients that are easy to find. If you’re doing DIY to save money, try these recipes for easy and inexpensive batch cocktails: 14 Big Batch Cocktails That Won’t Break The Bank
If you’re making your cocktails ahead of time, avoid bubbly ingredients that could go flat, like sparkling water, sparkling wine or champagne.
Don’t use any ingredients that could go bad, like raw eggs or heavy cream.
Before you go shopping, remember to include garnishes on your list. Adding olives and fresh fruit or berries will add the finishing touch to your cocktails.
For more details about mixing, chilling and serving batches of cocktails, read this article from Serious Eats: How to Batch Cocktails For a Crowd

Wedding Signature Drink Ideas

There’s so many different recipes, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when you start looking for drink ideas. Start by thinking about the type of wedding you’re planning. You can use colors, or the time of year you’re getting married to help find cocktail ideas. You can look for a light, fruity drink to match a spring, pastel colored wedding. Or look for a warm drink to match a cozy fall wedding. If you’ve got a theme, you can even look for drinks that match your theme:

Nautical Theme: Sea Breeze
Rustic Theme: Blueberry Vodka Lemonade
Southern Theme: Mint Julep
Beach Theme: Strawberry Daiquiris
Great Gatsby: Gin Fizz
Harry Potter Theme: Harry Potter Butterbeer
(this recipe is a bit more complicated with vanilla vodka, butterscotch schnapps and a whipped cream topping. But if you can manage it - the results are totally worth it!)

Fall Wedding Signature Drinks

If you’re planning a fall wedding, look for traditional flavors like apple, spice, pumpkin and caramel. If you’re doing DIY, lots of warm signature drinks can be made ahead and kept warm in a crockpot.

Mulled Wine
Apple Cider Sangria
Cranberry Margarita
Whiskey Sour
Old Fashioned
Bourbon Punch

Winter Wedding Cocktails

Warm flavors like coffee and mocha are perfect for a winter wedding. Or you can use bright holiday colors and flavors, like cinnamon or cranberry.

Cranberry Sangria
Cider Punch
Hot Buttered Rum
Hot Toddies
Irish Coffee

Cocktails For a Spring Wedding

If you’re planning a spring wedding, look for drinks with light and refreshing flavors, like mint, cucumber, honey or lemon.

Mint julep
Mimosa
Lemon Drop
Bees Knees
Pimm’s Cup
Moscow Mule
Gin Rickey
Margarita
Long Island Iced Tea

Signature Drinks For a Summer Wedding

Bright colors and fresh fruit flavors are perfect for a summer wedding. Look for drinks with fruit juice, coconut liqueur, and fresh lemon or lime juice.

Bellini
Sangria
Mai Tai
Daiquiri
Blue Hawaii
Bourbon Iced Tea
Rum Punch
Whiskey Smash
Tom Collins
Sea Breeze

Signature Drinks at a Brunch Wedding

If you’re planning a brunch wedding, you don’t need a full, open bar. But it’s still nice to have a drink or two at your reception. If your guests aren’t big drinkers, you can offer one alcoholic drink, plus one mocktail, or non-alcoholic version. Light fruity drinks are best for daytime receptions. There’s a few cocktails that go perfectly with breakfast or brunch:

Mimosa
Bellini
Sangria
Caesar
Bloody Mary
Screwdriver
Fuzzy Navel

How Do You Decide What Signature Drink is Best For Your Wedding?

Most signature drinks are classic cocktails with an extra flavor that makes it special. You can make a cocktail match your theme, style or season by adding extra flavors or garnishes.
Cocktail flavors come from different mixers, simple syrups or flavored alcohol.
Using flavored alcohol like vodka, rum or schnapps can make different versions of any classic cocktail. For example, a martini can be made nearly any color and flavor by switching up the vodka. You can make a blueberry martini, a chocolate martini, an apple martini, or a coconut martini.

How to Choose Your Signature Drink Names

Use a wedding themed name. Think of all the wedding related words that sound cute with the name of your cocktail. The Mr. & Mrs. Mai Tai or the Something Blue Hawaii.
Your wedding is all about you, so go all out - name the drinks after yourselves! Or use your last name, like a Smith Apple-tini. Or the Martin’s Mimosas.
You can name your drinks something completely creative if you’d like - call them Love Potion or the Blushing Bride.
If you want to keep it simple, you can choose His and Hers drinks. Then use the name of the cocktail: His Whiskey Sour and Her Strawberry Mimosa.

Signature Drinks Sign

If you choose a name that incorporates the traditional cocktail names, people will know exactly what’s in the drinks. If you make up creative names, be sure to make signs or menus so that people will know what they’re drinking.

Can You Offer Signature Drinks Instead of an Open Bar?

If you want to save money, offering signature drinks instead of an open bar is a great way to have a fun party without spending a fortune. A limited bar usually includes beer, wine and one or two signature drinks. If you’re not sure about the different types of bar service, read this next: Best Bar Service For Your Wedding: Open Bar vs Host Bar vs Cash Bar

If you’ve already signed a contract with your caterer, you’ll need to read the fine print. Most caterers require that you purchase a meal package and a bar package from them. Usually they’ll offer signature drinks by the gallon, as part of a package.

If you’re bringing your own alcohol or setting up a DIY, bar you can save even more money by offering signature drinks.

How Many Signature Cocktails Should You Offer?

How many signature drinks you offer depends on the size of your guest list, the size of your budget and who is serving the drinks.
If you’re also offering beer and wine, one or two signature cocktails is perfect.
If you’re on a tight budget or serving a small crowd, one signature drink is fine.
If you’ve got more than 30 or 40 people, offering two cocktails will give your guests more choice without breaking your budget.
If you’re doing DIY on your own, keep it simple by offering only one drink. If you’ve got people helping, offering two signature drinks will keep your guests happy.