The bring-your-own math
Here is the single biggest lever on a wedding bar budget, and a lot of couples never hear about it.
If your venue requires you to use their bar, you pay their per-drink or per-head rate and that is that. But plenty of Northeast Florida venues are bring-your-own - you buy the alcohol yourself at retail, and hire licensed bartenders to serve it. Buying your own beer, wine and liquor at store prices instead of venue markup is usually the difference between a four-figure bar tab and a much smaller one.
What you still need is someone licensed and insured to actually pour it, because almost no venue will let you self-serve alcohol at a wedding, and honestly you should not want your uncle running the bar anyway.
Their entry tier is called Show Up & Pour. You supply the alcohol, they supply the professional bartenders. That is the option built for the budget this site is written for. They also do fuller packages where they handle mixers, tools and garnish, and full craft cocktail service above that.
Matt and Sarah, and the part of the job they built the company around.
They also cater
Worth knowing because it is unusual. McKarls does chef-driven food as well as drinks - charcuterie, grazing tables, passed appetisers - so on a smaller wedding you may be able to brief one team instead of two. Fewer vendors is fewer things to coordinate, and on a DIY wedding that has real value beyond the money.
The basics
- Who
- Matt and Sarah McIntyre
- Company
- McKarls (formerly McKarls Libations & Cuisine)
- Based
- 1850 Emerson St, Jacksonville, FL
- Covers
- Jacksonville and Northeast Florida
- Since
- 2021
- Credentials
- Licensed and insured. Every bartender is a certified Executive Bourbon Steward.
- Start here
- Show Up & Pour
How they started
Both of them lost their jobs at the same St. Augustine bar in March 2020 when everything shut down. They started posting cocktail recipes from their kitchen on Instagram, people started asking them to come pour at things, and by April 2021 it was a licensed company.
We mention it because it is the kind of company they run. This was not a franchise somebody bought - it is two career bartenders who rebuilt from scratch, and it shows in how seriously they take a job.
Questions worth asking your venue first
Before you call anyone, get three answers from your venue: can you bring in outside alcohol, can you bring in an outside bar company, and what insurance do they require. Those three answers decide whether any of this is available to you, and they take one email to find out.
If the answers come back yes, their site is here.