By Alexandria Saurman
Photos By Lydia Joy Photography
Hire a Mobile Bar for your wedding!
Cocktail hour — it’s an essential part of any wedding. Whether guests opt for alcoholic beverages, non-alcoholic drinks or a mixture of both, cocktail hour is the start of the celebration. There are plentiful options for the kinds of drinks to serve, but what about where they are served?
Making its way up the popularity ladder in recent years is the concept of mobile bars. These transportable bars on wheels come in many models, shapes and sizes and are fit to serve a wide range of party sizes.
Get Cozy - Vintage Mobile Bars, which serves cities all across the country, has three options: the cozy caravan, a 1950s-style vintage caravan that can operate as a full bar; the Bubbles & Brews cocktail, beer & wine truck, a Piaggio that holds four to seven taps and can fit in freight elevators; and the cocktail truck, a smaller option with two taps.
Rachel Lintvet first started Get Cozy in 2016: “I love old things that are reimagined and brought back to life with a new purpose. I was inspired by the caravan bars in Australia and little bubble bars in Europe. Mix in my husband’s background with draft wine and beer working with restaurants, caterers, venues and planners … and there you go.”
“Everything we do is solely purposed and solely designed to be used as a bar,” says Rachel’s husband, Jon, even the Piaggios which are directly imported from Italy. “They are fully restored and fabricated ... to be used for the sole purpose of creating this bar experience which is consistent with [Rachel’s] vision,” he says.
With the way Get Cozy is designed, guests can interact with the bar easily, and Rachel encourages it. From personalized branding and license plates to working with the photographer to get shots of the couple serving guests, Get Cozy turns bar service into something fun and special.
“Our vintage mobile bars take one of the most guest-centric experiences at a wedding (the bar service), one that is commonly unremarkable, and turns it into one of the more memorable features of our client’s special day. A linen-covered table with bartenders wearing black shirts, black ties, black shoes is fundamentally designed to create an invisible experience,” Rachel writes. “... This is an opportunity, indoors or out, to make this otherwise forgettable aspect of a special day something truly unique. And to make memories that will last a long time. Some of our clients’ favorite photos are in or around the bar.”
Whether it’s a small wedding or a big one, “Whatever the spectrum is, every single person is going to interact with the bar. Everybody’s going to come up and ask for something, either non-alcoholic or alcoholic. Everybody,” Jon says. “It all comes down to that service experience. ... It’s something that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time.”
And better still, all of these options drive, Jon says.
Another selection available to local couples is Get Hitched Mobile Bar. Based out of Pennsylvania but servicing Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey as well, per their website, Get Hitched started when owner Kelli OBrien and her at-the-time fiance were planning their own wedding and “stumbled across the concept of a mobile bar.” She loved the idea, but couldn’t find any near her.
“So we decided, even though we didn’t really have … the skills or the background, we decided we were going to teach ourselves how to build it and how to do everything ourselves,” she says.
They finished their first bar, with the help and support of family, for their wedding in September 2018 and catered their first event in May 2019. Then things began to pick up. From August to October, they were catering nearly two events per weekend, OBrien says.
Get Hitched offers two mobile bar options: Chester and Chelsea.
Chester, a 16 ½ feet by 7 feet horse-trailer-turned-bar, is Get Hitched’s biggest option. OBrien describes it as “a little more rustic,” as compared to Chelsea, which works well for farm settings. Chester offers more room for drink options, like multiple beers, wines, craft cocktails, juices and more.
For smaller spaces, Chelsea, 11 ½ feet by 7 feet, is more ideal. The “modern” Chelsea has room for a few craft cocktails, just not as much as Chester. OBrien says they will be installing taps on Chelsea for draft beer and wine.
“It’s very easy to customize,” OBrien says. “If the couple has like a story or something that they want to incorporate, we can do that with the drinks or the decor.”
In addition to mobile bar services, Get Hitched has additional rentals available. They offer a photo booth, coffee and tea area and lounge area.
For both Get Cozy and Get Hitched, alcohol must be provided by the clients. According to Jon, that leaves the doors open to possibilities, such as pairing with local breweries or distilleries.
For more information on Get Cozy or Get Hitched, visit their websites, getcozybars.com and gethitchedmobilebar.com.