A way to avoid corkage charges?

Today's wedding task was to email the venue with our wine requests. Having drunk tasted our way round New Zealand, we would love to have NZ wine at the wedding. Our venue does not stock any NZ wine.

I should say at this point that Kiwis are pretty serious about their wine (in as much as they are serious about anything other than rugby). You can't go into a bar and order a 'glass of house red,' you have to at least specify the grape variety (Pinot Noir yummmmmm). They usually have at least a dozen wines served by the glass, and all of them will be better than the standard UK options. For the same price. I love going out for drinks here!

When my parents went to view the Lodge, they spoke to the coordinator Tracey about supplying our own drinks. Obviously there is a corkage charge, which we understand. Tracey said that was fine, but suggested an alternative option which would be cheaper. They would source NZ wine for us through their wine merchant, and then we would buy it from them and just pay a single standard mark up rather than corkage.

As I've only just sent the email, I don't know exactly how much this is going to cost, but Tracey thinks it will be about £20 per person for all the drinks. (Their cheapest drink package is £16 pp, the next is £21.) I'm pretty hopeful that we'll get to have some really good wine for a reasonable price.

We've sent a list of everything we like, and are waiting to see what the merchant can suggest/source. I can recommend Lindauer sparkling wine (available at Majestic currently £8.99) - we drink that a surprising amount here! It may all go horribly wrong and we'll end up with Spanish Cava and Australian Merlot, but there are worse things that could happen!