About Anchor Guide

Anchor Guide is an independent reference on the rules and costs of weddings and events in the United States: which permit you need to serve alcohol at an event, what bartenders and event staff earn in your area, how liquor liability works, and what a marriage license involves.

We are a publication, not a business that sells event services. We are not a venue, caterer, bar service, insurer, law firm or booking agency, and we do not take reservations or inquiries for any venue.

The theanchorg.com domain was previously used by a Helena, Montana events business. That business is not connected to Anchor Guide. We have no relationship with it, with the Iron Front building or the Windsor Ballroom, or with any venue we write about. If you are looking for a Helena venue, our independent Helena venue list links to each venue's own website.

Pages are researched and written by the Anchor Guide editors. Every page that states a fee, a deadline, a wage or a legal rule shows the date it was last checked and links to the official source: a state alcohol agency, a state statute, or the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. When we cannot confirm a fact from an official source, we leave it out rather than estimate it.

Read how we work in our editorial policy and methodology, or see every dataset on the sources page.

Anchor Guide may show advertising once the site is approved by an ad network. Advertisers never pay for coverage, never see articles before publication and have no say in what we write. Venues do not pay to be listed.

Found an error? Tell us — corrections are made promptly and dated.