The venues out here run on a different rulebook than a downtown hotel: you may own the alcohol, the sheriff is the noise ordinance, and your guests will sleep twenty dark miles from the dance floor. Three realities, in order of expense.
Texas regulates the sale of alcohol, not the pouring of it, and most ranch venues run a BYOB model built on that distinction: you buy and own every bottle, and nobody on the property sells a drink. The venue then requires TABC certified bartenders to pour (the certification costs about $10 online, yet contracts demand it universally) along with host liquor liability insurance, typically $100 to $300. Other venues hold their own TABC license, Contigo Ranch, Lost Mission, and The Resort at Fredericksburg among them, and a house license legally bars outside alcohol entirely. The two models can swing a bar budget by thousands, so ask which applies before you sign, not after you buy the bourbon.
Texas counties cannot pass noise ordinances, so a venue outside city limits answers to the sheriff's disorderly conduct standard, which arrives at 85 decibels on a neighbor's complaint. In practice nearly every ranch venue self imposes a 10 or 11pm music cutoff anyway, and venues inside city limits face genuine curfews. Fire is the other county variable: an active burn ban cancels sparkler exits and open flame anything, so get the venue's drought policy in writing. On remote properties, ask the unglamorous questions too, meaning well water, septic capacity, generator backup, and whether the DJ's phone will show a single bar.
Fredericksburg counts more than 1,500 B&Bs and guest houses, the deepest lodging pool in the region, and its October weekends still sell out months ahead. Most ranch venues sleep 10 to 30 on site, which covers the wedding party and approximately nobody else. For everyone else, charter a shuttle and treat it as core infrastructure: the drive home is dark two lane blacktop with deer on it, and rideshare out here quits early. Set room blocks the same week you book the venue, and put the shuttle schedule where guests cannot miss it.