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I’ve been to weddings where the couple provided wine (a red and a white, plus champagne) and there was a cash bar. To me that’s a great way to do it - you’re the host so you’re providing, but for those who want to drink something different or drink a lot, they’re free to do so without burdening the couple. Unless you’re quite wealthy this seems completely reasonable to me.
Alcohol can be CRAZY expensive at weddings, and it’s not uncommon to hear about venues with open bars where the drinks charged to the couple don’t match what the guests consumed.
Literally just went to a wedding with a cash bar, but the power was out so the venue opened the bar and comped it. Open bar packages can easily reach 2-3k, I cant blame anyone for going dry/byob/cash bar.
For my wedding on August of this year I spent about $1k between bartender and booze which I bought at Sam’s club. I had leftover alcohol and this was for 100 guests throughout 5 hours.
A lot of venues won’t allow that. You’re paying their staff and drinks at bar rates (or higher). And accounting for how many drinks are consumed can be sketchy.
You’re right. That’s why we toured many venues and chose the one that adapted to our capabilities. Also bar services always have to have insurance. I also had event insurance. Mishaps can always happen in any wedding.
I also didn't know this was a thing. Of course many venues won't allow it, because they're trying to protect their profits, but I don't understand why the government would care (provided everyone is 21+).
In the UK our weddings are long , like 10 hours minimum and 12 hours is pretty common, mine will be 14 hours.
We have drinks on arrival, before the ceremony, then a drinks reception, then a 3 course meal with half a bottle of wine per person, then a glass of fizz for the toasts.
So.in just the afternoon we've easily had 6 drinks.
Then the actual drinking begins with the evening reception. We have around 6-7 hours of solid drinking and dancing, most people will easily drink 8 more drinks in that time.
In my venue, for 100 guests that's easily going to cost $20K!
The thought of having 2 or 3 drinks at a wedding is unheard of, we've done that within an hour of the ceremony!
In the UK our weddings last around 12 hours. English people drink a lot. It's usual to allow 14 drinks per person, most places are not dry hire, in my city, a glass of wine or a beer is around £9, a cocktail is £15.
I'm having an open bar, but I only have 18 guests. My minimum spend is £3000 on drinks, and I'll meet that easily.
But with 100 guests that would increase to £15k ( over $20,000) just on drink.
In the UK open bars are the norm, nobody sees it as tacky or unusual- it's expected. An open bar is very unusual.
Saying that, we provide welcome drinks half a bottle of wine with dinner and champagne for toasts, that alone can cost around $40 per person for 5-6 drinks.
So even though we have an open bar for most of the night we would still offer as many drinks as your free bar, in tbe first 5 hours of our wedding and it would still cost $4000 for 100 people.
So moving on to a pay bar for the rest of the wedding not only makes sense to all the guests, it saves the couple from financial ruin.
It's not tacky at all.
Please at least write them a 5-star Google review. I wouldn’t mention the free drinks (don’t set them up for that), but do talk about the excellent service.
Yep, this has become the norm at weddings in my area. Beer and wine are open bar, hard liquor or mixed drinks are cash. Usually the couple buys a couple of kegs and cases of wine and when those are gone they move to cash.
I think it's a good compromise, plus it discourages guests from going ham on hard liquor and getting sloppy.
I’ve seen the same, but except also with free beer. Beer is much cheaper than wine or liquor, especially if it’s keg beer. The last wedding I went to had two mixed drinks on the house, the favorites of the bride and groom (a John Daly and a whiskey ginger). Every other drink with liquor was cash, and that was a really good way to get me to drink a lot of John Daly’s.
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For pretty much everyone I know, the only way to avoid the wedding being far from some guests would be to not invite them in the first place. Get married where we live & it's close for local friends, but family have to travel (& friends who live in other cities). Get married where it's closer to family, and everyone else has to travel.
Friends with elderly relatives were more likely to opt for the former, and so there were a LOT of hotel room bookings during the years where summers were a flurry of weddings.
That's how we did it. Wine (generic whites and reds) and beer (we bought a keg of blue moon and Bud light) were provided. The liquor came from a different bar, and it was cash.
I’ve been to a wedding where it was BYOB and those who wanted to drink would bring a large bottle of whatever liquor to the bar. Everyone just shared each other’s
I'm pretty neutral. Weddings are expensive AF and some people will go ham on unlimited free booze.
What's your stance on drink tickets? (I.e. each guest gets, say, two tickets they can redeem for the alcoholic beverage of their choice.) Or open bar to a certain price point then closing?
Drink tickets and limited bars sound totally fine! That way you can also control alcohol consumption and prevent guests from going a bit too wild. It is the aspect of asking guests to drop cash upfront if they want a drink after they made plenty of arrangements to attend and are still expected to spend money on gifts.
I can kind of see both sides of the cash bar argument myself. I think it would depend on the couple and their guests what system makes the most sense. Like if they know Uncle Jimmy will snit at only getting two drink tickets but won't mind paying for his own drinks, and/or Cousin Steve would drain the bar reserve $$ all by himself if he doesn't have to pay, but will be much more conservative with his own wallet.
It's super weird. You always end up paying a premium for wedding stuff. Like, the exact same flowers are twice as expensive if the florist knows that you're doing it for a wedding. But at the same time weddings get top billing over literally everything else, so if there's a problem anywhere the wedding order is the one that gets filled and everyone else has to just eat it.
Is it worth it to pay the premium to make sure that everything is where it needs to be when it needs to be? I don't know. But after attending that cousin's wedding hiding the fact that it's for a wedding is less of a no brainer than it seemed at first.
Canadian here, last wedding I went to we had 3 drinks provided via tickets. We could buy tickets and the staff were already pre-tipped. I had a wild night and only spent 70 bucks for two of us. It really wasn't that bad.
Open bar encourages people to drink too much, and an other wedding I went to, the groom ended up getting into a fist fight with the father in law. Father in law got way too drunk and was starting shit.
It's also low key acceptable to bring beer and drink in the parking lot at the venue, especially before the bar opens. We'd usually have a few cases of beer in the box of somebody's truck.
in my youth, cash bar inspired me to drink too much.
a good, but annoying feature of a wedding, is the constant bussing of tables. you don't know how many drinks I left on the table to go dance only for them to be scooped away by a busser.
at those weddings I was buying drinks, then finishing them at top speed if someone said let's go dance - which I'm obviously doing because of the bar!
open bar is great because I drink when I want and don't get "wasted money anxiety?" about my drinks disappearing.
someone takes your gin and tonic? oh well, maybe now I'll try a whiskey soda or a glass of wine.
Typically, I don’t think open bars are paid for per drink, but per person. So leaving an unfinished drink isn’t really financially wasteful. Only generally wasteful.
It depends on the open bar. Sometimes the host pays per person, sometimes per drink, and sometimes something else (e.g. the host brings the alcohol after purchasing it themselves).
very rare. it's timed at any venue worth their salt.
I was at a wedding with a cash bar and the host provided the alcohol for free until it ran out. they're young. they didn't get enough so cash bar started 15 minutes into the wedding.
At the majority of the wedding venues I was looking at you could pick between pay per guest or pay per drink. Overall the pay per guest was likely to be more expensive unless everyone drank a lot.
kinda. at the scale of open bar vs cash bar, someone certainly is. but I'm also tipping hard on open bar and I'm tipping very light at cash bar.
labor is labor and booze for catering events is cheap.
when comparing wedding venue prices, there wasn't a wild difference for open vs cash bars on a per person basis.
at my own wedding, I was young and broke and had no parental help. I opted for two beers on tap with open well bar and a selected variety of wines all free for guests. they had the option of cash bar top shelf.
it was a great compromise.
point is, the difference between cash bar vs open bar for throwing a 100+ person wedding on a budget was still not enough for my broke ass to still make it happen.
I got super drunk at my own wedding because they kept on coming by and topping off my drink, making it hard to count. Luckily I was ok, just pretty sick when I got back to the hotel. Had a ton of fun, though, dancing like a mad man.
The only time I get way too drunk is when someone keeps handing me drinks. I can regulate myself but when someone keeps handing me full beers then saying "finish your beer, we're going to a different bar" is when I get way too fucked up
Were you given 3 drink tickets automatically and you could purchase more tickets if needed? If that’s the case, that is totally fine!
I agree that some people lose control due to alcohol. But that sounds more to me like a behavioral issue of immature guests and not a critique against alcohol. Some people are just tacky, drunk or not. I had an open bar wedding and people were still very civil.
I think the problem with the free alcohol is that it only needs a couple of people among, say 100 guests to behave so badly that the whole wedding is ruined. So, for the couple it doesn't really help that you can put the blame on the "immature guests" as the likelihood of having a few among 100 becomes quite high if there is free alcohol but the risk is greatly reduced if the alcohol is limited to the modest level.
That’s what we did as well. Every person got 3 drinks on us, and then you could continue to pay for your drinks after you used your tickets. We have some heavy drinkers in our families and that was our way of discouraging people from getting black out drunk.
Although at a certain point in the night, my father-in-law just gave the bartender his card and paid for everyone’s drinks, so it was essentially an open bar.
Interesting approach. On one hand, 3 drinks discourages excessive drinking, and I can't see a downside to that.
Small downside is that for some people (like me) a "use it or lose it voucher" would make them drink 3 when they might drink just 1 or none otherwise, even at a free bar.
At a UK wedding people drink 3 drinks before they even sit down to eat.
Our weddings last on average 12 hours and on average people consume 14 drinks throughout the day and evening.
The thing I’m confused by is this. You don’t seem to necessarily expect to get alcohol at every wedding because you’re fine with a dry wedding. It seems strange to me that you seem to view drinking at a ‘wet’ wedding as mandatory and a paywall for being at the wedding when you could simply not drink.
Like I stated in the post. For me it’s about asking money from guests IF they want to drink. Many guests have to arrange childcare, attire, travel, buy a gift, in my case a lot of family helped me decorating and tearing down the decor after the wedding. So for me not offering free drinks it’s unreasonable because I want them to have a good time IF they choose to drink. A dry wedding is more reasonable because you could argue than the couple is not offering alcohol due to religious or ethical reasons.
This still feels weird to me because it seems you’re upset that the couple is allowing people the option to drink if they want to.
Every wedding I’ve gone to will also provide dinner/dessert. I’ve always viewed the costs of travel and gifts as a way to ‘pay’ for the dinner I got that night. The alcohol is an option to allow people to cut loose if they want to, and it would certainly add a LOT of cost to the wedding couple to pay for everybody’s drinks, especially if it’s a huge wedding. My sister just got married a couple months ago, and she had something like 250 guests attend which would have been absolutely ludicrous price-wise if they paid for all the drinks.
Additionally, with having a cash bar, the people who are expected to help clean up/ help with the wedding can STILL get drinks from the couple. At my sister’s wedding I did all that and was put on their tab for the reception.
When my brother and sister-in-law were planning their wedding, their wedding planner strongly recommended against an open bar, telling them she had worked multiple weddings where the bride and groom woke up to $30k+ bar tabs. Yeah, no I’m not going to drop a down payment on a starter home just so my friends and family can drink for free.
I would be willing to do drink tickets, or maybe only cover beer and wine. Under no circumstances am I going to cover liquor, pay for that yourself.
I don’t know how that bar company operated. But when I had my wedding I paid per the hour and bought the booze myself in Sam’s club. The whole thing was probably only $1k between alcohol and bartender for 4 hours and 100 guests.
The options you’re mentioning are totally fine though.
That actually makes a lot of sense and that’s not too bad for a price point. I think the issue for those couples was that they basically did a totally open bar at huge weddings, which included liquor and mixed drinks. If you have 200 people at your wedding, it’s very feasible that you are looking at a 5 figure bar tab under those conditions. You went about it in a smart way though.
That means every person on average drank at least $50, or $150 if you’re above mentioned $30k happened. That seems very unlikely unless they only pouring super premium liquor lol.
The bartender they hired probably just charged whatever they wanted: can of miller life: $15, plus mandatory tip, plus hourly wages, plus transport fees, etc. If you hire people and don't care about price, pretty much any amount is possible.
It's not like each guest drank $50 worth of booze at grocery store prices.
People tend to abuse open bars. At my wedding, we had wine on the tables and I gave my ushers and bridesmaids money to buy drinks for people at the cash bar.
Counter point: plenty of people have weddings where the guests are decidedly NOT all close to them. Family can balloon the guest list extremely quickly, and many people simply don't know their extended family members all that well.
The last wedding I went to, they got all of their liquor from Costco and spent maybe $500 on it for a 200 person wedding. The created a signature drink for the wedding that contained vodka, so bought maybe a dozen handles of the Kirkland stuff, and a bunch of cases of beer, seltzer and boxed wine. No one was drinking 20 year scotch on their dime of course but everyone could drink as much as they wanted and they did it for very cheap.
A lot of people can't do that because most venues don't permit you to bring your own alcohol for insurance reasons. If you want to drink, they make you hire their bartenders and buy their booze.
Then pick a venue that doesn’t gouge you for their services. In the last few years there has been a substantial pushback against the obscene cost of weddings and their are many venues now that cater to couples that don’t want to saddle themselves with a decade of debt in order to have a decent wedding.
Just go to the courthouse and invite some friends to a bar after, then. Why insist on making a bunch of people figure out time off, travel and lodging just to nickel and dime em to make your wedding feel more special? People are used to paying for food, too. Might as well make em pay for dinner, as well.
The drinks are one of the least important parts of the wedding reception. It's wild to me that you're saying people shouldn't have one at all if they can't afford to buy everyone alcohol.
Diy is plenty viable, but many people have high expectations. We did our whole wedding for 50+ people for $1k in my smallish backyard. Now I wasn't going to win any awards for the wedding, but it was a fun time where everyone got free booze and just grabbed it out of a cooler.
Sorry, I just meant that I wish it was easier to DIY the booze portion. In my experience, unless you have family land to act as the venue, virtually no location will allow you to bring your own alcohol.
I agree. But gifts, travel arrangements, childcare (if no kids wedding), formal attire (if needed) are still expected no matter if you’re close to them or not. Your closest circle shouldn’t be punished with no alcohol only because some invitees aren’t as close to you.
I don't really see how what you wrote applies to what I wrote.
Many people have weddings with 200 guests or more. They might be close to a couple dozen people on the list. Those kinds of open bar weddings run up a tab in the thousands.
I don’t disagree with your argument regarding cash bars, but I’m going to push back on dry weddings being perfectly fine.
Every single human society independently developed some way to make alcohol. It’s a core part of social settings and has been in basically all societies for thousands of years.
Every human society independently developed ritual murders, it’s a core part of society and has been in basically all societies for thousands of years of years.
My fiancée and I don't drink and it's difficult to imagine something less comfortable for me than being the only sober person in a room full of drunk people. I'd rather just elope.
I spent 15 years in an abusive marriage with a violent alcoholic. I do not drink and never really have. I now live in Wisconsin, which is home to 85% of the country’s drunkest counties. I am also now engaged. I will not spend my wedding day surrounded by plastered midwesterners. I would be uncomfortable the entire time and I don’t want to spend my wedding uncomfortable. I told my fiancé that if he wants a larger wedding, there will be no alcohol. It’s probably the one thing about a wedding that is non-negotiable. He said that it would probably be better to elope or only invite immediate family and have no reception, because if we tell his family there will be no alcohol allowed, at least three people would show up with kegs anyways, and it would be easier for him to deal with people having hurt feelings over not being invited than deal with people being angry over not being allowed to drink.
That makes sense. If you aren’t one to enjoy a party, don’t throw one. You can have a small wedding for family and friends with like 2 drink tickets on a cash bar. I imagine your friend group doesn’t get out of hand drunk or you’d likely not be friends with them. In a small, more intimate setting, getting drunk is not appropriate.
But if you want to invite a larger group and want to have a party and dance and have a lot of fun energy, the vast majority of people will want to drink alcohol.
It’s your wedding, but the choices aren’t between everyone being drunk and eloping.
Who said they dont enjoy a party? I can't believe the passive aggressive BS people come up with to justify not being able to not get loaded for one event. They just said NO alcohol. You dont even know them and youre trying to talk them into just two drinks? Youre the person she doesnt want there. People need to grow the f up.
Is your whole social circle aside from you two heavy drinkers? I hate the idea of enforcing a dry wedding, but if most guests aren't drinkers already than it makes more sense
My wife and I were just talking about this 2 days ago and weddings were the prime example we couldn't think of at the time. We don't drink at all, but have no reservations at all about people who do. We love playing darts and there's obviously a lot of alcohol that orbits around that activity, but they are two separate activities. What would people say about someone who would refuse to go to an event unless there's a dart board there? What a sad, weird, lonely way to live.
Feeling separation anxiety from a substance to the point where someone won't go somewhere if it's not available/acceptable is a telltale marker of a substance abuse problem. It's not normal to live that way, and there's no reason to pretend like it is.
Every single human society independently developed a way to make alcohol because it's what happens when you leave juice in a jar for a long time, not because it's requisite for social interaction.
Yeah this idea that you have to have alcohol to have fun is just wrong. I’m glad to see the younger generation is starting to move away from drinking alcohol, it’s literally poison and contributes to so many traffic deaths each year, not to mention abusive partners etc. I get that it’s pretty ingrained in society but I think we’d all be better off without it.
Thank you for your insight. While wedding planning, I’ve read a lot about some family members recovering from alcohol addiction and for that reason brides would not offer alcohol out of respect. However, I believe as humans we need to exercise self-control and I also don’t think other guests need to be punished because of a couple people.
Then why are you arguing against giving people the option to buy drinks at a wedding that would otherwise be dry?
I also don’t think other guests need to be punished because of a couple people
Then why are you arguing for punishing guests that want to buy alcohol because a couple people (the bride and the groom) don't want to purchase it for them?
Its not a core part of social settings. How ridiculous. Your social settings maybe. Dry events also arent boring to people who dont have drinking problems. Thats a personal issue. Not being able to have a nice time without getting loaded is a you problem. Dont pawn it off on society to make yourself feel better.
Normally I would agree with this, but at my friends wedding (He is Ivorian) someone stole an entire catering tray of Jolof Rice before the reception even began and the catering company was unloading, and then later on someone stole bottles of Hennessy from the bar they had set-up.
They invited many people from the local community who were also from Africa, so this was by no means just a friends and family event.
Needless to say… I would’ve been furious if I had been paying out-of-pocket for this stuff like they were, only to then find out that someone’s uncle or cousin, or one of my neighbors even, was actively stealing from me on my wedding night.
Idk if I would do a cash bar personally… but I can 100% see why someone would if money was tight.
I agree… but at the end of the day they still paid for food and drinks that were stolen by guests.
Maybe it’s just being from that immigrant African community, but it was expected that they invited the community to the wedding. That means paying for a lot of people who you might not even really know all too well. Unfortunately, people will take advantage of that…
If guests had needed to pay for the alcohol instead of the wedding party, the people in charge probably would’ve kept a much closer eye on the bottles that ended up disappearing.
I mean, this is an unusual circumstance and more so speaks to making sure your invite list has honest people over making restrictions for a corner case
I would rather have a cash bar than a dry wedding. BUT, that being said, I think anyone that isn't like a real young wedding should have an open bar. If you can't afford an open bar and are not a youngster, maybe have a smaller wedding?
It’s not always money as an issue though. If you have recovering alcoholics as close family or friends, depending on the person they may be able to handle a cash bar by leaving their wallet at home but not handle open bar.
That and I floated doing dry wedding to lots of people and near universally everyone wanted cash bar instead of dry wedding.
Lots of people have family members who are alcoholics so this is hardly an unheard of issue.
I feel like if the difference between people maintaining their sobriety or not is if the alcohol is free, then they’re probably not ready to attend events involving alcohol point blank.
Sure, that’s why I wanted to do a dry wedding. But it is a different temptation when it’s free and my people could attend a cash bar but not an open bar.
The cash bar was a reluctant compromise because it was important to my ex to have alcohol at the wedding.
But also…to me alcohol has only been a source of pain. I was footing most of the bill, so I don’t see why it’s tacky to not want to spend thousands of dollars on something that has destroyed or derailed the lives of so many people I love. And my family is clearly genetically predisposed so I didn’t want anyone trying a drink because it’s free only to develop a lifelong addiction. If people wanted to spend their own money fine but I wasn’t gonna pay for it.
We still spent that money in other areas. Had a neat venue, tons of desserts, way better food, appetizers, unlimited coffee/hot chocolate, Italian soda, etc to try and make up for it. But I guess wedding was canceled before it happened so who knows maybe everyone would have thought it was tacky.
My wedding was so small and low key. It was in a backyard. I provided all wine, champagne, and beer.
I didn’t want to spend much and we’re not fancy people. The idea of getting a nice fancy venue with its own bar…and then expecting my guests to pay at said bar makes me feel so uncomfortable as a host.
Same. We had an "open bar" in our backyard with 50 guests and also provided food. The whole thing cost like 1k or something. I'm surprised more people don't go cheap, and save their money for a house down payment or something.
See this is why I think a big part of this is cultural in terms of how much people drink.
Food and booze for $20 (or £20) per person for a wedding seems nowhere near enough for a British wedding, even if you hosted it yourself and got the cheapest stuff you could (and that's ignoring that almost no one in the UK can reasonably host 50 people in their backyard!).
$20 is about £15. You could do it if you were buying all the drinks yourself, but that's not even enough for a basic drinks package, of welcome drinks, wine with the wedding breakfast and fizz for toasts, at a UK wedding venue, I reckon the average is almost double that.
Then in any nice ish bar, a glass of wine is about £6-7, a pint about the same and cocktails start about £10-12. A lot more in major cities or fancier venues.
And as you mentioned, the amount we drink is a lot more, not only because we have a drinking culture in the UK , but also because our weddings last at least twice as long as the average US wedding.
Their weddings only average around 5 hours from start to finish! 😂 whereas I think the UK average is about 11.5 hours
See I think that is weird, you didn't invite people to see you get married so that you could instead by booze for your guests. That is a strange compromise "oh really wanted to share our special day with you, but we instead decided to buy a bunch of vodka"
Some people dislike alcohol or have struggled with it in the past (or know those who have) and don't want to fund its consumption. That said, people also realize that the majority of guests expect a drink at a wedding. Providing the option but asking you pay for it yourself seems a fair middle ground to me
Generally I think it's expected to provide drinks with the meal, but then have a cash bar.
At my wedding we provided enough for half a bottle of wine per guest at each table, plus some beers and soft drinks, but then it was a cash bar.
Purposely chose a venue with reasonably priced drinks though, since the last thing you want is for guests to feel ripped off.
Weddings are expensive, and you need to strike a balance between ensuring your guests have a decent meal etc but not so much as you basically paying for them to drink the place dry at your expense.
My wedding will be classy AND have a cash bar. In will be on a somewhat remote vineyard with limited accommodations nearby, and I'm rather concerned about people trying to drive back to our hometown (~1.5hrs away) after having too much to drink. I think people feel obligated to take advantage of the free booze at an open bar and are therefore more likely to drive home.
Open bars are also damn expensive, and the funds saved on the open bar can be spent elsewhere on the wedding that will enhance the guest experience in some other way (i.e. better music, upgraded food service). And this way guests can still chose to pay for a couple drinks if they so desire. Why deny them that?
We provided 4 bottles of wine per table and put $5K towards an open bar, and once that ran out, it went to cash. The $5K was gone in about 45 minutes and this was at 2003 prices. My guests would much prefer to have switched to a cash bar vs completely dry. Full open bars get real expensive, real fast.
But then, for some reason, full open bars are on the rare side here. Most of the time its open during a cocktail hour, and then switches to cash.
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A cash bar at many British weddings would bankrupt the couple! Both due to the cost of alcohol at your average wedding venue, and the amount people put away. Probably not a suprise then that paid bars are absolutely the norm here. That's not to say free bars don't happen, but I've only been to one wedding (out of maybe 15-20?) with a free bar, and that was because it was held in a forest. In the 'standard' wedding, a welcome drink, a toast drink, and a couple of glasses of house wine to drink with the meal are usually included in the package. Anything beyond that is paid for by the guests.
Calling the vast majority of British weddings tacky is... something. But then we don't expect our bridesmaids to pay for their own dresses - now THAT is tacky.
Not only their dresses and shoes but their hair and makeup too,
Plus they, of course, need to buy outfits for the never ending amount of pre and post wedding events, bridal showers, week long bachelorette holidays abroad, rehearsal dinners, next day brunches.
I was about to say the same thing. I could easily imagine a British booze bill to be as much as the wedding in some cases! Also wouldn't fancy Loch Lomond without a drink in me, I'd far rather pay for my drinks over a dry wedding if we're having to pick.
In the US it is expected that the couple will fund the wedding. While this is great for guests, it also saddles the new couple with a huge expense.
I got married in Japan, where it's normal to expect guest to pay (like equal to 100 or 200 dollars) to go to a wedding. This offsets the cost for the new couple. But from an American perspective it would be tacky and weird to ask guests to pay to go to a wedding.
You speak about your experience as a Hispanic person. Is it possible that there are just different expectations for different cultures?
It depends on the financial situation of the couple. Weddings are not cheap and there is lots of social pressures as well. If the couple are not big drinkers but they still want to have the option for people, cash bars are fine.
Many couples are trying to keep costs down and open bars are a huge cost. Sure if she's got a $20k dress on but a cash bar I would be a little perturbed. Cash bars also help keep people from getting out of control.
Though my preference is in-between that. Open bar for beer and wine; cash bar for liquor.
Open bar for beer and wine is more than enough. For my wedding on August of this year I spent about $1k between bartender and booze which I bought at Sam’s club. I had leftover alcohol and this was for 100 guests throughout 5 hours.
So you spent less than $10 per person on alcohol over 5 hours and had booze left over?
How many drinks is that working out as? I'm assuming your venue didn't charge corkage?
In the UK for instance I think you could plausibly have spent 10x that amount - that's why truly open bars are rare here.
I am not criticising your wedding - these things are cultural and personal! - but just as a cultural comparison, for there to be so little alcohol available (and no way to buy more) would I think be seen as odd and cheap at a British wedding, much more so than a cash bar.
You'd spend more than 10x that in the UK- $10 is about £6.60.
A basic drinks package in a typical venue is around £30 and that's before the party even starts.
Add another 6-8 drinks over the course of an evening, at an average of around £9 ish and we're at £84-102pp.
An average of £93
So around £9300 bar bill for 100 guests
About $12.5K
Much more in cities like Edinburgh, York, London and the South East
My minimum bar spend for 18 guests, plus us, is £3k so £150 pp. Given in my venue in Edinburgh, a bottle of the cheapest champagne is £140, a glass of wine is between 6-15, so averages at £10.50, a cocktail is £15, reaching tbe minimum will not be an issue, especially as the evening reception starts at 6pm and goes on until 1am
If Americans had long weddings like us they wouldn't be so keen on open bars!
My wedding was at a restaurant with a legit bar. With like very expensive whiskeys and stuff. I had it setup so that a few of the cocktails were included/free all night but if folks went outside of that, I had a maximum $ amount. I don’t even think we hit it. I think what we did was fair.
This must be an American thing, here in the UK, most bars at weddings are not free.
There is usually beer/wine etc provided with the meal, but almost every wedding I've been to has had a bar where you pay for your own drinks in the evening
I've seen cash bars used as a way to deter drunkenness. Some people's families will go HARD when they don't have to pay for their own drinks but do a normal pace when they do.
Similarly, I've been to weddings that did open bar for the cocktail hour but cash after. That always struck me as a fine way to offer your guests drinks but not overspend in total.
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I guess you’re just assuming that people only invite family to their weddings? I just went to a wedding in Vegas, where I didn’t know a damn soul except the bride. Yeah I needed quite a few drinks.
The entire concept of weddings is tacky so it hard to say that changing the details of a wedding in any way makes them more or less tacky.
Spending huge amounts of money early in life when it could be much better spent elsewhere just so a bunch of distant relations can wear uncomfortable clothes and eat unfamiliar food and bring you gifts that are mostly useless is the worst possible way to celebrate your love of someone. It’s silly and the industry is mostly overblown fake classy bull shit.
Young people lose money and stress themselves out for nothing and it’s long past the time we all just stopped doing it. the only reason people want fancy weddings is because society tells the they should. Just stop.
Before I comment on the topic at hand, a commentary on the metas of this subject:
The wedding industry as a whole has become a corporate claptrap, and that is precisely what the industry wants. While wedding guests and newlyweds bicker about who’s paying for what, the C-Suites couldn’t give a damn because someone is paying them regardless.
The questions should be “Is this whole expensive affair where everyone comes and celebrates me over the course of multiple days really necessary? Does that sees egotistical? Why not get married in a small, intimate ceremony and save money for the honeymoon, without having to force my contacts to take off work, wrestle with childcare, and pay all the necessary travel/accommodation expenses because we just have to be celebrated?”
As someone who’s single, every wedding I’ve been to thus far is usually followed with me almost never speaking to that friend again, whether it be them starting a family, or whether I feel like my association with them becomes more “them-centric” and less reciprocal. As such, despite the occasion being joyous and there being a handful of fun moments throughout, I’ve usually found the weddings I’ve been to in hindsight to be… not worth my time.
But I digress; now, specifically on the commentary about cash vs. dry vs. open bar, echoing sentiments about open bars being prohibitively costly for the couple and encouraging excessive drinking which creates its own liabilities. Dry bars, albeit cheaper and healthier, are liable to underwhelm guests who, per the stress of the above, may need a stiff one or four to get through the affair. Cash bars are, in essence, a compromise between excessive expense unto the newlyweds and merely having alcohol available.
Of course, as a few other Redditters have mentioned, some couples may opt to buy the first drink or few à la a ticket system, with additional drinks being available for purchase. Another compromise if alcohol is required for such an occasion.
At both weddings I've been to, it was a cash bar with alcohol provided at the meal and a glass of champers for the toast. This was pretty reasonable for me.
Personally, I think the move is to offer basic beer and wine (basic not expensive) on the house; but if you want something more sophisticated than you can purchase it. This is what we did for our wedding.
Personally, I feel a dry wedding where alcohol is not even offered is extremely tacky (unless there are strong reasons e.g. a history of alcoholism). You made the full argument that folks are coming in from out of town, taking PTO, and then you are going to argue a dry wedding is better than a cash bar.
Alcohol is seen as a more premium offering. Now if you're going to have people travel and then not offer food or make people pay for food; now that is tacky and in very poor taste. However, if you feed people, and offer non alcoholic drinks on the house but have a cash bar; there is nothing tacky about this. This is in fact very reasonable.
I would not want to pay for guests to get drunk at my wedding. Sure, I would provide 2 glasses of wine each - if a guest wants more - let them pay for it. But I am opposed to drinking culture and I wouldn't want my wedding to encourage it.
I've been to weddings with open bar, cash bar, and no bar, and don't have a problem with any of them. I'm there for the gathering, not specifically to drink, so as long as we can effectively gather with friends and family then the event works. Alcohol can certainly help here, but it's not necessary, and the cost of a few drinks isn't going to really factor into my overall budget in attending the wedding in the first place.
With that being said, the thing that strikes me most about your view is that you are ok with dry weddings but not cash bar. You even mention that you're ok with it specifically for budget reasons. It's ok for the couple to remove the option entirely because they can't afford to pay for it, but not ok for them to leave it up to you? Would you be similarly ok with foodless weddings but not ok with one where you could order food yourself?
The best argument in favor of cash bars is cost control. Weddings can be massively expensive events and oftentimes couples will choose a cash bar so as to include all the people they’d like to invite. When I was getting married, my wife and I found our dream venue. We were committed to a hosted bar for the reasons you lay out but realized quickly that we would either need a different venue or a much smaller guest list. We opted for the different venue which ended up being a winery that excluded hard liquor but provided wine and beer.
There’s a good chance that a hosted bar would mean you aren’t invited.
Wine and beer are totally fine and more than enough. For my wedding on August of this year I spent about $1k between bartender and booze which I bought at Sam’s club. I had leftover alcohol and this was for 100 guests throughout 5 hours.
Alcohol is very expensive where I'm from. It's heavily taxed and everything, plus there are strict licensing laws that require you to pay a lot of money to be licensed to serve alcohol at your event, and to have trained and licensed bartenders.
I had an open bar at my wedding, but I paid a LOT for it. Cash bars are more common. It has become a part of our culture here that most people are probably going to have a cash bar.
And that's really what it comes down to: a cultural thing. To some cultures, a cash bar seems tacky. To others, it's expected and really not that big of a deal. Obviously in your culture it's tacky. But you can't tell us our view is wrong because our culture is different.
A wedding reception is a party. You invite guests to a special party. You shouldn’t expect guests to pay for drinks at a party. You do what you can afford. If you can’t afford alcohol, don’t serve alcohol.
British here, and all 3 types (free bar, paid bar, 0 alcohol) of weddings are fairly common. But why, in whatever culture it applies to, is alcohol seen as something people need? I have never been a drinker, so the concept that I either need to pay for people's beer or completely disable the ability to buy it is stupid. I don't need to do either, if people want to drink, that's fine, but why would I pay for it? Free bars just encourage overdrinking at one of the least appropriate times for it, and I don't feel the need to babysit my guests by deciding if they can drink or not.
I've been a guest or a wedding coordinator at around 100 UK weddings. I've never seen a dry one. I'd say 60% are cash bars, 30% are cash bars after the first 2 or 3 drinks and only 10% are full open bars.
People get outraged at dry weddings unfortunately and most often won't even show if they can't get drunk. Thats just how it is. When I say enraged....they'll refuse to show, bully, berate, be a total ass and psycho to their family and friends for not providing booze for the event. Not everyone can afford it so they compromise for these people. Yes its tacky but its even tackier to throw tantrums and claim you can't attend one even for a few hours and not get loaded.
You mentioned being Hispanic and yeah it’s definitely cultural. The last place where I worked one of my coworker’s families was from Mexico and he was telling me how every family gathering was an excuse to drink. Which is very different here.
If you cannot afford a full open bar for everyone an acceptable option is to give everyone a complimentary drink voucher and if they want something beyond that they can pay.
I was actually really mad about a wedding I was in once. We were told over and over that it was an open bar. It was…until the alcohol sales reached a budget set by the bride and groom which I was told was pretty generous. However by the time the wedding party arrived at the venue, the guests had blown through that budget. The bride was pretty pissed that she had to pay for drinks at her own wedding when she was supposed to have an open bar.
Which I’ve only had it happen that one time, but still it was extremely shitty.
My wedding was supposed to be a open bar for wedding party and cash for guests, but my parents quickly realized that no one in my husband’s family were drinkers and they converted it to an open bar for everyone.
There are so many things to spend money on to make a wedding special for the participants and guests - the venue, food, flowers, entertainment, and yes, alcohol. That's a list of things that have pretty even distributions among attendees - everyone gets their portion of the food, enjoys the same venue, has access to the same entertainment...
And one thing - alcohol - where some, perhaps many, won't have any, more may have just a little, and a relatively small number will consume the majority of what's provided. Of all the things to spend money on at a wedding, alcohol is the one with the 'unfairest' pattern of distribution. Money allocated to alcohol is money not spent on things everyone can enjoy and instead spend on a thing that a few will enjoy disproportionately.
I don't mind cash bars at all, and think they are a good way to make sure that where the hosts spend money, it's on things everyone can enjoy equally. And if it was my wedding and some guest who had been hoping I'd subsidise their alcoholism for the day thought I was 'tacky' for it, it wouldn't matter as the feeling would be mutual.
Most weddings (at least in the US — I can't speak for other places) are extraordinarily expensive, and many folks getting married aren't rich. Newlyweds should not be going into debt for a lavish celebration, which is a bad foundation for a marriage. (Money is the #1 thing couples argue about and divorce over, FYI.) And, within reason, that means it makes sense for couples to look for ways to cut costs.
Dropping the alcohol (in whole or in part) is one of the easiest ways to reduce the cost. But I've seen a lot of arguing about whether a dry wedding is acceptable. Many guests feel like they must have alcohol to have an enjoyable celebration, and will punish you for not making it available. Allowing them to buy that alcohol at the their discretion seems to me like a reasonable compromise on this issue.
At my wedding, my wife and I paid for wine, but didn't provide other drinks. I honestly can't even remember whether other drinks were available on their own dime, or just not available at all, because it didn't really matter to me. But I don't see anything wrong with it either way.
Listen.. have you been married or planned a wedding? They’re so expensive and unless you’re doing a destination wedding most often guests don’t have a ton of expenses or expectations compared to the people actually getting married.
If you hire a bartender which you’re already paying for, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to tell people they need to pay for the drinks if they’re reasonably priced. Or what I’ve usually seen is guests get drink vouchers so their first 2 drinks are free or something but if they want more they need to pay cash.
If that’s an issue, tell them they are allowed to bring their own.
At my wedding we bought a shit ton of champagne, because it’s our wedding and that’s what my wife wanted so she’s getting her damn champagne, and we told everyone they are welcome to drink as much as they want, but if they want anything else (alcohol) they can bring their own. We had people shotgunning beers, a friend is a bartender and she poured some mysterious liquor in my mouth the whole evening, and my in-laws were making cocktails on their own and serving people. It was awesome.
But regardless you don’t owe the guests anything. It’s your day and you do what you wanna do, if they don’t like it they can shut their mouths because it’s the one day that’s about you and your spouse!
My wedding was wine and beer, but anything else was cash. I’m Hispanic and none of my family drinks. My husband is Irish and German, and his family enjoys drinking with a few exceptions that don’t drink at all. I’m just stating what we are bc you mentioned that you are Hispanic and that your family would not be happy if there was a cash bar…I’m assuming that they expect alcohol at the wedding. That is not always true. When it comes to weddings….we shouldn’t judge when couples are trying to save money. Weddings are ridiculously expensive and unfortunately, someone is always going to criticize/have something negative to say. I think having a cash bar is appropriate….those that want to have a drink….can. What would you say about weddings that are light refreshments after ceremony??? To each their own and their budget. It is also your choice to go and support your loved ones on their special day….or not.
I used to side-eye cash bars hard until I helped my best friend plan her wedding-turns out an open bar for 120 people would've cost more than her entire dress budget. Yeah, guests shell out to attend, but the couple’s often bleeding money on the basics already (venue, food, photographer). A dry wedding is chill if that’s what you want, but some folks want the option to toast with something stronger than lemonade without the couple taking out a loan.
I’ve seen a middle-ground that feels less “club cover charge”: couple buys two kegs and a couple cases of wine, everything else is pay-as-you-go, or they host beer/wine and signature cocktails free while liquor costs extra. Guests still feel hosted, couple doesn’t go broke. Definitely a culture thing too-my Irish family would riot at a cash bar, but my partner’s Midwest crew shrugs and says “at least there’s beer.”
I work at weddings often and have been to around 500 at this point.
-Here in Canada, alcohol is incredibly expensive to begin with, and venues charge a markup. I've seen weddings with 150 people with a $30000 bar bill, more common is $5-10K for an open bar bill. It's not unusual for drinks to be $12-15 apiece.
-People get stupid with unlimited free alcohol. They order shots for everyone, they leave 3/4 full drinks lying around, they are wasteful and careless.
-People get way more drunk when there is an open bar, I've seen significantly more medical interventions required at weddings with an open bar.
-Something I recommend to the couples I work with is a $2 bar (we call it a toonie bar after our $2 coin) where drinks are affordable for guests but they don't get as stupid and wasteful as an open bar and it covers some of the costs for the couple.
-most commonly, couples provide wine at the table and or one drink ticket, and guests cover the rest. This is very reasonable, most people don't need more than a few drinks in a night. But the heavy drinkers are super expensive.
I think there can be valid reasons for the cash bar, and it isn’t tacky if you provide an alternative.
I wanted a dry wedding (multiple family members are recovering alcoholics/can’t come if have unlimited bars), but it was important to my ex to have alcohol for their friends.
Cash bar was our compromise, but we paid for unlimited coffee/hot chocolate and Italian soda bars.
Wedding ended up cancelled but of the close friends I had asked who I trust to be honest nobody thought it was tacky. When we were floating options almost everyone except my family said they wanted cash bar instead and of dry wedding.
I have also been to friends weddings with unlimited ice cream bars with cash alcohol bars and nobody thought that was tacky.
I think it is excessive to expect guests to have unlimited drinks without paying. Not only is the cost a factor, but it also encourages excessive drinking and all of the problems that presents. No free drinks at all does come off as cheap.
An intermediate approach is better. Offer complimentary wine and a champagne toast with dinner. Offer a complimentary happy hour before dinner with hors d'oeurves. Include tickets or other means for a guest to have a couple of complimentary drinks. These are a more cost considerate and moderate way of splitting the difference between an open bar and a cash bar.
Lastly, for goodness sake, if your wedding is alcohol free, disclose this in advance and offer a couple of nice mocktails. I disagree a cash bar is worse than a dry wedding as a guest experience.
I can only offer my experiences but I have found that wedding that had a "dollar" bar brought a nice balance. When wedding had open bars, there was always dozens of half drank drinks everywhere, more falling down drunks and kinda bad vibe in the air as the night when on. But for some reason when drinks were a dollar "basically free" the night just seemed more, I dont know organized? Every one has just a hair more restrained. Again this has just been my experience but i have only been to 7 or 8 wedding and it is probably different in other cultures.
My cousin had a wedding of 200 people at a country club for the reception. The entire wedding was 120k with 60k of it being the open bar. He has the money to cover it but over half the wedding being just the bar is insane. I like the policy I see a lot which is the first two drinks are on the house and you pay for the rest. There will always be people who will have 6+ drinks at a wedding and get blackout I’m not paying for you to not remember the night and be a fool just for you to knock the edge off.
If they can afford to have an open bar but choose not to, or if they just clearly reallocated that money to a different part of the budget (maybe they exceeded their budget on the venue or went waaaaay overboard on flowers or something), then I'd be inclined to agree.
But if they can't afford it and the rest of the wedding is largely in line with that budget, I don't get the problem. You say you think dry weddings or even BYOB are classier, but I don't really understand why you think that.
This is anecdotal but in my experience 5% of the guests will drink 90% of the alcohol, and I speak as one of the 5%. And so it seems disproportionate to be spending so much of your limited resource on something that is going to be primarily consumed (not even enjoyed, just subsidising an unslateable thirst) by a small minority.
What generally work quite well is to put a modest amount of money, like enough for one drink each, behind the bar and then it becomes cash when the float is gone.
When a good friend of mine got married his wife’s parents refused to pay for anything if alcohol was served (religious grounds, but maybe just being cheap. They could have just said that they wouldn’t pay for alcohol). My friend said he’s not having a dry wedding, so they had to fund it all. A cash bar was the only way they could swing it. The prices weren’t too awful and we still had a great time.
Weddings are expensive, but extremely personal events. Don't shame the host. I like being generous with a few drinks for friends, but opening up a 1,200 drink tab was a big number and I can't blame anybody for avoiding that. For a more cost controlled event, I've been to "signature drinks + table wine" is provided, cash bar for the drunk uncles that worked very well.
As someone who’s worked at a wedding venue, open bars consistently lead to rowdy behaviour. People see free stuff and either think they should make best use of it, or see it as a challenge.
Equally no-one is forcing you to attend a wedding. If you don’t want to have to go and pay for your own drinks, don’t go.
Often there is a need to control the budget for that and that does seem like a nicer way to do it than providing a cheap dinner, using an insufficient venue or being very restrictive about who gets invited. I don't think it's tacky or insulting as long as the invitation told guests that's what's going to happen.
I think cash bars aren’t a taste decision, they are a cost decision.
Some people have very low budgets for weddings so can’t afford to pay for a full bar. So they sacrifice people attending or other features over alcohol.
So it’s not an issue if being tacky, just the families doing the most they can.
I went to a wedding where the couple didn’t drink. They had a cash bar. Their thought process was why should I pay for alcohol for my friends and family if we ourselves don’t drink? They were already paying for food and I believe had to pay for the bar to even be available.
You have a lot of waste at an open bar. "Let me put my beer here while I pee... hmm, I forgot where it went. Ill just grab another" etc... I'd rather see like a $2 drink bar. Slap down a twonie and get something. Less likely you'll forget where you placed your beer.
Weddings should just say “Don’t bring gifts. Just help us pay for the wedding instead”
The married couple doesn’t need gifts. They usually already have a place to live and don’t need practical items to fill it like people used to 70 years ago.
I went to a wedding where basically every guess was allowed 2 free drinks of their choice and after that you had to pay. This makes the most sense to me if you have the funds to do it
If i went to a wedding and there was no booze and was dry because they read it was cringe to have a cash bar, then im coming for you Ad Terrible. in comin for you. 😅
People can abuse free stuff without knowing the damage, those wedding venue price can be very high, once ordered an Irish coffee it’s almost $20 after tip.
So saying "no drinking" at a wedding is fine, but "you can drink you just have to pay for it" is tacky? If you don't want to pay at the latter then what's the difference between that and a dry wedding? Like a cash bar is literally more options than a dry wedding?
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I’ve been to weddings where the couple provided wine (a red and a white, plus champagne) and there was a cash bar. To me that’s a great way to do it - you’re the host so you’re providing, but for those who want to drink something different or drink a lot, they’re free to do so without burdening the couple. Unless you’re quite wealthy this seems completely reasonable to me.
Alcohol can be CRAZY expensive at weddings, and it’s not uncommon to hear about venues with open bars where the drinks charged to the couple don’t match what the guests consumed.
Literally just went to a wedding with a cash bar, but the power was out so the venue opened the bar and comped it. Open bar packages can easily reach 2-3k, I cant blame anyone for going dry/byob/cash bar.
lol my wedding had over 500 drinks consumed 😂 less than 60 guests. 2-3k is nothing haha
Found the Wisconsinite.
For my wedding on August of this year I spent about $1k between bartender and booze which I bought at Sam’s club. I had leftover alcohol and this was for 100 guests throughout 5 hours.
A lot of venues won’t allow that. You’re paying their staff and drinks at bar rates (or higher). And accounting for how many drinks are consumed can be sketchy.
You’re right. That’s why we toured many venues and chose the one that adapted to our capabilities. Also bar services always have to have insurance. I also had event insurance. Mishaps can always happen in any wedding.
The liquor laws in the state we got married in would not allow that. 80% of our guests lived within 100mi, so going to another state wasn't an option.
The open bar was $100/head at most places.
We found one that would do a set amount of beer and wine for $40/head and cash bar for the rest.
It still felt expensive.
What would your state not allow? Buying your own liquor and serving it?
Had to be served by a licensed bar tender and purchased from a licensed distributor (which you can not but from).
Idk the specific laws and they are stupid, but it is what is there.
I assume it's to prevent you bringing in your own moonshine.
Also, remember brewing your own beer was illegal until like 1990.
I also didn't know this was a thing. Of course many venues won't allow it, because they're trying to protect their profits, but I don't understand why the government would care (provided everyone is 21+).
Multiple states have laws requiring the server/bartender have some sort of license or permit to serve alcohol
Sounds like your friends don’t drink. Respectfully, they’re having 1-3 drinks max. Some people have friends and family that do that ever half hour.
THIS.
In the UK our weddings are long , like 10 hours minimum and 12 hours is pretty common, mine will be 14 hours.
We have drinks on arrival, before the ceremony, then a drinks reception, then a 3 course meal with half a bottle of wine per person, then a glass of fizz for the toasts.
So.in just the afternoon we've easily had 6 drinks.
Then the actual drinking begins with the evening reception. We have around 6-7 hours of solid drinking and dancing, most people will easily drink 8 more drinks in that time.
In my venue, for 100 guests that's easily going to cost $20K!
The thought of having 2 or 3 drinks at a wedding is unheard of, we've done that within an hour of the ceremony!
You're American aren't you?
In the UK our weddings last around 12 hours. English people drink a lot. It's usual to allow 14 drinks per person, most places are not dry hire, in my city, a glass of wine or a beer is around £9, a cocktail is £15.
I'm having an open bar, but I only have 18 guests. My minimum spend is £3000 on drinks, and I'll meet that easily.
But with 100 guests that would increase to £15k ( over $20,000) just on drink.
In the UK open bars are the norm, nobody sees it as tacky or unusual- it's expected. An open bar is very unusual.
Saying that, we provide welcome drinks half a bottle of wine with dinner and champagne for toasts, that alone can cost around $40 per person for 5-6 drinks.
So even though we have an open bar for most of the night we would still offer as many drinks as your free bar, in tbe first 5 hours of our wedding and it would still cost $4000 for 100 people. So moving on to a pay bar for the rest of the wedding not only makes sense to all the guests, it saves the couple from financial ruin. It's not tacky at all.
Do you know what IS tacky?
Tip jars.
Please at least write them a 5-star Google review. I wouldn’t mention the free drinks (don’t set them up for that), but do talk about the excellent service.
Yep, this has become the norm at weddings in my area. Beer and wine are open bar, hard liquor or mixed drinks are cash. Usually the couple buys a couple of kegs and cases of wine and when those are gone they move to cash.
I think it's a good compromise, plus it discourages guests from going ham on hard liquor and getting sloppy.
I’ve seen the same, but except also with free beer. Beer is much cheaper than wine or liquor, especially if it’s keg beer. The last wedding I went to had two mixed drinks on the house, the favorites of the bride and groom (a John Daly and a whiskey ginger). Every other drink with liquor was cash, and that was a really good way to get me to drink a lot of John Daly’s.
That sounds totally reasonable.
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Weddings are crazy expensive for many of your quests as well. A hotel starts at $150 and that doesn't include travel costs.
True, and if they can't afford to make it to the wedding then that is understandable.
Weddings don't inherently have to be far from where your guests are, though (and don't you often have cheaper options?)
Not going to the wedding is always an option.
For pretty much everyone I know, the only way to avoid the wedding being far from some guests would be to not invite them in the first place. Get married where we live & it's close for local friends, but family have to travel (& friends who live in other cities). Get married where it's closer to family, and everyone else has to travel.
Friends with elderly relatives were more likely to opt for the former, and so there were a LOT of hotel room bookings during the years where summers were a flurry of weddings.
And as others have said if you can't afford it don't go.
That's how we did it. Wine (generic whites and reds) and beer (we bought a keg of blue moon and Bud light) were provided. The liquor came from a different bar, and it was cash.
I’ve been to a wedding where it was BYOB and those who wanted to drink would bring a large bottle of whatever liquor to the bar. Everyone just shared each other’s
I'm pretty neutral. Weddings are expensive AF and some people will go ham on unlimited free booze.
What's your stance on drink tickets? (I.e. each guest gets, say, two tickets they can redeem for the alcoholic beverage of their choice.) Or open bar to a certain price point then closing?
I agree. Weddings are soooo expensive!
Drink tickets and limited bars sound totally fine! That way you can also control alcohol consumption and prevent guests from going a bit too wild. It is the aspect of asking guests to drop cash upfront if they want a drink after they made plenty of arrangements to attend and are still expected to spend money on gifts.
I can kind of see both sides of the cash bar argument myself. I think it would depend on the couple and their guests what system makes the most sense. Like if they know Uncle Jimmy will snit at only getting two drink tickets but won't mind paying for his own drinks, and/or Cousin Steve would drain the bar reserve $$ all by himself if he doesn't have to pay, but will be much more conservative with his own wallet.
There's a lot of factors.
no one is expected to "drop cash upfront" if the cost of a couple drinks is too much then don't drink. No one is forcing them to purchase drinks?
It's super weird. You always end up paying a premium for wedding stuff. Like, the exact same flowers are twice as expensive if the florist knows that you're doing it for a wedding. But at the same time weddings get top billing over literally everything else, so if there's a problem anywhere the wedding order is the one that gets filled and everyone else has to just eat it.
Is it worth it to pay the premium to make sure that everything is where it needs to be when it needs to be? I don't know. But after attending that cousin's wedding hiding the fact that it's for a wedding is less of a no brainer than it seemed at first.
I didnt know that the last wedding I was in that the drinks were free for all of us. I was buying my own shit all night. Oh well, it was a fun wedding
Canadian here, last wedding I went to we had 3 drinks provided via tickets. We could buy tickets and the staff were already pre-tipped. I had a wild night and only spent 70 bucks for two of us. It really wasn't that bad.
Open bar encourages people to drink too much, and an other wedding I went to, the groom ended up getting into a fist fight with the father in law. Father in law got way too drunk and was starting shit.
It's also low key acceptable to bring beer and drink in the parking lot at the venue, especially before the bar opens. We'd usually have a few cases of beer in the box of somebody's truck.
in my youth, cash bar inspired me to drink too much.
a good, but annoying feature of a wedding, is the constant bussing of tables. you don't know how many drinks I left on the table to go dance only for them to be scooped away by a busser.
at those weddings I was buying drinks, then finishing them at top speed if someone said let's go dance - which I'm obviously doing because of the bar!
open bar is great because I drink when I want and don't get "wasted money anxiety?" about my drinks disappearing.
someone takes your gin and tonic? oh well, maybe now I'll try a whiskey soda or a glass of wine.
that was not happening at a cash bar.
You know someone is paying for all those drinks right?
Typically, I don’t think open bars are paid for per drink, but per person. So leaving an unfinished drink isn’t really financially wasteful. Only generally wasteful.
It depends on the open bar. Sometimes the host pays per person, sometimes per drink, and sometimes something else (e.g. the host brings the alcohol after purchasing it themselves).
Maybe it’s a regional/local thing but I feel like paying per drink is pretty rare. I’ve only ever seen wedding venues do per guest per hour.
very rare. it's timed at any venue worth their salt.
I was at a wedding with a cash bar and the host provided the alcohol for free until it ran out. they're young. they didn't get enough so cash bar started 15 minutes into the wedding.
In tbe UK you pay for exactly how much your guests consume. I e never heard of an hourly rate here.
At the majority of the wedding venues I was looking at you could pick between pay per guest or pay per drink. Overall the pay per guest was likely to be more expensive unless everyone drank a lot.
kinda. at the scale of open bar vs cash bar, someone certainly is. but I'm also tipping hard on open bar and I'm tipping very light at cash bar.
labor is labor and booze for catering events is cheap.
when comparing wedding venue prices, there wasn't a wild difference for open vs cash bars on a per person basis.
at my own wedding, I was young and broke and had no parental help. I opted for two beers on tap with open well bar and a selected variety of wines all free for guests. they had the option of cash bar top shelf.
it was a great compromise.
point is, the difference between cash bar vs open bar for throwing a 100+ person wedding on a budget was still not enough for my broke ass to still make it happen.
I got super drunk at my own wedding because they kept on coming by and topping off my drink, making it hard to count. Luckily I was ok, just pretty sick when I got back to the hotel. Had a ton of fun, though, dancing like a mad man.
The only time I get way too drunk is when someone keeps handing me drinks. I can regulate myself but when someone keeps handing me full beers then saying "finish your beer, we're going to a different bar" is when I get way too fucked up
haha when I was younger I would get wrecked from people handing me shots on the way out.
I started just pretending to take shots and tossing them under the bar.
this might have saved my marriage.
Were you given 3 drink tickets automatically and you could purchase more tickets if needed? If that’s the case, that is totally fine!
I agree that some people lose control due to alcohol. But that sounds more to me like a behavioral issue of immature guests and not a critique against alcohol. Some people are just tacky, drunk or not. I had an open bar wedding and people were still very civil.
I think the problem with the free alcohol is that it only needs a couple of people among, say 100 guests to behave so badly that the whole wedding is ruined. So, for the couple it doesn't really help that you can put the blame on the "immature guests" as the likelihood of having a few among 100 becomes quite high if there is free alcohol but the risk is greatly reduced if the alcohol is limited to the modest level.
When the options are cash bar or pay to ruin your own wedding, I’d take cash bar.
That’s what we did as well. Every person got 3 drinks on us, and then you could continue to pay for your drinks after you used your tickets. We have some heavy drinkers in our families and that was our way of discouraging people from getting black out drunk.
Although at a certain point in the night, my father-in-law just gave the bartender his card and paid for everyone’s drinks, so it was essentially an open bar.
Interesting approach. On one hand, 3 drinks discourages excessive drinking, and I can't see a downside to that.
Small downside is that for some people (like me) a "use it or lose it voucher" would make them drink 3 when they might drink just 1 or none otherwise, even at a free bar.
I like the idea of the token system. Some drinking, but it tends to keep a lid on too many people getting too drunk, and on the cost.
Three drinks is super reasonable, I don’t drink, I’d be happy to give the tickets away.
Most people won’t need more than three. As long as pop is free, that’s a good compromise!
> Most people won’t need more than three.
For my friends and family, three drinks are had before even getting to the church
At a UK wedding people drink 3 drinks before they even sit down to eat. Our weddings last on average 12 hours and on average people consume 14 drinks throughout the day and evening.
The thing I’m confused by is this. You don’t seem to necessarily expect to get alcohol at every wedding because you’re fine with a dry wedding. It seems strange to me that you seem to view drinking at a ‘wet’ wedding as mandatory and a paywall for being at the wedding when you could simply not drink.
Like I stated in the post. For me it’s about asking money from guests IF they want to drink. Many guests have to arrange childcare, attire, travel, buy a gift, in my case a lot of family helped me decorating and tearing down the decor after the wedding. So for me not offering free drinks it’s unreasonable because I want them to have a good time IF they choose to drink. A dry wedding is more reasonable because you could argue than the couple is not offering alcohol due to religious or ethical reasons.
How do you feel about a couple doing a dry wedding for financial reasons?
If they want to drink they can have one for free. I’m sure they have water, soda, juice.
No one is forcing you to drink alcohol. If you want an expensive alcoholic drink then some have cash bars.
Not tacky. Just a different way of doing things.
Implying people shouldn’t have a wedding if they can’t supply all their guests with free booze is a wild take. 🤷♀️
Sounds very immature
This still feels weird to me because it seems you’re upset that the couple is allowing people the option to drink if they want to.
Every wedding I’ve gone to will also provide dinner/dessert. I’ve always viewed the costs of travel and gifts as a way to ‘pay’ for the dinner I got that night. The alcohol is an option to allow people to cut loose if they want to, and it would certainly add a LOT of cost to the wedding couple to pay for everybody’s drinks, especially if it’s a huge wedding. My sister just got married a couple months ago, and she had something like 250 guests attend which would have been absolutely ludicrous price-wise if they paid for all the drinks.
Additionally, with having a cash bar, the people who are expected to help clean up/ help with the wedding can STILL get drinks from the couple. At my sister’s wedding I did all that and was put on their tab for the reception.
When my brother and sister-in-law were planning their wedding, their wedding planner strongly recommended against an open bar, telling them she had worked multiple weddings where the bride and groom woke up to $30k+ bar tabs. Yeah, no I’m not going to drop a down payment on a starter home just so my friends and family can drink for free.
I would be willing to do drink tickets, or maybe only cover beer and wine. Under no circumstances am I going to cover liquor, pay for that yourself.
That's insane. I had unlimited booze/soda/etc for my 50 guest wedding for like $300 (probably $600 in 2025 dollars), and we had leftovers.
I don’t know how that bar company operated. But when I had my wedding I paid per the hour and bought the booze myself in Sam’s club. The whole thing was probably only $1k between alcohol and bartender for 4 hours and 100 guests.
The options you’re mentioning are totally fine though.
That actually makes a lot of sense and that’s not too bad for a price point. I think the issue for those couples was that they basically did a totally open bar at huge weddings, which included liquor and mixed drinks. If you have 200 people at your wedding, it’s very feasible that you are looking at a 5 figure bar tab under those conditions. You went about it in a smart way though.
That means every person on average drank at least $50, or $150 if you’re above mentioned $30k happened. That seems very unlikely unless they only pouring super premium liquor lol.
The bartender they hired probably just charged whatever they wanted: can of miller life: $15, plus mandatory tip, plus hourly wages, plus transport fees, etc. If you hire people and don't care about price, pretty much any amount is possible.
It's not like each guest drank $50 worth of booze at grocery store prices.
People tend to abuse open bars. At my wedding, we had wine on the tables and I gave my ushers and bridesmaids money to buy drinks for people at the cash bar.
Totally reasonable. At least you’re offering something.
Counter point: plenty of people have weddings where the guests are decidedly NOT all close to them. Family can balloon the guest list extremely quickly, and many people simply don't know their extended family members all that well.
The last wedding I went to, they got all of their liquor from Costco and spent maybe $500 on it for a 200 person wedding. The created a signature drink for the wedding that contained vodka, so bought maybe a dozen handles of the Kirkland stuff, and a bunch of cases of beer, seltzer and boxed wine. No one was drinking 20 year scotch on their dime of course but everyone could drink as much as they wanted and they did it for very cheap.
A lot of people can't do that because most venues don't permit you to bring your own alcohol for insurance reasons. If you want to drink, they make you hire their bartenders and buy their booze.
I wish the DIY path was more viable.
Then pick a venue that doesn’t gouge you for their services. In the last few years there has been a substantial pushback against the obscene cost of weddings and their are many venues now that cater to couples that don’t want to saddle themselves with a decade of debt in order to have a decent wedding.
Or - hear me out - you could do a cash bar. People are used to buying drinks. It isn't a big deal.
Just go to the courthouse and invite some friends to a bar after, then. Why insist on making a bunch of people figure out time off, travel and lodging just to nickel and dime em to make your wedding feel more special? People are used to paying for food, too. Might as well make em pay for dinner, as well.
The drinks are one of the least important parts of the wedding reception. It's wild to me that you're saying people shouldn't have one at all if they can't afford to buy everyone alcohol.
Diy is plenty viable, but many people have high expectations. We did our whole wedding for 50+ people for $1k in my smallish backyard. Now I wasn't going to win any awards for the wedding, but it was a fun time where everyone got free booze and just grabbed it out of a cooler.
Sorry, I just meant that I wish it was easier to DIY the booze portion. In my experience, unless you have family land to act as the venue, virtually no location will allow you to bring your own alcohol.
I agree. But gifts, travel arrangements, childcare (if no kids wedding), formal attire (if needed) are still expected no matter if you’re close to them or not. Your closest circle shouldn’t be punished with no alcohol only because some invitees aren’t as close to you.
a wedding isn’t a summons. they aren’t forced to travel.
I don't really see how what you wrote applies to what I wrote.
Many people have weddings with 200 guests or more. They might be close to a couple dozen people on the list. Those kinds of open bar weddings run up a tab in the thousands.
OP are you an alcoholic? Jesus lol fun is possible without drinking believe it or not. “Punished with no alcohol” good lord lol
"Your closest circle shouldn’t be punished with no alcohol only because some invitees aren’t as close to you."
Nobody's being punished with no alcohol! You're talking about a cash bar!
I don’t disagree with your argument regarding cash bars, but I’m going to push back on dry weddings being perfectly fine.
Every single human society independently developed some way to make alcohol. It’s a core part of social settings and has been in basically all societies for thousands of years.
Plus, dry weddings are boring.
Every human society independently developed ritual murders, it’s a core part of society and has been in basically all societies for thousands of years of years.
My fiancée and I don't drink and it's difficult to imagine something less comfortable for me than being the only sober person in a room full of drunk people. I'd rather just elope.
I spent 15 years in an abusive marriage with a violent alcoholic. I do not drink and never really have. I now live in Wisconsin, which is home to 85% of the country’s drunkest counties. I am also now engaged. I will not spend my wedding day surrounded by plastered midwesterners. I would be uncomfortable the entire time and I don’t want to spend my wedding uncomfortable. I told my fiancé that if he wants a larger wedding, there will be no alcohol. It’s probably the one thing about a wedding that is non-negotiable. He said that it would probably be better to elope or only invite immediate family and have no reception, because if we tell his family there will be no alcohol allowed, at least three people would show up with kegs anyways, and it would be easier for him to deal with people having hurt feelings over not being invited than deal with people being angry over not being allowed to drink.
That makes sense. If you aren’t one to enjoy a party, don’t throw one. You can have a small wedding for family and friends with like 2 drink tickets on a cash bar. I imagine your friend group doesn’t get out of hand drunk or you’d likely not be friends with them. In a small, more intimate setting, getting drunk is not appropriate.
But if you want to invite a larger group and want to have a party and dance and have a lot of fun energy, the vast majority of people will want to drink alcohol.
It’s your wedding, but the choices aren’t between everyone being drunk and eloping.
Who said they dont enjoy a party? I can't believe the passive aggressive BS people come up with to justify not being able to not get loaded for one event. They just said NO alcohol. You dont even know them and youre trying to talk them into just two drinks? Youre the person she doesnt want there. People need to grow the f up.
Is your whole social circle aside from you two heavy drinkers? I hate the idea of enforcing a dry wedding, but if most guests aren't drinkers already than it makes more sense
God forbid you go to an event without drinking 😂
I like to drink casually and I’m a bartender, nobody needs to drink at any kind of event.
My wife and I were just talking about this 2 days ago and weddings were the prime example we couldn't think of at the time. We don't drink at all, but have no reservations at all about people who do. We love playing darts and there's obviously a lot of alcohol that orbits around that activity, but they are two separate activities. What would people say about someone who would refuse to go to an event unless there's a dart board there? What a sad, weird, lonely way to live.
Feeling separation anxiety from a substance to the point where someone won't go somewhere if it's not available/acceptable is a telltale marker of a substance abuse problem. It's not normal to live that way, and there's no reason to pretend like it is.
Every single human society independently developed a way to make alcohol because it's what happens when you leave juice in a jar for a long time, not because it's requisite for social interaction.
I dont even drink all that much anymore and I would rather have my eyeballs chewed out by a pack of roaches than go to a dry wedding.
Overly drunk people are obnoxious and a nuisance
(I used to be one 🙃. Sober now)
And sliced bread was a great invention and wheels were a great invention and GPSes were a great invention but you can have weddings without them.
if you can't hang without alcohol then...don't go.
Bro get some Muslim friends. Muslim weddings are fun as shit and sometimes don't have alcohol.
I went to a pretty fun dry muslin wedding a couple of years ago. However they did wrap it up at about 8, after which we went to the pub
Yeah this idea that you have to have alcohol to have fun is just wrong. I’m glad to see the younger generation is starting to move away from drinking alcohol, it’s literally poison and contributes to so many traffic deaths each year, not to mention abusive partners etc. I get that it’s pretty ingrained in society but I think we’d all be better off without it.
This is very true. I'd leave a dry wedding immediately after the food was done.
Thank you for your insight. While wedding planning, I’ve read a lot about some family members recovering from alcohol addiction and for that reason brides would not offer alcohol out of respect. However, I believe as humans we need to exercise self-control and I also don’t think other guests need to be punished because of a couple people.
Options are nice to have for sure!
Then why are you arguing against giving people the option to buy drinks at a wedding that would otherwise be dry?
Then why are you arguing for punishing guests that want to buy alcohol because a couple people (the bride and the groom) don't want to purchase it for them?
Its not a core part of social settings. How ridiculous. Your social settings maybe. Dry events also arent boring to people who dont have drinking problems. Thats a personal issue. Not being able to have a nice time without getting loaded is a you problem. Dont pawn it off on society to make yourself feel better.
What about opium
Normally I would agree with this, but at my friends wedding (He is Ivorian) someone stole an entire catering tray of Jolof Rice before the reception even began and the catering company was unloading, and then later on someone stole bottles of Hennessy from the bar they had set-up.
They invited many people from the local community who were also from Africa, so this was by no means just a friends and family event.
Needless to say… I would’ve been furious if I had been paying out-of-pocket for this stuff like they were, only to then find out that someone’s uncle or cousin, or one of my neighbors even, was actively stealing from me on my wedding night.
Idk if I would do a cash bar personally… but I can 100% see why someone would if money was tight.
This sounds more like a behavioral issue from one of their guests. Not a problem with alcohol itself.
I agree… but at the end of the day they still paid for food and drinks that were stolen by guests.
Maybe it’s just being from that immigrant African community, but it was expected that they invited the community to the wedding. That means paying for a lot of people who you might not even really know all too well. Unfortunately, people will take advantage of that…
If guests had needed to pay for the alcohol instead of the wedding party, the people in charge probably would’ve kept a much closer eye on the bottles that ended up disappearing.
I mean, this is an unusual circumstance and more so speaks to making sure your invite list has honest people over making restrictions for a corner case
I would rather have a cash bar than a dry wedding. BUT, that being said, I think anyone that isn't like a real young wedding should have an open bar. If you can't afford an open bar and are not a youngster, maybe have a smaller wedding?
It’s not always money as an issue though. If you have recovering alcoholics as close family or friends, depending on the person they may be able to handle a cash bar by leaving their wallet at home but not handle open bar.
That and I floated doing dry wedding to lots of people and near universally everyone wanted cash bar instead of dry wedding.
Lots of people have family members who are alcoholics so this is hardly an unheard of issue.
I feel like if the difference between people maintaining their sobriety or not is if the alcohol is free, then they’re probably not ready to attend events involving alcohol point blank.
Sure, that’s why I wanted to do a dry wedding. But it is a different temptation when it’s free and my people could attend a cash bar but not an open bar.
The cash bar was a reluctant compromise because it was important to my ex to have alcohol at the wedding.
But also…to me alcohol has only been a source of pain. I was footing most of the bill, so I don’t see why it’s tacky to not want to spend thousands of dollars on something that has destroyed or derailed the lives of so many people I love. And my family is clearly genetically predisposed so I didn’t want anyone trying a drink because it’s free only to develop a lifelong addiction. If people wanted to spend their own money fine but I wasn’t gonna pay for it.
We still spent that money in other areas. Had a neat venue, tons of desserts, way better food, appetizers, unlimited coffee/hot chocolate, Italian soda, etc to try and make up for it. But I guess wedding was canceled before it happened so who knows maybe everyone would have thought it was tacky.
My wedding was so small and low key. It was in a backyard. I provided all wine, champagne, and beer.
I didn’t want to spend much and we’re not fancy people. The idea of getting a nice fancy venue with its own bar…and then expecting my guests to pay at said bar makes me feel so uncomfortable as a host.
Same. We had an "open bar" in our backyard with 50 guests and also provided food. The whole thing cost like 1k or something. I'm surprised more people don't go cheap, and save their money for a house down payment or something.
See this is why I think a big part of this is cultural in terms of how much people drink.
Food and booze for $20 (or £20) per person for a wedding seems nowhere near enough for a British wedding, even if you hosted it yourself and got the cheapest stuff you could (and that's ignoring that almost no one in the UK can reasonably host 50 people in their backyard!).
Yeah, I totally agree.
$20 is about £15. You could do it if you were buying all the drinks yourself, but that's not even enough for a basic drinks package, of welcome drinks, wine with the wedding breakfast and fizz for toasts, at a UK wedding venue, I reckon the average is almost double that.
Then in any nice ish bar, a glass of wine is about £6-7, a pint about the same and cocktails start about £10-12. A lot more in major cities or fancier venues.
And as you mentioned, the amount we drink is a lot more, not only because we have a drinking culture in the UK , but also because our weddings last at least twice as long as the average US wedding.
Their weddings only average around 5 hours from start to finish! 😂 whereas I think the UK average is about 11.5 hours
I agree. I sacrificed guest count for guest experience for my wedding and I don’t regret it.
See I think that is weird, you didn't invite people to see you get married so that you could instead by booze for your guests. That is a strange compromise "oh really wanted to share our special day with you, but we instead decided to buy a bunch of vodka"
Some people dislike alcohol or have struggled with it in the past (or know those who have) and don't want to fund its consumption. That said, people also realize that the majority of guests expect a drink at a wedding. Providing the option but asking you pay for it yourself seems a fair middle ground to me
I agree theyre tacky, but I much prefer a cash bar over a dry wedding!
The best compromise Ive seen was wine on each table, but the wedding was otherwise dry.
That’s a good compromise. At least they’re providing something.
Generally I think it's expected to provide drinks with the meal, but then have a cash bar.
At my wedding we provided enough for half a bottle of wine per guest at each table, plus some beers and soft drinks, but then it was a cash bar.
Purposely chose a venue with reasonably priced drinks though, since the last thing you want is for guests to feel ripped off.
Weddings are expensive, and you need to strike a balance between ensuring your guests have a decent meal etc but not so much as you basically paying for them to drink the place dry at your expense.
i’d rather pay for my drink than have my friends go into debt just to get married.
My wedding will be classy AND have a cash bar. In will be on a somewhat remote vineyard with limited accommodations nearby, and I'm rather concerned about people trying to drive back to our hometown (~1.5hrs away) after having too much to drink. I think people feel obligated to take advantage of the free booze at an open bar and are therefore more likely to drive home.
Open bars are also damn expensive, and the funds saved on the open bar can be spent elsewhere on the wedding that will enhance the guest experience in some other way (i.e. better music, upgraded food service). And this way guests can still chose to pay for a couple drinks if they so desire. Why deny them that?
We provided 4 bottles of wine per table and put $5K towards an open bar, and once that ran out, it went to cash. The $5K was gone in about 45 minutes and this was at 2003 prices. My guests would much prefer to have switched to a cash bar vs completely dry. Full open bars get real expensive, real fast.
But then, for some reason, full open bars are on the rare side here. Most of the time its open during a cocktail hour, and then switches to cash.
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A cash bar at many British weddings would bankrupt the couple! Both due to the cost of alcohol at your average wedding venue, and the amount people put away. Probably not a suprise then that paid bars are absolutely the norm here. That's not to say free bars don't happen, but I've only been to one wedding (out of maybe 15-20?) with a free bar, and that was because it was held in a forest. In the 'standard' wedding, a welcome drink, a toast drink, and a couple of glasses of house wine to drink with the meal are usually included in the package. Anything beyond that is paid for by the guests.
Calling the vast majority of British weddings tacky is... something. But then we don't expect our bridesmaids to pay for their own dresses - now THAT is tacky.
Not only their dresses and shoes but their hair and makeup too,
Plus they, of course, need to buy outfits for the never ending amount of pre and post wedding events, bridal showers, week long bachelorette holidays abroad, rehearsal dinners, next day brunches.
I was about to say the same thing. I could easily imagine a British booze bill to be as much as the wedding in some cases! Also wouldn't fancy Loch Lomond without a drink in me, I'd far rather pay for my drinks over a dry wedding if we're having to pick.
Different cultures have different expectations.
In the US it is expected that the couple will fund the wedding. While this is great for guests, it also saddles the new couple with a huge expense.
I got married in Japan, where it's normal to expect guest to pay (like equal to 100 or 200 dollars) to go to a wedding. This offsets the cost for the new couple. But from an American perspective it would be tacky and weird to ask guests to pay to go to a wedding.
You speak about your experience as a Hispanic person. Is it possible that there are just different expectations for different cultures?
I thought it's normal to gift 100-200 dollars as a wedding gift in general? Have I been over gifting everyone lmao
It depends on the financial situation of the couple. Weddings are not cheap and there is lots of social pressures as well. If the couple are not big drinkers but they still want to have the option for people, cash bars are fine.
Many couples are trying to keep costs down and open bars are a huge cost. Sure if she's got a $20k dress on but a cash bar I would be a little perturbed. Cash bars also help keep people from getting out of control.
Though my preference is in-between that. Open bar for beer and wine; cash bar for liquor.
Open bar for beer and wine is more than enough. For my wedding on August of this year I spent about $1k between bartender and booze which I bought at Sam’s club. I had leftover alcohol and this was for 100 guests throughout 5 hours.
So you spent less than $10 per person on alcohol over 5 hours and had booze left over?
How many drinks is that working out as? I'm assuming your venue didn't charge corkage?
In the UK for instance I think you could plausibly have spent 10x that amount - that's why truly open bars are rare here.
I am not criticising your wedding - these things are cultural and personal! - but just as a cultural comparison, for there to be so little alcohol available (and no way to buy more) would I think be seen as odd and cheap at a British wedding, much more so than a cash bar.
You'd spend more than 10x that in the UK- $10 is about £6.60.
A basic drinks package in a typical venue is around £30 and that's before the party even starts. Add another 6-8 drinks over the course of an evening, at an average of around £9 ish and we're at £84-102pp.
An average of £93 So around £9300 bar bill for 100 guests About $12.5K
Much more in cities like Edinburgh, York, London and the South East
My minimum bar spend for 18 guests, plus us, is £3k so £150 pp. Given in my venue in Edinburgh, a bottle of the cheapest champagne is £140, a glass of wine is between 6-15, so averages at £10.50, a cocktail is £15, reaching tbe minimum will not be an issue, especially as the evening reception starts at 6pm and goes on until 1am
If Americans had long weddings like us they wouldn't be so keen on open bars!
My wedding was at a restaurant with a legit bar. With like very expensive whiskeys and stuff. I had it setup so that a few of the cocktails were included/free all night but if folks went outside of that, I had a maximum $ amount. I don’t even think we hit it. I think what we did was fair.
This must be an American thing, here in the UK, most bars at weddings are not free.
There is usually beer/wine etc provided with the meal, but almost every wedding I've been to has had a bar where you pay for your own drinks in the evening
I've seen cash bars used as a way to deter drunkenness. Some people's families will go HARD when they don't have to pay for their own drinks but do a normal pace when they do.
Similarly, I've been to weddings that did open bar for the cocktail hour but cash after. That always struck me as a fine way to offer your guests drinks but not overspend in total.
Seriously, some people see an open bar and go absolutely crazy.
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Pay to eat is a whole new level of tackiness. I’m sorry. We are talking about family and loved ones joining you, not strangers.
Cash bars at weddings are affordable. Very few people have the money to pay for a hundred peoples alcohol consumption over a day/ evening of partying.
Needing to be buzzed/drunk to celebrate family is tacky. Understandable, sure, but ultimately tacky.
I guess you’re just assuming that people only invite family to their weddings? I just went to a wedding in Vegas, where I didn’t know a damn soul except the bride. Yeah I needed quite a few drinks.
The entire concept of weddings is tacky so it hard to say that changing the details of a wedding in any way makes them more or less tacky.
Spending huge amounts of money early in life when it could be much better spent elsewhere just so a bunch of distant relations can wear uncomfortable clothes and eat unfamiliar food and bring you gifts that are mostly useless is the worst possible way to celebrate your love of someone. It’s silly and the industry is mostly overblown fake classy bull shit.
Young people lose money and stress themselves out for nothing and it’s long past the time we all just stopped doing it. the only reason people want fancy weddings is because society tells the they should. Just stop.
Before I comment on the topic at hand, a commentary on the metas of this subject:
The wedding industry as a whole has become a corporate claptrap, and that is precisely what the industry wants. While wedding guests and newlyweds bicker about who’s paying for what, the C-Suites couldn’t give a damn because someone is paying them regardless.
The questions should be “Is this whole expensive affair where everyone comes and celebrates me over the course of multiple days really necessary? Does that sees egotistical? Why not get married in a small, intimate ceremony and save money for the honeymoon, without having to force my contacts to take off work, wrestle with childcare, and pay all the necessary travel/accommodation expenses because we just have to be celebrated?”
As someone who’s single, every wedding I’ve been to thus far is usually followed with me almost never speaking to that friend again, whether it be them starting a family, or whether I feel like my association with them becomes more “them-centric” and less reciprocal. As such, despite the occasion being joyous and there being a handful of fun moments throughout, I’ve usually found the weddings I’ve been to in hindsight to be… not worth my time.
But I digress; now, specifically on the commentary about cash vs. dry vs. open bar, echoing sentiments about open bars being prohibitively costly for the couple and encouraging excessive drinking which creates its own liabilities. Dry bars, albeit cheaper and healthier, are liable to underwhelm guests who, per the stress of the above, may need a stiff one or four to get through the affair. Cash bars are, in essence, a compromise between excessive expense unto the newlyweds and merely having alcohol available.
Of course, as a few other Redditters have mentioned, some couples may opt to buy the first drink or few à la a ticket system, with additional drinks being available for purchase. Another compromise if alcohol is required for such an occasion.
At both weddings I've been to, it was a cash bar with alcohol provided at the meal and a glass of champers for the toast. This was pretty reasonable for me.
Is there a such thing as a BYOB wedding hahahahahahahah I agree with you on the cash bar but atleast if it’s on the invite I can come with cash
Personally, I think the move is to offer basic beer and wine (basic not expensive) on the house; but if you want something more sophisticated than you can purchase it. This is what we did for our wedding.
Personally, I feel a dry wedding where alcohol is not even offered is extremely tacky (unless there are strong reasons e.g. a history of alcoholism). You made the full argument that folks are coming in from out of town, taking PTO, and then you are going to argue a dry wedding is better than a cash bar.
Alcohol is seen as a more premium offering. Now if you're going to have people travel and then not offer food or make people pay for food; now that is tacky and in very poor taste. However, if you feed people, and offer non alcoholic drinks on the house but have a cash bar; there is nothing tacky about this. This is in fact very reasonable.
I agree! They could even make up a few cocktails that are served and if people want different, then they can pay. But straight cash bar is tacky.
I would not want to pay for guests to get drunk at my wedding. Sure, I would provide 2 glasses of wine each - if a guest wants more - let them pay for it. But I am opposed to drinking culture and I wouldn't want my wedding to encourage it.
I don’t recall ever being to a wedding with a cash bar that required guests to spend their money.
If you don’t want to spend money on alcohol, don’t drink.
The married couple can do whatever they want at their own wedding. Your opinions in that are irrelevant.
A lot of you have no idea how much it costs for a full open bar at a wedding and it shows.
Sorry but what’s a cash bar?
I've been to weddings with open bar, cash bar, and no bar, and don't have a problem with any of them. I'm there for the gathering, not specifically to drink, so as long as we can effectively gather with friends and family then the event works. Alcohol can certainly help here, but it's not necessary, and the cost of a few drinks isn't going to really factor into my overall budget in attending the wedding in the first place.
With that being said, the thing that strikes me most about your view is that you are ok with dry weddings but not cash bar. You even mention that you're ok with it specifically for budget reasons. It's ok for the couple to remove the option entirely because they can't afford to pay for it, but not ok for them to leave it up to you? Would you be similarly ok with foodless weddings but not ok with one where you could order food yourself?
The best argument in favor of cash bars is cost control. Weddings can be massively expensive events and oftentimes couples will choose a cash bar so as to include all the people they’d like to invite. When I was getting married, my wife and I found our dream venue. We were committed to a hosted bar for the reasons you lay out but realized quickly that we would either need a different venue or a much smaller guest list. We opted for the different venue which ended up being a winery that excluded hard liquor but provided wine and beer.
There’s a good chance that a hosted bar would mean you aren’t invited.
Wine and beer are totally fine and more than enough. For my wedding on August of this year I spent about $1k between bartender and booze which I bought at Sam’s club. I had leftover alcohol and this was for 100 guests throughout 5 hours.
Invite less people and afford the open bar.
This is exactly what I did. I also could afford more food and better quality.
Alcohol is very expensive where I'm from. It's heavily taxed and everything, plus there are strict licensing laws that require you to pay a lot of money to be licensed to serve alcohol at your event, and to have trained and licensed bartenders.
I had an open bar at my wedding, but I paid a LOT for it. Cash bars are more common. It has become a part of our culture here that most people are probably going to have a cash bar.
And that's really what it comes down to: a cultural thing. To some cultures, a cash bar seems tacky. To others, it's expected and really not that big of a deal. Obviously in your culture it's tacky. But you can't tell us our view is wrong because our culture is different.
A wedding reception is a party. You invite guests to a special party. You shouldn’t expect guests to pay for drinks at a party. You do what you can afford. If you can’t afford alcohol, don’t serve alcohol.
British here, and all 3 types (free bar, paid bar, 0 alcohol) of weddings are fairly common. But why, in whatever culture it applies to, is alcohol seen as something people need? I have never been a drinker, so the concept that I either need to pay for people's beer or completely disable the ability to buy it is stupid. I don't need to do either, if people want to drink, that's fine, but why would I pay for it? Free bars just encourage overdrinking at one of the least appropriate times for it, and I don't feel the need to babysit my guests by deciding if they can drink or not.
I've been a guest or a wedding coordinator at around 100 UK weddings. I've never seen a dry one. I'd say 60% are cash bars, 30% are cash bars after the first 2 or 3 drinks and only 10% are full open bars.
People get outraged at dry weddings unfortunately and most often won't even show if they can't get drunk. Thats just how it is. When I say enraged....they'll refuse to show, bully, berate, be a total ass and psycho to their family and friends for not providing booze for the event. Not everyone can afford it so they compromise for these people. Yes its tacky but its even tackier to throw tantrums and claim you can't attend one even for a few hours and not get loaded.
I think it’s bad form to have cash bars or tip jars at weddings.
You mentioned being Hispanic and yeah it’s definitely cultural. The last place where I worked one of my coworker’s families was from Mexico and he was telling me how every family gathering was an excuse to drink. Which is very different here.
If you cannot afford a full open bar for everyone an acceptable option is to give everyone a complimentary drink voucher and if they want something beyond that they can pay.
I was actually really mad about a wedding I was in once. We were told over and over that it was an open bar. It was…until the alcohol sales reached a budget set by the bride and groom which I was told was pretty generous. However by the time the wedding party arrived at the venue, the guests had blown through that budget. The bride was pretty pissed that she had to pay for drinks at her own wedding when she was supposed to have an open bar.
Which I’ve only had it happen that one time, but still it was extremely shitty.
My wedding was supposed to be a open bar for wedding party and cash for guests, but my parents quickly realized that no one in my husband’s family were drinkers and they converted it to an open bar for everyone.
There are so many things to spend money on to make a wedding special for the participants and guests - the venue, food, flowers, entertainment, and yes, alcohol. That's a list of things that have pretty even distributions among attendees - everyone gets their portion of the food, enjoys the same venue, has access to the same entertainment...
And one thing - alcohol - where some, perhaps many, won't have any, more may have just a little, and a relatively small number will consume the majority of what's provided. Of all the things to spend money on at a wedding, alcohol is the one with the 'unfairest' pattern of distribution. Money allocated to alcohol is money not spent on things everyone can enjoy and instead spend on a thing that a few will enjoy disproportionately.
I don't mind cash bars at all, and think they are a good way to make sure that where the hosts spend money, it's on things everyone can enjoy equally. And if it was my wedding and some guest who had been hoping I'd subsidise their alcoholism for the day thought I was 'tacky' for it, it wouldn't matter as the feeling would be mutual.
I disagree.
Most weddings (at least in the US — I can't speak for other places) are extraordinarily expensive, and many folks getting married aren't rich. Newlyweds should not be going into debt for a lavish celebration, which is a bad foundation for a marriage. (Money is the #1 thing couples argue about and divorce over, FYI.) And, within reason, that means it makes sense for couples to look for ways to cut costs.
Dropping the alcohol (in whole or in part) is one of the easiest ways to reduce the cost. But I've seen a lot of arguing about whether a dry wedding is acceptable. Many guests feel like they must have alcohol to have an enjoyable celebration, and will punish you for not making it available. Allowing them to buy that alcohol at the their discretion seems to me like a reasonable compromise on this issue.
At my wedding, my wife and I paid for wine, but didn't provide other drinks. I honestly can't even remember whether other drinks were available on their own dime, or just not available at all, because it didn't really matter to me. But I don't see anything wrong with it either way.
Listen.. have you been married or planned a wedding? They’re so expensive and unless you’re doing a destination wedding most often guests don’t have a ton of expenses or expectations compared to the people actually getting married.
If you hire a bartender which you’re already paying for, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to tell people they need to pay for the drinks if they’re reasonably priced. Or what I’ve usually seen is guests get drink vouchers so their first 2 drinks are free or something but if they want more they need to pay cash.
If that’s an issue, tell them they are allowed to bring their own.
At my wedding we bought a shit ton of champagne, because it’s our wedding and that’s what my wife wanted so she’s getting her damn champagne, and we told everyone they are welcome to drink as much as they want, but if they want anything else (alcohol) they can bring their own. We had people shotgunning beers, a friend is a bartender and she poured some mysterious liquor in my mouth the whole evening, and my in-laws were making cocktails on their own and serving people. It was awesome.
But regardless you don’t owe the guests anything. It’s your day and you do what you wanna do, if they don’t like it they can shut their mouths because it’s the one day that’s about you and your spouse!
My wedding was wine and beer, but anything else was cash. I’m Hispanic and none of my family drinks. My husband is Irish and German, and his family enjoys drinking with a few exceptions that don’t drink at all. I’m just stating what we are bc you mentioned that you are Hispanic and that your family would not be happy if there was a cash bar…I’m assuming that they expect alcohol at the wedding. That is not always true. When it comes to weddings….we shouldn’t judge when couples are trying to save money. Weddings are ridiculously expensive and unfortunately, someone is always going to criticize/have something negative to say. I think having a cash bar is appropriate….those that want to have a drink….can. What would you say about weddings that are light refreshments after ceremony??? To each their own and their budget. It is also your choice to go and support your loved ones on their special day….or not.
I used to side-eye cash bars hard until I helped my best friend plan her wedding-turns out an open bar for 120 people would've cost more than her entire dress budget. Yeah, guests shell out to attend, but the couple’s often bleeding money on the basics already (venue, food, photographer). A dry wedding is chill if that’s what you want, but some folks want the option to toast with something stronger than lemonade without the couple taking out a loan.
I’ve seen a middle-ground that feels less “club cover charge”: couple buys two kegs and a couple cases of wine, everything else is pay-as-you-go, or they host beer/wine and signature cocktails free while liquor costs extra. Guests still feel hosted, couple doesn’t go broke. Definitely a culture thing too-my Irish family would riot at a cash bar, but my partner’s Midwest crew shrugs and says “at least there’s beer.”
My dress cost £1000. My open bar is estimated at £3k. And that's for 20 people. If I had 100 guests, I'd be looking at £15k for drinks alone!
I work at weddings often and have been to around 500 at this point.
-Here in Canada, alcohol is incredibly expensive to begin with, and venues charge a markup. I've seen weddings with 150 people with a $30000 bar bill, more common is $5-10K for an open bar bill. It's not unusual for drinks to be $12-15 apiece. -People get stupid with unlimited free alcohol. They order shots for everyone, they leave 3/4 full drinks lying around, they are wasteful and careless. -People get way more drunk when there is an open bar, I've seen significantly more medical interventions required at weddings with an open bar. -Something I recommend to the couples I work with is a $2 bar (we call it a toonie bar after our $2 coin) where drinks are affordable for guests but they don't get as stupid and wasteful as an open bar and it covers some of the costs for the couple. -most commonly, couples provide wine at the table and or one drink ticket, and guests cover the rest. This is very reasonable, most people don't need more than a few drinks in a night. But the heavy drinkers are super expensive.
I think there can be valid reasons for the cash bar, and it isn’t tacky if you provide an alternative.
I wanted a dry wedding (multiple family members are recovering alcoholics/can’t come if have unlimited bars), but it was important to my ex to have alcohol for their friends.
Cash bar was our compromise, but we paid for unlimited coffee/hot chocolate and Italian soda bars.
Wedding ended up cancelled but of the close friends I had asked who I trust to be honest nobody thought it was tacky. When we were floating options almost everyone except my family said they wanted cash bar instead and of dry wedding.
I have also been to friends weddings with unlimited ice cream bars with cash alcohol bars and nobody thought that was tacky.
I think it is excessive to expect guests to have unlimited drinks without paying. Not only is the cost a factor, but it also encourages excessive drinking and all of the problems that presents. No free drinks at all does come off as cheap.
An intermediate approach is better. Offer complimentary wine and a champagne toast with dinner. Offer a complimentary happy hour before dinner with hors d'oeurves. Include tickets or other means for a guest to have a couple of complimentary drinks. These are a more cost considerate and moderate way of splitting the difference between an open bar and a cash bar.
Lastly, for goodness sake, if your wedding is alcohol free, disclose this in advance and offer a couple of nice mocktails. I disagree a cash bar is worse than a dry wedding as a guest experience.
Agreed. If you can't afford to provide drinks, then have a lovely afternoon wedding with no booze.
I can only offer my experiences but I have found that wedding that had a "dollar" bar brought a nice balance. When wedding had open bars, there was always dozens of half drank drinks everywhere, more falling down drunks and kinda bad vibe in the air as the night when on. But for some reason when drinks were a dollar "basically free" the night just seemed more, I dont know organized? Every one has just a hair more restrained. Again this has just been my experience but i have only been to 7 or 8 wedding and it is probably different in other cultures.
My cousin had a wedding of 200 people at a country club for the reception. The entire wedding was 120k with 60k of it being the open bar. He has the money to cover it but over half the wedding being just the bar is insane. I like the policy I see a lot which is the first two drinks are on the house and you pay for the rest. There will always be people who will have 6+ drinks at a wedding and get blackout I’m not paying for you to not remember the night and be a fool just for you to knock the edge off.
If they can afford to have an open bar but choose not to, or if they just clearly reallocated that money to a different part of the budget (maybe they exceeded their budget on the venue or went waaaaay overboard on flowers or something), then I'd be inclined to agree.
But if they can't afford it and the rest of the wedding is largely in line with that budget, I don't get the problem. You say you think dry weddings or even BYOB are classier, but I don't really understand why you think that.
This is anecdotal but in my experience 5% of the guests will drink 90% of the alcohol, and I speak as one of the 5%. And so it seems disproportionate to be spending so much of your limited resource on something that is going to be primarily consumed (not even enjoyed, just subsidising an unslateable thirst) by a small minority.
What generally work quite well is to put a modest amount of money, like enough for one drink each, behind the bar and then it becomes cash when the float is gone.
When a good friend of mine got married his wife’s parents refused to pay for anything if alcohol was served (religious grounds, but maybe just being cheap. They could have just said that they wouldn’t pay for alcohol). My friend said he’s not having a dry wedding, so they had to fund it all. A cash bar was the only way they could swing it. The prices weren’t too awful and we still had a great time.
Weddings are expensive, but extremely personal events. Don't shame the host. I like being generous with a few drinks for friends, but opening up a 1,200 drink tab was a big number and I can't blame anybody for avoiding that. For a more cost controlled event, I've been to "signature drinks + table wine" is provided, cash bar for the drunk uncles that worked very well.
As someone who’s worked at a wedding venue, open bars consistently lead to rowdy behaviour. People see free stuff and either think they should make best use of it, or see it as a challenge.
Equally no-one is forcing you to attend a wedding. If you don’t want to have to go and pay for your own drinks, don’t go.
Often there is a need to control the budget for that and that does seem like a nicer way to do it than providing a cheap dinner, using an insufficient venue or being very restrictive about who gets invited. I don't think it's tacky or insulting as long as the invitation told guests that's what's going to happen.
I think cash bars aren’t a taste decision, they are a cost decision.
Some people have very low budgets for weddings so can’t afford to pay for a full bar. So they sacrifice people attending or other features over alcohol.
So it’s not an issue if being tacky, just the families doing the most they can.
Too many Busch Light drinkers become scotch drinkers when someone else is footing the bill.
It sucks, but too many people have taken advantage of these kind of situations. So a cash bar eliminates that.
When I got married we paid for a keg, everything beyond that is on the drinker.
I went to a wedding where the couple didn’t drink. They had a cash bar. Their thought process was why should I pay for alcohol for my friends and family if we ourselves don’t drink? They were already paying for food and I believe had to pay for the bar to even be available.
You have a lot of waste at an open bar. "Let me put my beer here while I pee... hmm, I forgot where it went. Ill just grab another" etc... I'd rather see like a $2 drink bar. Slap down a twonie and get something. Less likely you'll forget where you placed your beer.
Weddings should just say “Don’t bring gifts. Just help us pay for the wedding instead”
The married couple doesn’t need gifts. They usually already have a place to live and don’t need practical items to fill it like people used to 70 years ago.
I went to a wedding where basically every guess was allowed 2 free drinks of their choice and after that you had to pay. This makes the most sense to me if you have the funds to do it
If i went to a wedding and there was no booze and was dry because they read it was cringe to have a cash bar, then im coming for you Ad Terrible. in comin for you. 😅
People can abuse free stuff without knowing the damage, those wedding venue price can be very high, once ordered an Irish coffee it’s almost $20 after tip.
I like the idea of a dollar bar--all drinks cost a dollar, which is more about discouraging wastefulness than about paying for the drinks.
So saying "no drinking" at a wedding is fine, but "you can drink you just have to pay for it" is tacky? If you don't want to pay at the latter then what's the difference between that and a dry wedding? Like a cash bar is literally more options than a dry wedding?
Nobody traveled out of state for mine, gifts were optional and everybody had the time of their lives and yes, we had a cash bar.