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A chocolate fountain, a vintage photo booth, a congo band, a master cigar roller and an open bar ... Sounds like the most incredible wedding reception ever, right?As a lucky guest at this, the unforgettable shindig of a friend, I can confirm that it was. But after the festivities were over and the headache subsided, I wondered if it would have been as much fun (or just plain dorky) without booze.
According to a recent CNN poll, 38 percent of wedding guests don't mind if the bar isn't fully stocked, but they do
Yeah, it seems like a jerky thing to ask people to bring gifts and pay to toast you -- especially since a lot of us are also paying for a dress or transportation to and from the event. As a friend who is planning a wedding told me, "A cash bar is tempting because the alcohol is such a major line item in the wedding budget. But etiquette-wise, it's my party, so I should foot the bill."
"I always advise couples against cash bars," says wedding planner Aisha Gayle, owner of Con Gusto Events in New York City. "I'd rather see a limited bar -- a signature cocktail, plus wine and beer -- over a fully stocked cash bar. That said, rule number one remains 'Be true to thy budget.'"
Well, if things continue on as they are -- the U.S. treasury secretary recently warned that jobless rates may soar again -- the cash bar could become a real trend that guest may have to get used to.
No worries if you're inviting us to your wedding; we'll settle for one free glass of champagne. That's all we need to get our Electric Slide on and poppin' without feeling self-conscious. Besides, isn't a wedding supposed to be about celebrating the happy couple, not the happy hour?
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Monday 09 August
By the other side of the pillow
last summer i spent 26 hours in a car for my cousin's dry wedding. had i known, i would have packed a flask.
dry wedding? fine.
just tell me so i can supply my own libations prior to busting out the chicken song, macarena or conga line.
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Wednesday 11 August
By HapiElbow
I'm kinda torn on this on because neither me or my fiance drink. Some of our family members have a problem with their drinking and I have seen a lot of fights and drama at receptions that have free drinks..... I know that isn't fair to the other guests that like to drink and have no problem drinking but I just don't know?
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Tuesday 07 September
By Jen
We didn't have alcohol at our reception, prohibited by the venue (reception at the church). Neither of us drink, so it didn't matter to us. No one complained, so I guess our guests were gracious enough not to say anything (if they were that type, they wouldn't have been my friends). Your guests will be there for you, not your booze.
Tuesday 10 August
By irhie
We had a "cash bar" of sorts at our wedding. It wasn't because we cheaped out. It was because our ceremony and reception were at a golf course a half-hour drive away from town through farm fields and a single-lane bridge. Open bars mean people drinking until they can't drink anymore, and I didn't want ANYONE having one too many and driving back into town (most of our guests were from out of town and had NO idea where they were going sober). I tried to get a couple of SUV limos to shuttle people back and forth so nobody would have to drive, but there were three other weddings in that Muskoka town that weekend and we couldn't even get a regular limo for us. I went out to my wedding in my dad's mini-van. Sigh.
We provided wine with the meal and lots of non-alcoholic beverages, but after that people had to pay the private course's top shelf prices. It meant people drank enough to have a good time but nobody crashed their cars in the dark coming home either.
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Wednesday 11 August
By Spencer
Sounds like a lamest wedding of all time
Thursday 19 August
By breckin
Sometimes the rules we set for ourselves provide as limitations. Alcohol should never be the reason a person does or does not attend a wedding.
Wednesday 11 August
By Leon
I went to a dry wedding ONCE when I was 20.... It was the worst, most boring wedding I have ever been to. I dont even talk to that couple anymore. I made 2 rules that day that I have lived by for the last 10 years.
1. I will not attend a dry reception ever again. I will RSVP as not attending.
2. I will never attend a church wedding unless it is a very close friend/relative. 1 hour in a church is torture. If they are having a "wet" reception I will only go to the reception.
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Tuesday 14 September
By Claire
So you receive a wedding invitation, then call the bride or groom and say, "Hey, are you serving booze at your wedding for free? "Cause if not, I'm not comin', you cheapskates."
That gentle sound you might hear over the phone is a sigh of relief.
Wednesday 11 August
By Christopher Meyers
Who cares what people expect? It's your wedding, if you don't want people drinking they can respect that wish or decline the invitation. I'd much rather have a small group of people at my wedding who care about being there to support my new family than a bunch of drunken idiots. Especially the type that would bring a flask to a dry wedding, how selfish can you be on a day that should be about honoring and celebrating someone else?
That said, you are asking alot from many of your guests and you should provide *some* kinds of entertainment, even if its not alcohol. But you'll never please everyone and you're more likely to die trying than to succeed, so think of some general people pleasers and hope that most of your guests share your taste.
If you are foregoing alcohol at your wedding (or any other party), but your still throwing *that kind* of party, think of what most people would spend on an open bar at their wedding, and that will usually give you a budget to do some amazing things.
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Wednesday 11 August
By Nonny
At my wedding we had a toonie bar (two bucks for any drink) and that was only to help cover the cost of the alcohol. It's cheap enough that most people don't have an issue paying for their drinks but it's also just a little bit of extra monetary coverage for the alcohol's base price. We weren't out to profit from the bar, just make enough to cover most of the alcohol cost.
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Wednesday 11 August
By hi&dri
The day may be about honoring a couple getting married but it's a two way street and honoring your guests with a memorable time is the least the couple can do. There are few social occasions more drool inducing then a boring wedding. Consider that at most weddings a good portion of the attendees will have never met before and have no idea who each other are. Alcohol, despite it's many limitations at least serves the function of knocking down peoples social barriers and gets people talking, laughing and dancing. Is there a risk, sure, but from personal experience the most festive, memorable and down right enjoyable weddings served alcohol, those that did not were as forgettable as a yawn.
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Wednesday 11 August
By Will J
The most frustrated I've ever been was when two friends of mine from University were getting married, and our rather large circle piled into three large vehicles to travel across Ontario to celebrate with them. We hadn't received a lot of information about the wedding beforehand, or if we did, we unconsciously disregarded it.
We knew our friends very well, having lived with them for five years, and were expecting a fairly laid back non-denominational ceremony, followed by a great party. We knew that there would be a fair amount of family there, but we figured we had our own two tables, there were almost twenty of us, and we'd have fun.
Imagine our surprise when we showed up, improperly dressed, at what turned out to be a catholic church. The two getting married were the furthest from religious as could be.
So we sat through the nonsense, thinking 'well, this is for the family, we'll have fun tonight', and tried to ignore all of the 'christians' looking us up and down for not dressing the part.
When the priest started in on the evils of homosexuality, we were about to explode. The best man was gay, for Christ sakes. So we quietly left the ceremony early and walked around the park for a couple of hours, waiting for the party to start.
The reception was being held at the family farm. We got there, opened up the back of one of the vans, and each grabbed a beer while we waited in the parking lot for the family to show up. The first person who turned up was the Father of the Bride, who walked right over to us, told us to put the alcohol away, as this was a spiritual place. (The farm turned out to double as a community meeting ground for the local church group.) This did not bode well.
It turned out that, not only was there no bar, but we were unwelcome to bring our own drinks to dinner or even consume them in the parking lot. He also made a comment about being well dressed in the house of God.
When we got a chance, we went up to our friends. We were disturbed - they are both avowed atheists, both drink, had picked a gay man for their best man, and had invited us across Ontario without warning us that a) the service would be in a church, b) that it was a dry ceremony, c) that BOTH sides of the family were judgmental when it came to differences in others.
Then it turned out that neither of their parents were aware that there was a gay man in the wedding party.
We tried to be nice. We tried to stay. We got just past dinner when the father of the groom stood up to make his speech. He started out nice, and then began making comments that sounded similar to those of the priest earlier in the day, that 'marriage should be about God', that 'government should have no place in marriages'... etc. AND we had no booze. So around that point, right in the middle of his speech, the twenty of us got up and left. And we weren't quiet about it. It must have been humiliating to see your own best man leave in the middle of dinner during a speech made by your father, but I assure you it was nowhere near as humiliating as what that poor man had to go through listening to such garbage.
We left the party, exchanging some harsh words with the bigot priest on the way out, although we tried to stay cool.
We went back to our Hotel and broke open the booze. Less than an hour and a half later we were joined by the bride and groom, and the rest of the night we got smashed.
They apologized to us, and we said it wasn't necessary. We sent our condolences that their special day had been completely stolen from them by their parents.
And we drank and drank and drank until well after sunrise. Then we went to a small breakfast joint, completely smashed, and it was just the best time.
If we had been served some drinks at dinner, it would have been a lot easier to stay calm and make our exit with better timing. The lack of drink meant that we felt the terrible nature of this wedding hard and cold.
Reply
Tuesday 14 September
By dgjk
Ontario wedding. Crazy. How those kids got railroaded into a wedding like that is beyond me. Their married life will be a tightrope until they learn to stand up for themselves.
Wednesday 11 August
By Will J
The most frustrated I've ever been was when two friends of mine from University were getting married, and our rather large circle piled into three large vehicles to travel across Ontario to celebrate with them. We hadn't received a lot of information about the wedding beforehand, or if we did, we unconsciously disregarded it.
We knew our friends very well, having lived with them for five years, and were expecting a fairly laid back non-denominational ceremony, followed by a great party. We knew that there would be a fair amount of family there, but we figured we had our own two tables, there were almost twenty of us, and we'd have fun.
Imagine our surprise when we showed up, improperly dressed, at what turned out to be a catholic church. The two getting married were the furthest from religious as could be.
So we sat through the nonsense, thinking 'well, this is for the family, we'll have fun tonight', and tried to ignore all of the 'christians' looking us up and down for not dressing the part.
When the priest started in on the evils of homosexuality, we were about to explode. The best man was gay, for Christ sakes. So we quietly left the ceremony early and walked around the park for a couple of hours, waiting for the party to start.
The reception was being held at the family farm. We got there, opened up the back of one of the vans, and each grabbed a beer while we waited in the parking lot for the family to show up. The first person who turned up was the Father of the Bride, who walked right over to us, told us to put the alcohol away, as this was a spiritual place. (The farm turned out to double as a community meeting ground for the local church group.) This did not bode well.
It turned out that, not only was there no bar, but we were unwelcome to bring our own drinks to dinner or even consume them in the parking lot. He also made a comment about being well dressed in the house of God.
When we got a chance, we went up to our friends. We were disturbed - they are both avowed atheists, both drink, had picked a gay man for their best man, and had invited us across Ontario without warning us that a) the service would be in a church, b) that it was a dry ceremony, c) that BOTH sides of the family were judgmental when it came to differences in others.
Then it turned out that neither of their parents were aware that there was a gay man in the wedding party.
We tried to be nice. We tried to stay. We got just past dinner when the father of the groom stood up to make his speech. He started out nice, and then began making comments that sounded similar to those of the priest earlier in the day, that 'marriage should be about God', that 'government should have no place in marriages'... etc. AND we had no booze. So around that point, right in the middle of his speech, the twenty of us got up and left. And we weren't quiet about it. It must have been humiliating to see your own best man leave in the middle of dinner during a speech made by your father, but I assure you it was nowhere near as humiliating as what that poor man had to go through listening to such garbage.
We left the party, exchanging some harsh words with the bigot priest on the way out, although we tried to stay cool.
We went back to our Hotel and broke open the booze. Less than an hour and a half later we were joined by the bride and groom, and the rest of the night we got smashed.
They apologized to us, and we said it wasn't necessary. We sent our condolences that their special day had been completely stolen from them by their parents.
And then we drank and danced and told stories and drank and drank until well after sunrise. Then we went to a small breakfast joint, completely smashed, and it was just the best time.
If we had been served some drinks at dinner, it would have been a lot easier to stay calm and make our exit with better timing. The lack of drink meant that we felt the terrible nature of this wedding hard and cold.
When you have that many people from such totally different backgrounds, alcohol makes for a nice standard enjoyable afternoon. I will never again enter a church unless I am promised some booze to recuperate afterward.
We threw them another wedding for their one-year anniversary, and all of the same people showed up, minus only one of our group who was by then teaching in South Korea.
Weddings = Booze. Also, if you're having a religious wedding even though you're an atheist, put that on the invitations. It makes a difference. Especially if you've a gay best man.
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Monday 23 August
By Mark
I am astounded you conclusion was:
If we had been served some drinks at dinner, it would have been a lot easier to stay calm and make our exit with better timing. The lack of drink meant that we felt the terrible nature of this wedding hard and cold.
If you had a problem with parts of the wedding, then place blame appropriately. The wedding sounds horrendous, but you come across as someone who'd sell his morals for a beer. You clearly take issues with multiple problems with the wedding, but weddings do not equal booze. You sound like a gutless and feeble jerk using religious zealots to justify your own need to drink.
Wednesday 11 August
By Aaron
This story makes me ill with the arrogance of some people. It is about the Marriage of the couple. You are participating to support the couple and their future and share in their happiness, not your selfish liver. Every wedding I have ever attended had plenty of food and punch/coffee to give something back to the guests for coming.
I suppose you won't go to a funeral because they don't have a keger during and afterward.
Such a disrespectful culture we live in today.... UGH!
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Thursday 12 August
By Will J.
If you missed the point, the entire day had nothing to do with our friends, but only the strangers who raised them.
They wanted to at least have a cash bar, but were told no. They were pressured into a religious ceremony. Their friends were publicly humiliated for political reasons, and they agreed with us all to the extent that they left their own reception to come to our hotel and party the night away.
The only one who was neglecting to celebrate with the couple was their family.
It only relates to this conversation because amongst my friends, the only way I could see a dry wedding occurring was if something like this were to re-occur. If i went to the wedding of a couple who didn't drink, I wouldn't expect to drink.
And, to be honest, I'd be much more likely to go to a funeral with a kegger. When one of our good friends Jamie was killed by a drunk driver, granted we made a quick appearance at the actual funeral, but only for ten minutes or so. We also rented out a bar and had a giant celebration for our lost friend, and had about fifty or sixty attendees. Jamie's mom and dad stopped by to listen to the speeches. It was great.
So yes, a kegger at a funeral sounds incredible.
Wednesday 11 August
By Guy
Yes, its about the couple. But its a mistake to ignore the consequences of ignoring the guests. You can say "suck it up" as much as you want but the truth remains that the guests are going to get grumpy and your wedding day may suffer for it.
Saturday 14 August
By Jamie
Sorry, but I've never drank, and my boyfriend hasn't had a beer in
over a year....so if we get married, I doubt we'll serve alcohol.
We're not religious or anything....we just prefer not to drink. Maybe
we'd choose to have wine or something for the folks that feel they
need alcohol to have fun. I don't know.
My sister had a dry wedding last year. Nothing else was like a
typical wedding either. No DJ, no dancing, no bouquet toss, no
drunken toasts. The ceremony was ten minute long in my parents' front
yard, and then everyone moved to the backyard for a potluck reception.
After food, we played 60-person musical chairs, three-net badminton,
croquet, balloon stomp (everyone ties a balloon to their ankle with a
3 foot string, and then tries to stomp on everyone else's balloon
without getting theirs stomped on. Wild.), and water balloon fights.
I don't think anyone was bored, even without booze. One family
acquaintance came up to my mom afterward and said that it was the
most fun she'd had in the ten months since her son had been killed in
a car accident.
So...I think it's possible to have a fun wedding without alcohol.
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Friday 20 August
By Fun AND an open bar
Your sister's reception sounds fun. If you're a seven year old.