My fiance and I are getting married in 2014, and we are wading through the financials, the technicalities, and the etiquette do’s and don’ts of tying the knot.
It’s been a lot of thinking and work so far. I’ve written about it on a small scale, so if you want to stay updated on how it’s going, see the following posts:
The Cost of Wedding Planning: Venues, Caterers, and Photographers
Wedding Gift Tips and Tricks
How to Save on a Wedding
Why a Courthouse Wedding is Not for Me
Who knew alcohol at weddings could be such a hot topic?
Surprisingly, it is. Now, I’m not having a traditional wedding. I keep on bristling every time I hear somebody say “well, flower girls have to be 3-5 years old”, or “your father must be very excited to give you away!”. It’s very presumptuous, but I know most people are coming from a good place when they use statements like that.
That being said, I’m likely going to be going against the grain a bit when it comes to alcohol at our wedding. I’m okay with that.
To Serve or Not to Serve
I’ve heard some opinions about alcohol at weddings and how it shouldn’t be served.
For our wedding, there’s no way we could have a dry wedding. First of all, even I want to have a couple of glasses of wine and some champagne to celebrate!
Secondly, I come from a family of drinkers. I don’t think I’ve ever spent an evening with my parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, or even neighbours without the consumption of wine. It would be very perplexing for my guests to be at my wedding (which is pretty much an overnight event) and realize that there is no alcohol.
Of course, because we’ll be serving alcohol at our wedding, that has budgetary implications.
Open Bar
This is where the controversy comes in: open bar vs. cash bar.
I’ve heard many people have the opinion that cash bars are tacky. It’s an interesting opinion, but one that I don’t share. However, just because I don’t share the opinion that cash bars are tacky, doesn’t mean that I’m going to have a cash bar.
Having an open bar at a wedding essentially means that guests can just order whatever they want as far as drinks, free of charge.
I’d love to offer this to my guests, but it’s not financially feasible, so we’ll have a hybrid approach.
Cash Bar
I don’t feel comfortable with making guests pay for their alcohol entirely.
The cash bar option also costs some money, because we’d need to hire a bartender to.. well, tend the bar.
Here’s how we’ll likely handle our wedding:
Hybrid Approach
We’ll be making wine at a local wine bottling facility, so that we can have our own labels and save on the cost of wine. We are all big wine drinkers on my side of the family, so I’ll probably spend a couple hundred dollars of our alcohol budget on this.
Each table will get 2 bottles of wine with dinner (one white, one red), and then we’ll probably have a 3:1 white/red ratio (we’re getting married in what is essentially the desert in the summer. Most people won’t be drinking red).
My fiance’s side of the family are beer drinkers, so we’ll be buying a couple of kegs of beer, too. This will be all free to our guests.
Specialty Cocktails
I’m sold on the idea of having two speciality cocktails that we will provide (such as a sangria or a lemonade/long island iced tea type drink) that will be by donation to our honeymoon fund.
I picture it in a dispenser, so we won’t need somebody to make it on the spot (we’ll have made it ahead of time), with just a bowl or piggy bank for the donations beside it.
Or BYOHL
Our other option is to supply the wine and beer as above, but ask everyone to bring their own hard liquor (BYOHL).
We have a wedding website, so we could just say that if anybody wants mixed drinks, bring a bottle of vodka, rum, or whatever they want and some mix. Then we could compile it all on a table with various mixes (supplied by us) that everybody could use.
It sounds tacky, but the mixes would be in drink dispensers (like the one below) and the bottles of liquor on ice.
I’m not worried about being tacky. My family and friends that are invited to the wedding won’t care, and it’s not like it’s 1952 when it’s important to keep up appearances.
If we go with this idea, we would NOT open this part of the bar until after dinner. I have some (cough one) crazy aunts who I don’t need getting hammered at all, let alone before speeches.
Did you serve alcohol at your wedding? What is your stance on open vs. cash bars?
I honestly don’t care, but I may not be in the majority. It’s your wedding and you can do whatever the hell you want. I was bummed that some of T’s family cannot drink in a civilised fashion which prompted my decision to BYO and not provide any booze, but you can’t choose your family.
I remember a couple days before when we were discussing walking down the aisle and my MIL said something about my dad giving me away. I was like HELL to the NO, I’m walking down alone. I’m a human being, a person, not some sort of chattel.
I’ve had this debate with my friends so many times it is kind of crazy. My friend recently got married, and she wanted an open bar for her 150 guests… which came at a price tag close to the food. When she realized that they were going to do a toonie bar, but the venue wouldn’t allow it because there are liquor laws that prevent selling alcohol for lower than cost – it either has to be free, or at cost. In the end it was drink tickets.
The staunchest opponent to it? The mother-of-the-bride. She “couldn’t imagine” her family friends having to pay for drinks as a celebration.
Personally, I am with you… Granted, it might also be the style and type of wedding I would be having. A mostly open bar is a lot easier to manage at a smaller reception.
My cousin had wine on the table and then a twoonie bar at his wedding. It worked out really well, because then everyone had as much to drink as they wanted and they had help with the alcohol bill!
We will be having an open bar. Luckily, since our wedding will be on family property, we don’t have to pay the crazy inflated alcohol costs that some venues charge.
I have never been a fan of cash bars. Our original budget was for an open bar of beer and wine and then to have a signature liquor drink. Unfortunately the budget wouldn’t accommodate the liquor. I think most people will be perfectly happy with beer and wine though.
I like the idea of just having people bring their own liquor. We didn’t think of that. I may bring it up tonight 🙂
I’d love to see the results of a study on the percentage of positive RSVPs for weddings where the reception includes no alcohol, a cash bar, or an open bar. I think we all know the likely conclusions. 🙂
Our site (a state park) didn’t allow alcohol. We couldn’t provide it but plenty of people brought their own.
My Mom really wanted us to have an open bar… and we REALLY didn’t want to stick our parents (wedding costs were split between us and both sets of parents) with the bill from our friends’ drinking. Some of them work in liquor marketing and can really, really drink. Open bars are nice, but they can get wicked pricey. My friend had a backyard wedding and they just lined coolers up along the fence with mixes, beer and white wine and had a table with bottles of hard alcohol. It was awesome and very affordable.
We did a subsidized bar. I think we put $1500 into the bar (including wine at dinner, and we only paid for bottles that were opened), and once that amount was reached then it turned into a cash bar. I’m so glad we did that because I think it would have been a drunken mess if it was an open bar, plus we didn’t go broke.
What can you suggest Daisy on what kind of bar to chose during wedding is it a cash bar or the open bar?
Like Mo’ Money Mo’ Houses, we did a subsidized bar. We budgeted for 2.5 (alcoholic) drinks/adult. Once the limit was reached, we closed the bar. At the end of the night, we had a hundred dollars remaining, and we bought drinks for the remaining guests. It worked out well because our guestlist consisted of 70% family who aren’t big drinkers; they averaged a drink/person which allowed for the bigger drinkers to get drunk. Haha.
I love the hybrid approach Daisy. I think it’s a really smart plan, and honestly I don’t think it’s tacky at all to let people know they are free to bring their own liquor if they want to. My wife and I eloped, so thankfully we didn’t have to deal with this problem, but I think I would have done something along the same lines as you. If we had to do an open bar, it would definitely not have been top shelf stuff, so I really like the idea.