Alcohol ettiquette

If you have a wedding website it would go really well there somewhere in FAQs or something. Otherwise I'd just go by word of mouth like just tell someone and they'll spread it around to others.

Just like people shouldn’t insult you having a cash bar, you don’t need to insult people who have financial help from their parents. Believe it or not, it’s possible to pay for your own wedding and open bar. If you must do a cash bar, I would write “reception with cash bar to follow” on the invitation. I would also reiterate it on your website.

In my region cash bars are completely normal so it sounds fine to me. I'd find a sign to put by the entrance doors that say the open bar is in (insert location here). If you have a website you can say the hotel offers open bar services at location. Honestly I've never seen or heard of warning guests beforehand about open bars and I can't fathom why someone wouldn't bring money or a card with them to any sort of event. Word of mouth works too.
And I'll say it 100 more times, don't let people on here bully you into something you cannot afford. Nobody had ever died from lack of alcohol and if people decline over the alcohol they have some personal issues you can't control.

I’d just put it on your website. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I think mentioning a cash bar on the invitation isn't a bad idea, and because I've loved our website's FAQ section, I'd recommend doing something similar so you can detail out how people will have to get drinks at the reception.

Does your venue know you plan to do this so they can staff their bar accordingly?

We don’t have, or need, any financial help with our wedding or anything else. We’re able to provide an open bar because we budgeted properly and it’s important to us that our guests aren’t financially responsible for any aspect of an event that we’re hosting. If we weren’t in a position to afford an open bar, we would have a dry wedding, because again, it’s no one else’s responsibility to pay for anything at our wedding. You’re right, lots of people do find cash bars to be tacky, myself included. My comment had nothing to do with that. I understand that you’re upset about not having financial assistance with the party that you decided to throw, but you don’t need to take it out on other couples who do have that privilege.

View Quoted Comment Thanks Melle. I think I will definitely look at how I can do that on our wedding website.

View Quoted Comment Thanks Allura!

So you're asking for an opinion but then say you don't care what people's opinions are. This should be productive...

If you choose to do this, I would anticipate guests to be at the bar in the lobby more than in your reception. I've seen that happen to brides/grooms on here who chose to do the same thing.

View Quoted Comment I asked for permission from our wedding coordinator at the hotel. It's a historic hotel that is always busy so there will for sure be plenty of staff. My conservative family doesn't drink at all, but our wild friends and my fiancé's family like to party so really there won't be like hundreds of people swarming the bar or anything. Our wedding will be small and intimate.

View Quoted Comment *I don't care what people's opinions are on what I'm already going to do.* I'm just asking for a suggestion on how to do it.

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Agreed. I'm not having financial help from "mommy and daddy" or anyone for that matter. Since you don't think it's tacky to have a cash bar, I would also put it on the invitation and the website that way everyone can be as prepared as possible.

View Quoted Comment I would put it on your website that the bar will be cash at the lobby bar. That's where the party will be.

View Quoted Comment I managed to plan this whole thing by myself on a tight budget Allie! Stressful but it can be done. If you need suggestions lmk!!! Us budget brides gotta stick together. Lol Thanks for the suggestion!

View Quoted Comment Lol I'm not too worried about that. Our wedding will be small and intimate and the bar is like 10-20ft from pur reception. Paying for the cash bar would be just to have the convenience of our guests walking like 5 feet less to get their drinks.

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I hear ya. I almost had my wedding at a hotel and did the whole cash bar in the lobby thing but ultimately decided against it because I didn't want that to take away the attention from the reception. We ended up finding a venue that lets us bring our own alcohol so it should be a good time.

Good for you!! Unfortunately all the venues like that were out of our price range or very rustic. I'm a straight up Cali girl so they were not my style at all. That's Texas for ya! Hahaha. The bar is right outside the reception area so I'm not too worried about our guests ditching. Also most of the guests are conservative and don't drink so that was another reason the cash bar would have been a waste of money for us.

I think it just depends on your crowd. I'm having a destination wedding in the states but people are still having to miss work, travel by plane or car, and book hotel rooms. Easily a $1000 weekend. I figure the least I can do is feed them good food and pay for their $20 worth of alcohol at the wedding. I'm not a huge drinker, but I like to have alcohol at celebrations. It's not about getting your guests drunk, but I think it's a nice treat. If I didn't have many drinkers in my family, I wouldn't have done the open bar at all. My FH's family likes to have a glass of wine at dinner, so I wanted to provide that since they are all traveling so far.

View Quoted Comment Being able to provide your alcohol is so great! You can totally save a ton doing it that way. If you have a nearby Trader Joe's you can find wine bottles for like 3 bucks and it's still yummy to my surprise! Or Total Wine where you can return any unused alcohol. Not sure if you have any of those in your area.