Alcohol necessary?

There are no ‘essential’ parts of a reception other than what you want. In my crowd, not serving alcohol at the reception would be something that would be immediately picked up by our guests. In your situation, given the reception is ‘light’ and half your guests do not drink, I don’t think it will be noticed if you don’t serve alcohol.

Alcohol is never required. If your guests do not drink, there is no need to serve it.

Alcohol isn’t required, but but your guests who drink might take it as a bummer. But they can always go get drinks elsewhere after if they really need to. Alcohol does make people loosen up a bit so it helps with dancing imo, but if you don’t have many drinkers and they are used to dry events then it should be fine.

No, alcohol is certainly not a necessity. And, since you are having a casual afternoon wedding,I don’t think it would even be missed by your guests.

Alcohol is certainly not necessary.

I am 100% in the "there's nothing wrong with dry weddings" camp. I see people say things like "if you're serving dinner..." "if it's a formal event..." "if it's in the evening..." No, nope, nah. The only "if" here is "if you want it."

If only half your guest list drinks anyway, it is a logical cost cut. Anyone who needs alcohol can get it on their own dime and time.

I think this is a know your crowd topic and it sounds like you already know that. Serving alcohol is never necessary and since your crowd won't think twice about it, then I wouldn't waste the money.

Nope. alcohol is totally not a requirement and i think in your case (time of day, style of wedding, guest preferences) it makes a lot of sense to not serve alcohol.

Sounds like you're having a casual afternoon wedding and a lot of your guests don't drink anyway. It would probably make sense to not have alcohol in your case

Alcohol is not at all necessary, especially if a large number of your guests don't drink. Perfectly reasonable and acceptable!

Perfectly okay to have a dry wedding. One way to have the best of both worlds is to buy some bottles of wine and keep the receipts. Return anything you don't open! Saves money and gives the option for light alcoholic consumption.

View Quoted Comment Oh my gosh that is such a good idea thank you!!!

For the type of wedding you’re having (light apps during a non-mealtime) I suppose no alcohol is acceptable. People may not stay long though. You could do beer and wine only? It’s often cheaper