Cash Bar

It's not rude at all. If the party was at your house and you were charging, yeah that would be rude, but if you're at a reception hall of some sort, you're paying a massive markup (even if you can bring your own, that adds up if you have over 100 guests). Since alcohol is optional, it's fine to have a cash bar. I've actually never been to a wedding with an open bar, ever (or even one with beer and wine). I would never expect the bride and groom of a wedding I'm attending to pay for my alcohol. An open bar increases the risk of people getting drunk and driving home intoxicated. When I hear people say "make" their guests pay, I shake my head... no one has to drink alcohol, that's optional. Guests who get hung up over it aren't really your friends or are terrible family members.

I say, do what you can afford. You can't please everyone, do what's best for you.

We are providing beer, wine and a Margarita machine. However, we are letting everyone know that they are welcome to BYOB if they want something other then that. The hardest part has been trying to convey that, without the tacky "BYOB" being printed on the invitations.

As much as I would love to treat my guests to an open bar, I simply cannot afford it and we don't want to go any further into loan debt than can be helped. My fiance and I are not even able to have a proper honeymoon. We're just spending the wedding night at a bed and breakfast and then lazing about at home the rest of the week together. So in order to greatly cut back on the reception cost we had to opt for the cash bar only with no cocktail hour or h'orderves. However, keeping our guests in mind we are planning on moving quickly from ceremony to reception (about 1 hr including the ceremony and the photography that follows) to prevent guests from getting board or unbearably hungry. Depending on how the remaining wedding expenses pile up, we are hoping to buy a case or 2 to be split amongst the guest for a toast that way everyone is guaranteed one drink. We're paying for the wedding completely by ourselves at this point, as those who offered financial help suddenly "don't have money."