Open Bar is a Must?!

My one year wedding anniversary is coming up in September. We did not do open bar and everything was fine no one complained that night and I never heard anything. I also haven’t been to a single wedding in the family that had an open bar. I was thinking about it but so glad I didn’t do it. I have a friend that’s still paying credit cards months later because of the bar tab. Do you and don’t listen to people on the internet.

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No one said anything to you, probably, because they are family and I am sure they are polite people. No one here ( I am sure!) advocates putting anything on a credit card to pay for anything, ever. I am all for "do you" in terms of a black wedding gown, skulls on the invites, or something of that nature. But when it comes to comfort of guests, you gotta think of them and not opening their wallets to attend your wedding.

View Quoted Comment Did you not read my whole post. No one and I repeat no one in my family did an open bar at their wedding. This is none of your business again my wedding was a year ago and we had a great time.

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In fairness, you posted on a public forum.

I'm glad you had a great time, but saying this is none of anyone's business is like yelling personal information in the middle of a crowded restaurant and then getting mad when someone says something to you about it.

View Quoted Comment You also don’t have to judge people for their wedding decisions. Have a nice day hun

Reading all the responses about the cost of alcohol at receptions makes me very grateful that we found such a great deal on our reception. We will be paying $60/pp for a three hour cocktail reception with an open bar. We are ordering extra food, so that will up the price a little, but the total cost should still be under $4000 for food, drink and venue.

It's your choice. I'm not doing an open bar. FH doesn't drink anymore and I can't for health reasons. Plus our wedding and reception is at our church. Good luck

We are doing open bar for beer and wine only. (Some of FH's friends can get pretty wild and we are trying to avoid any disasters) we are however allowing the bridal party and parents drink anything. We are also thinking of not allowing shots either. (Unless ordered by bride or groom) My sister did this and I didn't hear anyone complain. Liquor will still be available and our venue has decent prices. About 6$ for a liquor drink.

We have a open bar to a certain limit and then it will turn into a cash bar.

We did an open bar. I have only attended one wedding with cash bar. Every one still remembers. When we came up with our budget, we took open bar as a must as guest should not pay at all, then we invited the amount of people we could properly host.

Our venue is a winery so they don’t have a liquor license but it will be open wine and beer. Their wine is $45-80 a bottle though so its good wine not serving two buck chuck haha. Just our food/alcohol bill is close to 40 grand but we prioritized that over other things because I think people remember those two things the most from a wedding. So we cut back on flowers, no signs or programs, DJ instead of a band etc. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a cash bar wedding. Our guests are traveling to California from across the country so it was important to me to treat them well.

I haven’t read all of the comments on this as there are so many!! I just wanted to say, and it probably has been said already, a friend of mine had a consumption bar where they had the tab and paid for their guests drinks at the end of the night because after their open bar had closed their guests still wanted to drink. They ended up spending 2,000 for drinks in 30 minutes, as my friends father told the bar to stop serving after 2,000 was met. That being said, it was very expensive for only 30 minutes, but there were a lot of guests there. Just saying, if your family likes to drink instead of doing a consumption bar either pay the additional cost for the open bar or just inform guests before that it is a cash bar so people actually bring cash for drinks haha.

We are doing an open bar. I think it's personal choice though. A lot of people on my Fiances side don't drink so weddings in his family I've been to there was no open bar. My side of the family does drink though and will kind of expect it since that's what most weddings in my family have. My fiancé and I agreed we wanted one so that's what we are doing.

Our venue suggested something that I have never heard of... They basically do an open bar up to a certain $ value, and they start switching to a cash bar. The venue said they do it for almost all of their weddings! So we think that is what we are going to go with. That way we can pick how much $$ we will be spending on drinks. Also cash bars are the norm where I am from if you are not in a place where you can provide your own alcohol.

We are planning to do a consumption based bar with a limit. So once the chosen amount allotted for the bar is reached then it will switch over to a cash bar. But we are hopeful it will never reach that amount lol.

he open bar costs at our venue was coming out at around 10k and if people don’t drink we don’t get it back. At least this way if people don’t drink the amount we get the money refunded back

View Quoted Comment This was exactly the same for us, open bar would’ve been 10k!

What is the limit for your consumption bar? I’m just curious about everyone else doing this because we are, and I’m trying to figure out if we’re doing the right amounts lol

I'm the odd one out who has never seen a problem with a dry reception or a cash bar. The way I see it, if it's something as big as having alcohol be something that's caused tragedy in your life (see my case - mother died from an alcoholic related death and 21-year-old sister has almost died from her alcoholism. Most people are okay with this but I've had a couple people here on WW still accuse me of not being respectful to my guests.) or something as simple as you just can't afford it - you still deserve to get married. Some people think you shouldn't even get married if you can't afford an open bar, which I think is absolutely ridiculous. If somebody doesn't want to come to my 11am, four hour wedding reception because they can't drink, I don't care. Of course, I would LOVE to have them, if they are not going to come because I don't have alcohol, then them missing it is fine with me. In a way, it makes me feel that they think the alcohol is more important than the celebration. The way I see it - if you don't want to go to a loved one's wedding because they don't have alcohol, how important are they really to you? I can see the excuse, "It's a thank you to the guests," but that shouldn't be your deciding factor in going or not going. You should go because you love the couple and you want to celebrate their big day. Not because you want to drink and party.

I'm not doing an open bar, but that's because I'm having a morning wedding with an 11 AM brunch so I feel like it wouldn't be expected. If it were an evening wedding it's definitely something I would have budgeted for.

View Quoted Comment Right now I’m thinking either 3k or 4K. Our coordinator was telling us for her daughters wedding of 120 they only spent around 3k and they had the top of the line bar. We are thinking going more middle of the road where mixed drinks are $9/piece.

We still have over a year to sort it out though 🤣 but that’s what we are budgeting for.

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COMPLETELY agree. I am also having an 11 AM reception, four hour event. I'm only having my nearest and dearest and they are so thrilled to be apart of my big day they don't mind (or the ones I've discussed it with do not)! I'm already buying their meal, appetizer, and dessert. Come on now. Lol