Drinking and Driving

Our venue offers free taxi rides and so does our rehearsal dinner venue.

My thoughts and prayers are with your family. We are still deciding on wether or not we are having alcohol

We are reserving a room block at a hotel within 3 miles of the hotel that provides transportation to and from the reception for our guests. Although its not complimentary, we feel it is well worth spending the $250 on and was a requirement of mine!

Other things to consider:

Get wedding liability insurance (WedSafe has a liability policy)

Make sure your bartenders are certified and have insurance (Mine are, and in the catering contract, they specify that they can cut people off as they see a need to)

Stop your alcohol a little while before the end of the reception (I've seen up to an hour before you expect the bride and groom to depart).

Stay safe, everyone! And to the OP, I hope everyone comes through this ok.

Prayers for your family.

We have a shuttle from the blocked hotels. We will list cab info at door for local guests.

We had a shuttle service for people who lived/stayed in town that they could take from their home or hotel and back again at the end of the night. We also had a hotel shuttle for one of the hotels, as well as numbers for cabs for everyone.

My dad made sure my girls got home safely and a family friend was on stand by as a guest with her mini van taxi cab. there was sign that said (leave your car here, don't take the risk, no matter how near)

I'm having the MC remind everyone throughout the evening about not drinking and driving, offering the bartenders to call people cabs, will have a sign at the bar thanking people for not drinking and driving. I thought about offering a shuttle ride to a hotel but ultimately I felt like people would drink more if they knew they didn't need a DD which I didn't want either, it's an extra cost I don't need and I'm just going to have to expect people to act responsibly.

Wow. So sorry to hear that. We just started planning and haven't given this any serious thought. After reading this post, FH and I will definitely discuss it. We're having a mid-day wedding/reception (2pm - 6pm), so I'm hoping no one drinks so much they can't drive. We are cutting the drinks 30-45 minutes before the end of the reception though.

We made it clear to our venue that they had our support to cut off anyone who seemed even the slightest bit tipsy and if there was any issue, they could feel free to come straight to us and we'd deal with it. We didn't have a problem but the venue owner was very appreciative of our stance.

Btw, best wishes to your extended family for a speedy recovery.

I'm so sorry to hear this..prayers for their speedy recovery.

I feel like the ultimate precaution (besides a dry wedding of course) is to have the reception at a hotel where you have rooms blocked for your guests. I did this for mine and it worked out really well. We wanted to make it as convenient and SAFE for our guests as possible. :-)

First off prayers for those folks, how sad.

This is precisely why I choose to go with beer and soda over open bar. There are 2 20something year old cousins/nephews who like to drink more than we all would like, and one of them has 2 DWI's. Beer is not as potent as hard stuff like whiskey etc. Our venue has a licensed bar tender and they do cut people off and check for ID.

So sorry to hear that!

We are having the reception at a hotel with blocks at a reduced rate so most of the people will be staying at the hotel.