Open bar is not an option, don't like the tackiness of a cash bar

What you are thinking as an open bar is really not an open bar, (open bar - all alcohol is free, limited beer and wine bar - all beer and wine is free (not until it runs out, all night) ) What you are proposing is pretty much a cash bar. Considering 20 bottles of wine is enough for 100 glasses, so even if everyone wanted a glass of wine you wouldn't have enough.

But I second Emily...perhaps wait some and grow up before you get married and have to pay for it yourself. You can count yourself as hugely fortunate for getting 10K

I would do limited bar if you can't offer the open bar. But before a dry wedding or being stuck with just wine I would rather have a cash bar.

Thanks Emily for being so "lame and immature" as well. Sure, we *could* pay for it, but we don't have to, why would we want to spend thousands of dollars ourselves when we don't have to do so. If anything we're being more adult by trying to keep the budget... My future father in law gave us a budget of $10,000 and said if it goes over that some then that's fine, we'll pay for it, but try to keep it manageable. So we're trying to respect him for that. To go outside of the budget would be a little rude. It would be the same as saying, thanks for the money, but it wasn't good enough.

Okay, now I'm convinced she's a troll. (cue getting mad at me)

We're not going to be waiting to get married, we've already sent out save the dates and planned everything and put deposits on everything.

Waiting to get married just isn't an option, then we couldn't live together or anything (yes, we're the kind of couple that doesn't have sex before marriage). We've been happily and strongly together for four years and we've been ready to be together all four years.

Besides, I'd hardly consider not wanting to buy a ton of alcohol as a good reason to postpone a wedding. We were originally planning a dry wedding.

Wait, when did I get mad at you? I was only responding to two people (not you) who tried to claim I wasn't an adult capable of making responsible decisions.

The bottles of wine are $20 btw because that's the price the venue sells them at. We're not allowed to bring outside food or drink in, so the venue has to mark up the price of the $12 bottles of wine to $20 to cover their liquor license costs and make a profit.

Considering the wedding date in your profile was 2018 and was just switched so you could continue to create controversy, I'm going with my original gut feeling.

I don't believe I ever had my date set to 2018, or at least if I did and changed it, I didn't realize it. I've had my wedding website on here for months and months and it has said July 11, 2015 since I first created it.

Nothing like making a major life decision based entirely on the fact that you can't have sex until you do it!

Bravo!

Sorry @Blake. I got this post mixed up with (yet another) open bar/alcohol one from earlier today where the girl was getting married in 2018 and said she didn't have enough money for alcohol.

Agree that if you don't want alcohol, NBD. Just tried to offer some cost-saving strategies.

ETA: this post. My apologies.

https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/can-you-have-wedding-without-alcohol/de1cbb8363e231aa.html

But I also agree with @m. Nice job sticking it out-- not something I would be able to do-- but also not a reason to rush.

We've been wanting to get married for many years now and been planning for many years. If it was based solely on that, then we could have gotten married a while ago.

I figured I shouldn't have posted that since I knew some people would attack it.

We're buying 48 bottles of wine and 18 bottles of champagne (for the toast) for our guests. We are also hosting signature drinks during cocktail hour. If guests would like something else alcoholic to drink after cocktail hour (besides wine), they can pay up...yes there will be "cash bar" , and no I don't think its tacky. #sorrynotsorry we're not spending $10,000 on wasted alcohol so people can get a drink, put it down and get another....yes I can see this happening (no matter how nice your guest list is), when people get "free" drinks they don't think as much as when they have to buy it.

Like I said there will be wine, and 1/4th of the guest list don't even drink so the other 3/4ths can have 48 bottles of wine.

Wait you're in college. How old are you? Are your friends even old enough to drink alcohol?

I'm 21, most of my friends will be able to drink, but I'm not even inviting very many people or friends. I don't have many friends, just a few that I hang out with. This is why I said only like half of the people will be drinking. 1/4 of the people are people too young to drink, 1/3 are old and religious so they will drink very sparingly, and the rest of us will have a few drinks.

Let me quote my mom... "Do you want people to be drunk, I want your grandpa to be proud of your wedding", her response to me saying we're thinking about having alcohol at the reception.

That shows that your mother has no faith in her own family to act appropriately.

Treat people like adults.

If your grandfather cant be proud at your wedding because there's a bottle of wine, I ... I am so sorry.

Ok let me get this straight

You are 21 but have been planning your wedding for years

You can't or won't have sex until you are married.

Ok clearly we are dealing with a religious crowd which changes everything. Don't do a cash bar a couple bottles of wine at the table will be fine. More than likely that might be to much. Poster on WW don't know your family or friends so it's hard to give advice without all the information. You should had started the thread with your religious beliefs. From my experiences religious people usually have a dry wedding.

Just for fun's sake I am in Alberta and have been to both cash, toonie, and open bars.

I am doing an open bar though myself. We talked about doing a toonie bar but our budget saw a slight increase and our families both felt it was important to offer the open bar.

@m I think her family is religious so they view things like drinking differently. So most of her guest won't fine it odd or rude not to have alcohol

LadyMonk--found one!!!!!

Thank you for understanding Julia. Like I've said, the original intent was to have a dry wedding, but I decided against that since there will also be people who will find it to be lame without alcohol.

My grandfather has never drank anything before and believes any drinking is bad. I too am religious like him, but I don't believe alcohol to be bad (I actually used to until about a year ago when I first had experience with alcohol and found there no reason for it to be "bad"). It's not my mom's family she doesn't trust, it's my dad's side of the family she thinks would go crazy (which is two people btw, and they were just fine at my brother's wedding). So mainly it's just my mom over exaggerating.