Open bar... the norm?!

I'm from Minnesota (Midwest represent!) and I never been to a fully open bar. All the weddings I have been to have been beer and wine hosted the whole the night or until it runs out and hard liquor was available for a fee.

I am also the Midwest. Open bar or at least modified open bar is expected.

I'm from the Boston area and have only been to 2 with open bars, but I think it is becoming more common. Ours will be, but FH and his family fought me tooth and nail over it.

I'm in Philadelphia . . And open bars are the norm here .. I don't even know if you can get around it .. they are included with every package

I've been to a few weddings and only half were open bar, the others were free beer, wine & soda. At my wedding we're planning on only having free wine, beer & soda. If they want hard alcohol they will have to pay for that themselves.

I live in the south and for my family open bar is the norm.

I’m in central Florida and open bar is fairly normal! I have been to a wedding where the open bar was available from 7-8pm and 9-10pm and then cash bar outside of those times.

I'm in Illinois and open bars aren't the norm here. Usually the couple buys one keg. My family doesn't believe in not having at least beer and wine hosted, so that's what we are doing. It kinda sucks spending all the money to provide that to our guests and then when we go to the weddings of some of our guests we pay for every drink.

I'm from Southern California and I have only seen open bar

I'm from Ohio and it's out of the norm to have a cash bar. Typically just an open bar.

I’d only been to two weddings before I started planning my wedding. The first one was an open bar but beer and wine only. The second was an beer and wine through dinner and then they cut all the guests off. I took the spot of someone who cancelled last minute and I didn’t know the couple particularly well anyways. I was good friends with one of the bridesmaids. Anyways, the groom was a surgeon and although you cannot tell anyone how to spend their money, I remember thinking I was so glad I wasn’t good friends with the couple because I thought it was ridiculous that they spent and outrageous amount of money on the wedding (bridesmaid told me) only to cheap out and have guests open their wallets to pay for drinks. Bridesmaid was also their roommate and told me they’d decided to invite too many people and skip the open bar. But at least their flowers and decor Was nice.

Every wedding I’ve been to since then has been an open bar. I was in Southern California. I live in Ireland now and weddings are usually fully hosted multi day events here (at least in my current circle).

Its never even been a question for me on if we were going to host an open car. On the second day I knew my husband, I told him I wanted a small wedding and an open bar. It wasn’t small but it was open all night.

I live in New York, and I’ve only been to one open bar wedding. I’m getting married in a few months and I will NOT be having an open bar. It is way to expensive and unnecessary. My fiancé and I will purchase a couple kegs but when they run out, they run out. Your guests are there simply to support you in the exciting and new stage in your life, it’s not a college frat party. And honestly if your guests except you to have an open bar and are upset if you have a cash bar, then maybe you should rethink about having them at your wedding. It’s you big day, do as you please.

I'm from the east coast, in a somewhat rural location. I've been to around 30 weddings as either a photographer or a guest. For almost all of them, the couple had bottles in coolers or it was BYOB. The rest were dry. It is extremely rare to even see one with an actual bartender.

View Quoted Comment The last wedding I attended cost my husband and I several thousand dollars as we flew across the world for this wedding. We had to rent a car as it was 90 minutes away from the nearest airport and we had to get an Airbnb for the time we were there. It was one of his best friends for at least ten years. At the wedding, we were treated to a lovely dinner and an open bar all night. My husband and I both commented that we felt the bride and groom truly appreciated our friendship, as well as their relationships with the other guests, because we were all treated so well on their wedding day. Had we spent several thousand dollars and flown across the world to a dry wedding or a cash bar, and not been properly hosted, our feelings would have changed about the bride and groom.

ETA - my husband and I had multiple people fly across the country and across the world for our wedding. We had a friend stuck in Texas during the hurricane. The whole week leading up to our wedding, he kept telling us he couldn’t make it. He ended getting a flight for an insane amount of money just so he could come. Like hell were we going to tell all these people who were spending money and time to come celebrate us they needed to pull out their own wallets.

I’m from CA and FH is from St. Louis getting married in CO where we both live. We’ve both never heard of or seen a wedding that wasn’t open bar.

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I super agree with this. Everyone who wants to cheap out and not host one because it's expensive is ignoring the fact that it's expensive for guests to attend weddings too.

H and I are going to be spending probably close to $1500 to travel to his friend's wedding this year. We have to fly, rent a car because the wedding is in the middle of nowhere, and stay at a super overpriced hotel since it's the only one in this tiny town. Add in all the eating out, H's tux rental (he's a GM), parking at the airport, pet sitter, etc. and we'll be close to probably $2000, excluding any gift we give.

We recently found out that it's a 300+ person wedding where they're serving insanely cheap dinner and are doing 1 or 2 drink tickets, then a cash bar. While we are going regardless, the fact that they are going as cheap as possible while having a ton of people makes us feel like as guests we're just seen as gift generators.

People spend a lot of time and money to be a guest at weddings. Thank them for their efforts by treating them as well as possible, not as cheaply as possible. People know and appreciate when they're treated well, and they know when hosts of events have cheaped out.

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Brittany - where are you? In the Twin Cities? I am surprised that you have never been to an open bar wedding. In all fairness I am 53 and have probably been to more weddings than you. Not questioning you, just curious. (I posted about my many many relatives....and how we like to drink!!! LOLOL!)

Absolutely where I am in Connecticut. I honestly wouldn't even think to bring cash.

My experience has been split on open bars vs cash bars. I do know I'm irritated when I attend weddings that do cash bar. I'd rather no bar than I order my drink and the bartender makes it before telling me I have to pay for it, then I'm scrambling in my purse for cash. We're planning to do open bar.