Who is paying (or paid) for the alcohol at your wedding?

Please do not do a cash bar! Nothing worse than getting to a wedding only to realize you have to pay for drinks all night. With that being said, my FH's parents are paying for the bar, but we have decided to offer only beer and wine at the wedding and then have a full bar with top shelf liquor at the rehearsal. We were recently both in a wedding that did it that way and it was really nice.

@Cheyenne Holy mother of god, please do not use your bar as a way to collect donations to your living/wedding expense. No no no no no. If you can't afford to host people properly, don't host them at all.

FW and I are paying for our alcohol just as we are paying for our whole wedding. We have opted to do beer and wine only with liquor being paid for by the guest.

This is not because we are cheap but I am a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 4 years this coming September and FW only drinks beer with the occasional shot of whiskey.

FW and I disagreed about the bar, as in my family it's customary to have an open bar, whereas hers they have a cash. Even though I will not be having any alcohol, I refused to have a cash bar and make my guests pay for their own drinks. I explained I would rather have either a pre-paid bar or at least beer and wine. We compromised with beer and wine, liquor available when paid for by guest.

Cheyenne - you must be joking. Your guests are not there to make donations to your living expenses! They are there at your invitation and you are supposed HOST them, not make money off of them. That idea is truly horrific!

@Cheyenne, I'd really caution against doing that. Your guests are (most likely) already buying you a gift or giving you cash to help you and FH start your married life. Asking for MORE money via $2 drinks is really rude..

Your guests aren't there to pay your bills FFS.

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Well.. fortunately for me an open bar is included with the venue...

Cheyenne and whoever that girl was on the last page who wants to "be different" by doing a cash bar - Please don't. Unless by different, you mean rude and tacky...

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FH's parents are paying for part of the bar. I was fine with beer and wine, but a full bar was really important to his parents, so they are paying the difference. But we were never doing a cash bar.

@cheyanne Its extremely common in Canada to do 2$ drinks ( well in Alberta and Saskatchewan for sure! Not too sure about the other provinces ) . An open bar is really never expected here! Cocktail hour is free drinks, the bridal party / parents are usually free all night, and then a complimentary bottle of red and white are on every table. Toonie bars are the norm after cocktail hour and then the host can usually break even (or close to) on the alcohol. As a guest I'm happy to be able to help out with that as alcohol is expensive here! I'm surprised that everyone thinks it's rude to be honest! So in the end I guess it depends where you are from. If it's really frowned upon to have a cash bar where you are then definitely either do the consumption option or the beer/wine option. Cash bar ( but not full price drinks!) is so common here I never gave it a second thought until this thread. An open bar would be so awesome! I have never attended a wedding like that! Lucky bums over there haha !

Open bar and my parents are paying for it. I've only been to one wedding with a cash bar....no thanks!

Guests are there to celebrate. Least you can do is pay for their beer. If my parents were not paying, I would have saved up a lot more money and paid it myself also.

Also, I'm in Canada but my family is Irish....so lol it's an open bar, wasn't even debated.

I have always been told the guests mostly care about the booze, music, and food. Those are the 3 most important things at the wedding. So we are having an open bar and paying for it ourselves.

@canadianmummy awesome!! I hope to attend an open bar wedding one day haha ! They sound fun ! I'm sure your wedding will be a blast !

I'm from MB and I've only seen a couple of cash bars (usually in rural areas where the wedding are held at community centres). I travelled to SK for a wedding and this was my first encounter with a "toonie bar". Considering half the guests had to travel a minimum of 5 hours to the wedding and book hotel rooms, I was pretty flabbergasted that they would charge for drinks. If I had known beforehand I would not have gone through the trouble.

@VenetianBride ahh maybe it really is just an AB / SK thing? Good to know! ETA all my family is from rural SK so maybe that's why this is so normal to me

@Amy Yeah, I'm in Ontario and open bars are the norm here. Must be an AB/SK thing! Hopefully you get invited to a wedding in another province and experience an open bar lol.

@Caroline haha yes ! I need that experience in my life :p