Smuggling alcohol into a wedding reception?

[jessie777]

Would you? Have you?! Did you get caught?!

I haven't, but more because of poor planning than any moral objection. Paying overinflated bar prices at a wedding really grates.

We were really careful about this for our wedding, and actually refused to book a venue that were being grabby with alcohol charges, and instead booked our own venue who let us do what we wanted, so we hired a bar (after checking that their price list was fair), and paid a bit extra so that guests could bring their own booze, and we could serve our own wine.

I don't agree with the opinion that you should necessary cut numbers so that you can pay for an open bar for those attendinng. Surely the most important thing for anyone on a prospective guest list is that they are celebrating your special day with you. I wouldn't like the idea that people hadn't invited who they wanted, in order to pay for my bar bill.

I'm by this thread. The idea of sneaking in booze is tacky, cheap and desperate. I would be seriously worried about my drinking if I had to do this. You're there to celebrate your friends' marriage - do you need to get slaughtered to do that? If you can't afford the bar prices for wine, drink something cheaper such as soda water and learn to have a good time without the crutch of alcohol. I seriously worry about this country's culture of alcohol abuse.

I don't know what's worse, expecting guests to pay £8 a glass at a wedding, which is expensive even by London prices or thinking about smuggling drinks in.

Can't you not just have soft drinks?

I don't drink soft drinks and I don't drink stupid amounts of alcohol, but I don't like being taken for a mug either by extortionate prices for alcohol. There is no justification other than greed/profiteering to charge £20+ for a bottle of wine that is a fiver in the supermarket.

Spririts are even worse - a double G&T can be the best part of a tenner for some crap like Gordons & Schweppes, which means that they are likely to have sold a bottle of bog standard £15 gin for £100+

I don't smuggle in booze, but totally understand those who do - if prices were more reasonable, people wouldn't bother. Wanting to have a few drinks at a wedding without paying stupid prices doesn't make people skanky alcoholics who should just sit there with a coke and like it or lump it.

I've been at a wedding where even the bride and groom did this. I find it quite tacky in all honesty. If you can't afford the alcohol then don't drink. Or don't drink excessively. If anyone does this at our wedding we could lose the bond we've had to put down.

I think it's really rude - I would never do it.

I'm shock by this thread. The idea of sneaking in booze is tacky, cheap and desperate.

I didn't realise this went on, but I haven't been to a wedding.

I've smuggled booze into cinemas and onto ferris wheels.

Yesterday 23:50 CoughLaughFart

If you are that tight for cash, don't go. You don't have to.

What a lovely attitude to take regarding someone's wedding.

I look forward to the thread whingeing about being caught, the bride and groom having lost their deposit, and you looking like the tight-fisted, alcoholic Scrooge who was responsible.

Why do you need to consume alcohol at the cinema and on ferris wheels?

Time and place and all that?

Lonicera nobody apart alcoholics needs to, they do it because they enjoy it and they are not harming anyone else. It enhances the experience if you like.

I always take a little extra!

And we didn't to my son's wedding wine was just over a tenner a bottle and beer pub prices

It wouldn't occur to me to do that MsHarry, besides, I would probably be driving.

If you're somewhere that bag checks are likely... Old handbag you don't like anymore. Cut a wine bottle sized hole in the lining. Hide your booze, safety pin it back up and pour your drinks in the loo/under the table/in the smoking area when nobody can see you. Once got caught doing this when I was about 19 by a friends mum. Had mini panic attack, until she turned and said "I don't blame you, it's fucking extortionate in here isn't it!"
I would obviously never do this anymore and only ever did it when I was young and knew no better

Why should a bride a groom invite less people so that invited guests can pour free alcohol down their throats? Maybe they think the toast drink and a glass or two at dinner is sufficient? It's not the couple's fault that people can't cope with just a few drinks.

Can't you not just have soft drinks?
Have you seen the mark-up on soft drinks?

I'm slightly surprised you need to ask!

I'm probably going against popular opinion here, but to me it seems really tacky to 'smuggle' alcohol into a wedding reception, but it also seems really tacky & cheap to expect people to have to fork out & buy drinks at a wedding reception. Don't have a wedding reception you can't afford.

It's not just you.

I'd rather the b&g provided limited/no alcohol, than pay bar.

Hmmmm I have smuggled before

And yes rem paying £7 for a pint of coke. Was omfg !!!!

Some answers re pricing in here:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=mVn2ByJvE7Y

I think it is exceedingly seedy smuggling your own alcohol in.

But then I also think it is highly tacky to have a shit wedding reception in a place with stupidity expensive drinks and pass the cost onto your gusts.

There should be cash behind the bar or downgrade your venue expectations to somewhere with more reasonable drinks prices.

We bought a tonne of alcohol for our wedding - after doing a brief shout out for suggestions for what people liked. Most people were just like 'whatever, it's your wedding and it's free alcohol. We're good'. I did get in some different brands of beer that I knew people liked from experience at previous weddings...
Anyway. One friend brought along a case of beer. We didn't really mind, just thought it was a little rich considering he and his wife had been really cheeky about stuff with their wedding. There's a bit of a list but the most relevant one is that their venue charged an absolute sodding fortune for drinks - even the soft drinks - they got really shitty when they heard someone was doing a Lidl run and then I offered to buy in suggestions and they still bring along their own stuff.

But it's not harming anyone else. Oh, apart from the £3bn+ it's costing the NHS every year. Plus the cost of policing, social care, work place absence...

Seriously all you drink smugglers - take a long hard look at your drinking habits. The alcohol industry is making a fortune out of making us unwell.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=gmtVJfDjZew

I expect you'll brush me off as a crazy but alcohol is a harmful poison which ruins lives. If you need to smuggle booze into a wedding reception you have a problem.

Sneaking in a bottle of something to drink./share on one night is not harming anyone else. I drink less than 10 units a week thank you very much!