AIBU to not provide a free bar at our wedding?

[Gettingmarried27eek]

I'm getting married next year. Just wanted to hear your thoughts on whether you'd expect a free bar at the venue?

I've been to many weddings over the years, some have a free bar, most don't. I'm not a huge drinker so am always happy to buy my own at weddings.

We do have wine at the tables to have with the meal and champagne for the toasts.

Does this seem reasonable? Many thanks all!

I don't think this is true. It would be a bit cringe to put whether it's a free or cash bar on the invitation.

Most people have an amount they give depending on whether they're a day or evening guest, or in the wedding party/close friend.
Usually we give around £100+ if we're day guests. Usually around £300+ if we're in the wedding party/very close friends.

We mostly received the same apart from one bridesmaid who put £30 in a card. I'd paid for hair, make up, her room, transport and gifts for her. So it was a bit of a slap in the face but I don't think she really knows the done thing.

I can't imagine deducting the costs off a gift.i think don't attend if you're that hard up you can't buy yourself a drink. I'm honoured every time I'm invited.

Some people’s parents love them and want to give them things?

My point is, you can't say it's rude to not pay for a free bar if mummy and daddy pay for yours.

I’ve never been to a wedding where I’ve had to pay for the “hospitality”. But most of my family weddings have been in our own homes with caterers. If you can’t afford a bar, then you need to put wine etc on the tables and that’s it. Or get a beer keg and a whole lot of wine boxes.

Hmm…what time did the event end though?
The bill will be large if the wedding is still going at 2 or 3am. Lots of people can’t afford that.

You can if you would have had a different sort of wedding otherwise. I was originally looking at the town hall and an evening bbq reception in a local bar. When my parents wanted to put money in, we changed it to a museum with a string quartet. There would have been a free bar either way.

If you cannot afford to host the event, then you host a different event.

DD was at a wedding recently
The wedding party had bought the booze and said although they weren’t charging ,donations from guests were welcome.
I thought that was really good idea .
DD said they put in a good amount for the first couple of rounds .
The couple weren’t hoping to recoup everything
but it helped and also probably gave the local teens who are waitering and bar tending a good tip ,
We are hosting a wedding soon and I’m keeping that in mind.

Think it feels quite fair .

Midnight - as do most weddings? I’ve been to the occasional one that ends at 11:30, and one I think that ended at 1am but all in all they tend to end at midnight

We paid for our wedding ourselves, and had a free bar.

However, I’m not sure I regard it as rude not to have a free bar.

That is bizarre - shall we also have charity buckets on the door as people come in as well to “recoup the costs”

I think for some people weddings are about sharing it with others. I think it's pretty sad to think you'd rather have less people there. Being with others is what it's really about. I'm sure when I think about attending weddings my motivation is seeing people get married rather than a free bar.

Lovely for parents to pay for weddings, but I certainly would not expect a couple who are paying for themselves to do so. And I certainly wouldn't criticise if I'd not even paid for my own.

I’m in Ireland and 2am is standard finishing time here and many move to the venue’s residents’ bar at that point for another couple of hours.
Bars are not normally free as a result.

Reception drinks, plenty of wine with the meal and a drink for toasting during the speeches are standard.

I did say they had no intention of recouping the costs
There had been wine and drinks for toasts .
If it was at a hotel you’d be paying through the nose
for drinks !
A small payment was quite fair I think .
I dont subscribe to the “If you can’t do a free bar don’t have as many guests”
I don’t think I ever went to wedding with a free bar til relatively recently . I think we budgeted for drinks as part of the event as guests .
I’d have been very happy as a youngster to pay a wee but for drinks after enjoying the meal wine and fizz. I’d have thought it was generous .

Oh God. I would feel so uncomfortable. It seems very crude. I think just let people gift you money for your honeymoon in a way that is private.

So many brides and grooms nowadays expect nothing less than the following from their guests:

• The clothes off their backs.

• A proportion of their annual leave to attend the stag/hen and all of the associated costs often including travelling abroad and covering the costs of the bride and groom.

• A generous financial gift despite purporting that "your presence is a present".

• An overnight stay in a hotel to attend the wedding which is inevitably in the middle of nowhere with no public transport links.

With all of the expectations, it is incredibly poor manners and tacky to expect people who are paying a small fortune to attend to pay for their own refreshments. Every person I have spoken to from outside of the UK is absolutely flabbergasted by the notion of making guests pay for their own drinks. It is considered incredibly tacky. If people cannot afford to provide alcohol for the guests they have invited, it is not mandatory to have such a huge wedding. I feel that people want these huge weddings for the Instagram pictures, but in order to achieve this, they try to cut corners.

I agree. I'd be really disappointed if I found out that a friend of mine hadn't invited me to their wedding because they couldn't afford to offer me a free bar. I'd rather they just booked a room in a village hall/community centre and asked us all to come along and bring a bottle and a contribution to a buffet.

For me the best thing about a wedding is the excuse to get together with friends, see someone celebrate their love, and have a party. Whatever food and drink is provided comes a very distant second place.

YANBU. We provided loads of wine, fizz and food but the bar was paid.

I think we did put some money behind the bar for a tab though IIRC.

We provided 1/2 bottle of wine pp with the meal and a glass of prosecco pp for the speeches. We then put £500 behind the bar for the evening so, but once that had been spent then people had to pay for their own drinks.

My wedding was a free bar but it was a small abroad wedding.
I wouldn't expect it normally.

We didn't have a free bar - we paid for our wedding ourselves.

We booked and subsidised all the rooms in the hotel significantly (from £400 to only paying £50), and a dozen or so we paid outright for family and close friends (night before and night of). I suppose if we hadn't done that we could have paid for a free bar possibly?
We had family travelling from 4+ hours away so it felt right to foot the bill for their rooms especially as it was our choice to choose a hotel with expensive rooms.

It was a Saturday wedding in the summer.

I attended a November wedding on a Monday once and it was awful. We went to work the second day because we'd both just started new jobs. We were in our 20s and could bounce up with a hangover.

This doesn't apply to me. See updates.

Also we are not having a stag and hen do. We are too old for that now 😂

This doesn't apply to me. See updates

Nor me. No stag or hen do, had our wedding at the weekend, specifically said no gifts, and provided a field for camping at the venue. Which, incidentally, was surprisingly popular with some guests staying on for a few days.

And a free bar, of course.

Absolutely!
We've been to some beautiful low-key weddings. I just take each wedding and enjoy it for what it is. Weddings are expensive enough as it is, usually £100+pp for the usual food, wine, champagne gig and that's not including the service, transport, flowers, DJs etc.

It’s not generous - it’s the basic bare minimum for hosting an event