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!

Wine on tables is fine. If you have any budget for a bar you could
provide people with a couple of tokens each but I think people expect to pay anyway.

For me I wouldn’t have a party of any kind without providing the alcohol.

As a guest I have zero issue in paying for my drinks.

Culturally family (West Indian) muck in with preparing and ‘guest experience’ outweighs everything else.

I chose a variety of cheaper things for my wedding so that the food and drink for the guests was top notch and 15 years later people regularly tell me our wedding was the most fun wedding they’ve attended (apropos of nothing - I do not seek this validation).

Providing the drinks can be different to an open bar though. An open bar also has an open bill, so unless money is no object just letting the drinks flow for hours can mount up to a hefty sum.

We had a free bar all weekend (Friday to Sunday) and we spent £13k all in. We didn't have cars or photographers etc, we did basic or DIY for a lot of things (my two wedding outfits totalled about £250) but ordered in a shit tonne of booze, as well as food for the whole weekend too. I think our canapes and evening buffet came to about £250 in total for 70 people? Plus dinner also.

13k isn't cheap, but a 13k hotel wedding of the same era wouldn't have included so much food and booze.

You asked me about this and I replied but you’ve ignored it and carried on posting about how rich you need to be to have a free bar.

Not at all, it's a bonus but I definitely don't expect it.

Weddings shouldn't be so transactional. You don't go for what you get out of it. You go because you want to go regardless of what you'll get for going.

If I like someone so little that I could only cope if they gave me free alcohol all night then I probably shouldn't have been invited!

The standard is 1-2 welcome drinks, half a bottle of wine, 1-2 drinks for a toast. That's about 4-5+ drinks. I've been to some where you get a drinks token/first drink free.
Just checked with DH and we put £500 behind the bar.

I'd never expect someone else to do that though.

Really it's a fair amount of booze before you even get to the evening and rarely is all the wine gone.

For our welcome drinks it was 2x prosecco, beer or PIMMS!

We've been told by a fair few (even women in their 80s) that it was the best wedding they'd ever been to. Everyone was on the dance floor until the very last song and chanting "one more song" at the DJ.

I'd much rather my friends got themselves on the housing ladder than worry about one very expensive day. Weddings are around £40k these days.

Our parents never paid a penny to attend our wedding. Rooms, food and drinks all sorted for the 3 days. They've done enough for us that I wouldn't dream of taking money off them for our wedding day.

MIL insisted on paying towards our honeymoon which we accepted but we wouldn't have her pay for our wedding day, it felt wrong to us - we'd chosen to have it and where. Would seem so cheeky!!

I think it's lovely when parents chuck money behind the bar or pay for specific things like your wedding dress etc but the norm should really be that you pay for your own wedding and that you sort guests for food and drinks during the daytime, but the evening is up to them. Anything is a bonus.
I can't believe how many entitled people are on here complaining that a wedding is bad because they didn't get more stuff for free!

Love a free bar at a wedding. Great food, great music, plentiful drinks – that’s what makes a great wedding.

Must be a bit of a crap wedding if you’re on Mumsnet. Maybe they should have put on a free bar to liven it up a bit?

For both our daughters’ weddings we had a welcome drink, with canapés, wine on the tables, fizz for the toast and an open bar -but only for soft drinks, beer and wine. We were really surprised by the bill at the end of the night. Depends on your crowd, I suppose.

Pleasantly surprised!

I’ve never been to a wedding with a free bar and ours wasn’t either. We did welcome drinks, fizz for speeches and instead of wine on the table (because I don’t drink wine and hate that I never get a free drink when I go to events!) we have everyone a free drink token :) everything else was paid by the guests. I would never expect a bar to be open at a wedding I attended.

Absolutely- I purposely chose a venue where we could buy the alcohol and provide it - wine, beer, cider, some spirits, soft drinks.

I would not have been able to afford an open bar at a hotel so I chose not to have a wedding at one.

I bought so much wine we were giving it away to visitors to our house for months after the wedding.

It depends on what one prioritises. Neither is right or wrong, for me it’s just not an option to have people pay for drinks at a party I host.

I wouldn't do a free bar as it just encourages some people to get absolutely rat arsed. I went to a wedding where I was given a ticket for one free drink which seems a good plan.

I think you might have missed the point. To clarify, I am the least likely person you could meet to take advantage of the bride and grooms hospitality. I don’t drink alcohol so I certainly am not concerned about that. Two Coke zero’s and I am happy. I don’t eat much as I used to be fat and now I’m thin and I have to eat next to nothing to maintain that so it’s not so much that I’m thinking about what I can get, in fact I would be trying to avoid the food (sad but true). I just think that the bride and groom often seem to think that the wedding is a prize but if you think about it, it costs people far more to attend than most people would spend on any sort of activity or night out. I think it’s about time we realised that going to a wedding costs the guests a lot! It sounds like your wedding was quite some time ago and I think the expectation of guests nowadays is very different (not always of course but typically) ‘Don’t wear this colour, this is the theme, make sure you don’t post any photos, your gift must be a certain amount’ (all posts I’ve seen on here so I know these are real things) hen do’s, stag do’s, maid of honour duties, childcare if you can’t bring your children etc, it’s ridiculous. I feel a bit guilty typing this here as the OP is most likely a really nice person that doesn’t expect any of those things. But some brides and grooms do. And I’ve noticed anyone on this thread that has said that their experience is that weddings have a free bar have had comments made to them about wealthy friends, all a bit snippy when all they were doing was giving an honest answer that they were asked to give. It’s not that difficult to believe that some people move in circles with free bars.

I suppose typing that has made me realise that I think a free bar is probably only fair after your guests have attended and celebrated with you. I doubt most people can afford that though unless they kept it a very small affair.

Those that aren’t providing a free bar are still providing drinks though…maybe two at the drinks reception; usually at least two or three glasses of wine with dinner, as well as water and tea/coffee then; a drink to toast during speeches; and more tea and coffee later on in the evening (at least where I am).

That’s at least 5 alcoholic drinks a head (for those who want them) even without a free bar…

I suppose typing that has made me realise that I think a free bar is probably only fair after your guests have attended and celebrated with you. I doubt most people can afford that though unless they kept it a very small affair.

I agree with this actually @Itsa10fromLen

But once weddings changed from a lovely fun celebration to celebrity prince and princess cosplay guests are not prioritised.

A Paris goblet of cheap wine or a weak Pimms whilst waiting for 2 hours of photos is not a ‘welcome’ in my book.

It varies though and I’d say 5 is generous. I’ve been to at least 3 weddings where the wine on the table has gone by the end of the starters.

Almost all weddings I’ve been to where there isn’t an open bar have had 1 small welcome drink, maybe two small glasses at dinner and one flute for the toast.

Thats not enough for me if I’m hosting. I’m perfectly happy to pay for drinks as a guest. I’m just saying it’s not for me if I’m hosting.

Most of the weddings I have attended have free bars. Just don't do what my SIL did and have free drinks, but only for certain drinks and not tell the quests. Near the end of the meal people found out, but then we had to change venues for the evening party. The next day SIL was amazed how little of the free alcohol was not drunk. Worst wedding ever, if you scrimp on a wedding it shows. Have a modest wedding which is more enjoyable rather than pretending to have a fancy wedding on a poor budget. Another wedding i attended was a colleague, she could not afford a sit down meal, so timed the wedding accordingly, did not inform quests and it was in the middle of nowhere. They served bacon sandwiches at about 9pm. People had started to leave as there were no food options other than crisps and nuts from the bar.

I guess it varies. Drinks have always been generous at weddings I’ve attended (Ireland), and I’ve luckily never had your experience with the wine, but open bars are not expected

Terribly sorry my dear, I don’t remember your post. Which one is it?

Late to the thread. Have read all your updates. All sounds very sensible and normal to me. One thing we did at our wedding was set a limited amount bar tab and nominate a few people from the wedding party (me, dh, my brother in think) who could use it, so if that they could order drinks for anyone we thought might not want to/afford to/be mobile enough to order their own drinks at the bar. It wasn't all used even, but the option was there,, if I was talking to someone and noticed they didnt have a drink but usually do, i could just quickly and quietly say to staff , please bring a sherry over to aunty at that table and move on without messing around paying etc.

@123teenagerfood bloody hell to both of those examples.

My wedding cost £10k 15 years ago and that was only because my grandmother got daft about a sit down meal so decided to pay the extra (we’re going to have a very nice served buffet). £3000 was dress, venue hire, rings, flowers and decor. The rest was food and drink.

No one remembers place cards were done with my dymo, they remember there being loads of food and drink, good music, and no pissing about for hours waiting for photos.

Same here, except I can’t stand the stuff!

I got married years ago but had bottles of wine and fresh fruit juice on tables, champagne for the toast (we did a booze cruise to France to collect it) and bought the first drink for guests. After that guests bought their own drinks. We did have large jugs of fruit juice set out on the table with evening buffet.