Cash bar at a wedding?

[SisterA]

What are people's opinions on a cash bar at a wedding?

Do you think it's rude/like you've been invited to a party the hosts couldn't afford to invite you to?

Planning my wedding and I think we COULD do it but it would be quite a stretch but it's also not a weekend so I'm really wary of putting people out after some might have had to take time off work.

Also not sure if I'm keen on the idea of inviting people to a party and essentially making them pay for their drinks. I haven't been to a wedding recently when there HASN'T been a cash bar in the last few years and I really don't mind it but I just don't know what the general consensus is. And would just like the opinions of some strangers please

ostentatious? haven't you got your judgy pants on!

No, not at all (don't think I possess a pair) and I hadn't read your previous post so it wasn't a dig...I was more trying to reassure the OP that most people wouldn't expect a free bar so she doesn't feel that spending £3k on booze (I have read your pp now) is generally the norm. That would have been nearly half of our wedding budget!

Cash bar completely normal. We had a free one at our wedding, but we had a marquee in our garden and was a fairly small wedding (40 people) and so it wasn't too expensive.
I would never have done a free bar at a place where it cost hotel prices as then I would have been bankrupt.

I've only been to a couple of weddings with a cash bar. At ours we had an open bar for 130 people. We kept it simple: beer/red wine/white wine/sparkling wine/gin/vodka and then juice and soft drinks. However we weren't in a 'venue' as such, and bought all the drinks ourselves beforehand.

I think with weddings, if you have some money to spend, you should concentrate this on the things the guests will enjoy the most. For us this was food, booze and a live band. Nobody cares really about your centrepieces, chair covers and fancy cars at the end of the day.

I don't really get the couples that spend £hundreds on favours and flowers then have a cash bar. KWIM?

We are doing our own bar sourcing all drinks ourself got a couple staff on it and simply charging £1 every drink we don't want to make money on our guests at all but don't think anyone will mind paying a pound for any drink - obviously all branded spirits nice lagers corona etc