This is what surprised me as well.
Usually, friends pay for the person who is being celebrated. Everyone chips in to cover the one person’s meal and beverages.
I have to say, since your friend is paying for the food, I think it is fine that he/she is asking you all to pay for your own alcohol.
IME, people will take advantage when they are not paying the bill and will drink much more than they would if they were footing the bill. Not everyone, mind you. But I have been to enough wedding receptions and business dinners to know that when people are not paying with their own money, they will drink like it is an all-you-can-drink buffet.
Yes, a strict interpretation of the OP would indicate that.
But the contained info seems to contraindicate the premise.
Yes, THAT would be weird as heck (barring some explanation not yet put forward).
But personally, I have a hard time taking the most bizarre reading of a post as the one most likely to be correct (even if it is the most logical from a reading point of view).
I guess the OP will have to get back to us on that.
It’s not unusual for drinks to be handled differently than the rest of the meal. I’ve been to events where the dinner is provided, but there’s a cash bar. At a meal where some people are drinking an others aren’t they may not split the bill right down the middle because of the higher costs of drinks. And for business drinks often can’t be expensed. So it’s not all that unusual of a request even though I don’t recall running across it myself.
Another aspect might be that Sally is worried that an ‘open bar’ will lead to excess drinking, maybe because of some people in particular, and she’s trying to tone down the atmosphere.
Not common, but not all that uncommon either. You can easily control how much food you order, but some people will abuse your hospitality over alcohol.
We have at least one company party a year. The Christmas party, we go to a nice country club, I pay for whatever dinner they order off the menu, and two drinks per person.
I learned the hard way a couple of years ago when the booze was WAY more than the entire meal for 30+
Yes. But she still serves alcohol to guests in our home, and as I said up thread, there are very few of us girls who drink, and we don’t drink more than one bottle of beer or a glass of wine, which is all you can get at this pizza place.
I couldn’t care less what her reasons may be — nor do I think, I would ask — her party, her rules.
I f she wished that no guest drink orange juice, or that every guest smoked a clay pipe non-stop as at Friedrich Wilhelm’s Tabakskollegium it is entirely up to her. Were I not wishful to agree I would decline.
Plus it is, after all, a free meal.
I don’t think asking for guests to buy their own alcohol is unusual. For that matter, neither is hosting your own birthday party. I did that myself once, when my parents had sent me a check for my birthday with instructions to spend it on something fun. The funnest thing I could think of to do with it was treat a group of my best friends to dinner & drinks. I bought the drinks, BTW.
Yeah, this is not uncommon. Someone is buying you dinner, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Who knows (or needs to know) what her reasons are. Oh… be sure to offer to buy here a drink-- it’s her Birthday!!
There is the driving while under the influence thing… Some people are responsible and don’t want to be the cause of an irresponsible person’s tragedy. (i.e. “If you are going to drink and drive, I will not be a party to that.”)
We just call it a cash bar. Not terribly unusual and I wouldn’t think twice about it if I got the OP’s invite with that wording, assuming all it means is “pay for your own drinks” as opposed to “if you drink, you pay for you drinks and food,” which I doubt it does.
I think this depends on culture and region. If the person having the birthday is inviting them to their own party, it’s not unusual, in my experience, for the host to pay for it or offer to pay for it. If someone else is throwing the party for them, then the bill is usually split. But it varies wildly.