The only dry wedding I’ve ever been to was also the most boring by far, but I chalk that up to personal differences. It was my cousin’s wedding, so I was obligated to go despite the vast divide in our religious and political beliefs. The reception went: waiting for bride and groom to arrive, toast, eat dinner, watch slideshow of the happy couple from birth to marriage, leave. It was all over by 7 p.m. Blah. So, obviously, that’s colored my perception.
That said, I think alcohol does serve a purpose at a wedding. It’s a social occasion where a bunch of disparate people who’ve never met each other before are trapped in the same location for several hours. Without alcohol, that’s my personal nightmare. I’ll be the one standing alone in the corner, occasionally making awkward attempts at small talk, or never leaving the side of the two or three people I know. Give me two or three drinks and I can relax, make conversation with stangers, and enjoy myself.
Nope. And none of the pick-off moves are going to work, either. Anybody who can’t handle an event sober shouldn’t be there in the first place. That includes the groom!
In Miss Manners-esque etiquette, cash bars are considered rude because you can’t charge guests money.
In other words, you should only serve alcohol if you can afford to pay for it yourself.
This is not to say that you can’t ever do it in practice, but it should be done gracefully and with notice to your guests. Some friends got married at the local vfw-type hall and cash bar is the only way alcohol is allowed. They gave all guests tickets for 2 free drinks (alcohol or soft drinks) and you paid for the rest.
My recent wedding was dry for another reason - the groom is sober and wants to stay that way
Yeah, that’s what I thought. But that rule is quite archaic, it seems. I do agree that grace and notice are essential in pulling it off, but I personally think it’s a fine way to allow those who want to get blotto to do so without going broke. Of course you provide the champagne, and the free tickets are a classy touch.
My eventual wedding will be dry for a very simple secular pragmatic reason: the smell of alcohol makes me want to vomit. There was booze at my sister’s wedding in June, and I chewed strong-tasting gum to avoid the stench (and did my best not to go to the part of the room that had drinkers). I would object to anybody drinking and then talking to me, because obviously I’m going to smell that.
Between this, and your recent comments in the messy house thread about how your bathroom is clean enough to perform surgery in, I’m tempted to leave my husband and move in with you.
I once went to a wedding reception that was dry for budget reasons. Apparently local laws required that they hire security to serve alcohol, and the couple decided not to bother. We got cases of beer and drank on and off all day in the parking lot. My impression (I was there as a date) is that the couple knew what the plans were and didn’t care, they just didn’t want to serve booze themselves. This was actually the most religious wedding I have been to yet. It was a 2+ Catholic hour mass, the reception was a casual afterthought.
If it were a situation where the bride and groom did in fact care, then yeah I would say that is lame. Otherwise, not such a big deal, just don’t be a crass drunk. IMHO wedding receptions aren’t really as formal as people dress them up to be, in the end they’re just big family parties.
I took a flask of bourbon to a wedding one time, when I was in the wedding party, the reception was dry, and there was sufficient tension in the air (for various reasons) that I figured we might all need a snort. We didn’t, it turned out, but everybody agreed that it was a good idea.
The majority of the weddings I’ve been to have been dry, by virtue of my Southern Baptist upbringing. But they also weren’t the sort of thing you’d sneak a flask into unless you were a pretty hardcore alcoholic. A lot of eastern Kentucky weddings have a two-stage “reception”–cake and punch in the church fellowship hall, then a more lively “afterparty” somewhere after all the old relatives go home. (Bonfires are popular.)
I don’t think it’s a great idea to have dancing at a wedding reception without booze. I’ve seen it work, but usually it doesn’t.
Every wedding I´ve been to which did the garter thing and suchlike, it’s been stilted no matter how much alcohol people had partaken of. It’s not our traditions… they were doing it because “they do it in the movies!” (if my best friend had tried to stick me into a bridesmaids confection, we would’a been in the papers).
I’ve been to weddings where everybody was stiff as a board, “even though” myself and two others were the only ones who didn’t touch the stuff. I’ve been to others where the only alcohol was the Communion wine, yet people were bringing out the guitars and starting to sing whenever the waiters took too long between dishes.
Alcohol can help “loosen up” things, but that’s not necessarily fun for everybody.
Heck, if my alcoholic aunt hadn’t been dry for several years and I ever got married, I might make it dry just to ensure she wouldn’t come!
In my own opinion, if the happy couple have a dry wedding then it is disrespectful to them to sneak in a flask. I also find it distasteful to do so in the same circumstance.
I have nothing against or for wet weddings, but I have seen too many receptions ruined by someone getting their drink on and acting like an idiot. Inappropriate speeches, crashing into things and acting like a buffoon have their own charm, but I don’t think that they belong at a wedding. A family reunion? May the likker flow like water.
You’re not off-base if that’s what you believe and that’s what makes you comfortable.
I have never been to a dry wedding, but if I were invited one, yes, I’d sneak in a flask. I believe that the thing is to be discreet. Unless you get really drunk (and I can’t on the amount I can fit into a flask) nobody who isn’t totally up close to you will know. Mints help too.
Now, I have taken my flask to a funeral. I know some people may see that as impolite, but I didn’t actually whip it out and chug-a-lug during the service. We actually stood around outside of Ruck’s Funeral Home in Towson passing it around. The dead person in question was the mother of a good friend of mine. Everybody knew what was going on, nobody got tanked. Nobody knocked over the coffin.
My friends know me and they know I like my booze. They also know I can hold it. For me, my flask is as much my signature as my big hats and my Shalimar. I come from a drinking family and a drinking culture, so this does not strike me as rude.
I used to have a number of flasks, and recall bringing them many places including to the opera, to the conservatory, skiing. Don’t recall any weddings, tho I do recall some trips to the parking lot at weddings and other events.
I don’t see any problem with that, so long as it is handled discreetly.
Of course, I readily acknowledge that I used to be a VERY heavy drinker, and have been sober the past few years…
I am surprised at how many people regularly go to dry weddings… these “southern baptist” weddings. Now I know never to go to one if invited…
Every wedding I have ever been to (save one) has had alcohol. No one ever got sloppy drunk and ruined the reception. They have always been fun and lively. I think if you’re hosting a celebratory gathering, the host/hostess are obliged to provide libations (i.e. food & drink). A dry wedding strikes me as tacky and not hospitable.
I did recently have the misfortune of going to a dry wedding, which was done so because it was a “redux” wedding done after the couple eloped to Vegas. It was held in the groom’s mother’s Korean church - therefore no alcohol. Needless to say, it was the most boring wedding reception I ever attended.
But in general, as someone above said, I don’t hang out with anyone who would willingly hold a dry reception.
They say that 8 out of 10 Mississippians are Baptists.
The majority of weddings, therefore, that I’ve been to have been held in Baptist churches, where alcohol is Not Allowed. Unless you’re dressed like ShelliBean, there.
As someone else described upthread, the deal is usually: wedding, cake & mints, then go somewhere else for the “after party” where alcohol is allowed.
Interesting, isn’t it, what’s considered “hospitable” and what isn’t?
Indeed. A wedding is probably the most social event you can have, and even with people who barely drink eyebrows won’t be raised if they have a glass or two. If you don’t want to drink at your wedding, don’t. But accept that some of your guests will. I think it’s judgmental and inhospitable to tell people, guests at your event, what they can and can’t drink.
I probably wouldn’t smuggle in a flask, but then I probably wouldn’t go or be invited to a dry wedding either. I had never even heard of them until this thread - when I saw the title I thought it was about bringing in your own booze to save on extortionate bar costs.
Fuck Miss Manners. I suppose that if the bride and groom buy the alcohol for the bar and keep the revenue, that’s tacky- but if the reception venue (say, a country club) has a bar and you ask them to open it during the reception, what the hell is wrong with that?
I would much rather go to a wedding with a cash bar than a wedding with no bar.
And I don’t know anyone who’d have a dry wedding, which is good.
Agreed, YOU aren’t charging the guests if the reception area you rented out is serving the liquor.
If they don’t want alcohol, they can go hit up the free punch and soda. Only if they want a buzz do they have to shell out any money. Open bars can run upwards of $1000 easily for the bride/groom, asking the reception-goers to pony up $$ for their own buzz if perfectly acceptable IMO.
I’ve only been to one dry wedding and it was for semi religious reasons in that the reception was in the church. The entire thing felt awkward and we went straight to a bar to drink out the awkwardness.
It was a fairly stiff event and the ceremony itself was somewhat fire and brimstone. I didn’t bring a flask despite planning to and regretted it.
