I’m with you Bricker, on this one. I quit drinking when my wife was pregnant the first time and never really got back into it. I’d guess I average about two drinks a week, but if you told me that there was a period where I didn’t drink at all for a month or two I wouldn’t be surprised.
I also just don’t get it. Even when I was drinking regularly it was never important at all. I guess I think I understand the real alcoholics, the ones who are clearly addicted. But it’s the ones who aren’t addicted that are a mystery to me.
I’m a fucking drunk, and I find this kind of attitude most disturbing. You are at a function for other people. You are there to celebrate them, not you. Therefore, if they request you wear a tutu and yodel your regards, you do it or stay home. The blatant need for alcohol exhibited by some people in this thread is amazing.
If the wedding and reception are dry, so be it. Save your slobbering quaffing for somewhere else, later.
This must be a cultural/regional thing, because I was shocked to learn (probably on these boards) that some people are cool with a cash bar. For me, I would have rather walked down the aisle with my dress stuck up in my panty hose, the idea of offering a cash bar is so mortifying. Honestly, I had never even heard of it really happening until fairly recently.
I’ve only been to one dry wedding, and it was … mildly pleasant. One thing I noticed is that the reception was relatively short. After the cake was served, people politely congratulated the bride and groom again and then left. Based on my background, I associate weddings with hours of eating and drinking and dancing and mingling and talking and singing.
I probably enjoy a drink a bit more than the next guy, but bringing a flask to an alcohol-free wedding is… I’m looking in vain for a suitable adjective. If I found one, it wouldn’t be a positive one. Worse yet is the columnist’s relaxed assumption that people will do it. I don’t know who she hangs out with, but I can already say that I prefer my crowd.
I say wear a kilt and hide the flask in the sporren! Having a flask is just part of the outfit and whats the point of having a flask if you aint gonna fill it?!
I’m curious how you would know ahead of time that alcohol wouldn’t be served unless you were very involved with helping plan the wedding. The wedding announcements I’m used to say where and when the reception will be held and maybe include something like refreshments will be served. No mention of what exactly the refreshments will be.
The venue will tip you off. If it says “reception at Ho House Gentleman’s Club” you can be sure there will be alcohol served. If it says “reception to follow in the Fellowship Hall of the First Baptist Church” you probably won’t get any.
Unless the reception is at a Catholic, Episcopal or possibly Lutheran church, in these parts church receptions are dry. No dancin’ either, you!
The last wedding I was at, the dancing was so active (lifts and throws!) that people were making a major run on the water. We barely had TIME to drink booze!
Right, but most venues are going to be somewhere in between those options. For instance there’s a place near my house that’s very popular for weddings. If you got an invitation for a wedding/reception at the historic Hollywood Schoolhouse how would you know whether alcohol would be served?
I’m currently working in the liquor industry and I would guesstimate that around 35% of Queenslanders are functioning alcoholics and at least as many more like to drink. A lot.
You should see the earful I cop from the winos (usually elderly) if their preferred brand of Cask Wine isn’t in the cold room. Heaven forbid we should run out of stock!
And don’t get me started on how many people are hanging around outside at 9am wanting to grab an eye-opener on the way to work or whatever. There’s a LOT of people out there with shallow, empty lives and they self-medicate the emptiness away with as much grog as they can fit into the boot of their car. It’s actually quite depressing, really.
That’s a fair question. If you were someone who lived in the area, you might know whether they allow alcohol at functions there or not. Or, if you knew the bride’s/groom’s families you might have an idea of whether the reception was dry or not. I can’t ever remember being surprised one way or the other, but that’s anecdotal so make of it what you will.
IME if a couple rents a place, or has the reception at someone’s house, there’s likely to be alcohol. Almost never at churches, or historic homes (the kind of place that’s rented out to the public). However, according to responses in this thread, it seems to vary by region. I reckon we all get used to the customs of home, and think those of others are odd.
It’s really not about the alcohol in and of itself.
For instance, it’s not a workplace or a rock concert - it’s not like you’re “smuggling in” a thin flask in your sock. You could just put a fifth of whiskey in a bag and walk right on in, only to make regular trips outside or to the toilets to have a swig, if you were that desperate.
And frankly, a flask holds about five standard drinks, and over the course of the three or four hours you’re at a reception, I know I could down an entire one and still be legal to drive home - and the DUI level here is strict.
It’s more analogous to cigarette smokers (and their camaraderie). I’ve been to enough (wet) weddings to know that the receptions are boring as batshit, they go on forever, there are innumerable dull speeches and rituals, and frankly, your arse falls asleep in the chair, and you just want to go home. The result? towards the end of the night, I find myself making trips to the bar, just to have a beer (bear in mind I can do this at the table if I wish) and to talk about the cricket with other blokes who have somehow managed to appear out of nowhere, if only to stretch their legs. These aren’t frequent and multiple (let’s get as drunk as we can) trips to the bar either - they’re fewer and longer trips where the guys stand around, and the beer is drunk so slowly it gets hot and flat.
At a dry wedding, I would be surprised if there wasn’t a bunch of a few guys outside the building - or off somewhere quiet inside - that haven’ taken it upon themselves to do something similar - the only difference is that the booze is BYO. It’s not about sleaze or alcoholism for most people - it’s just a cultural thing, and one I make no apologies for. I’d certainly not ever be an apologist for somebody who goes and gets drunk in this situation. Just think of it as a version of “unaothorised cigarette break camaraderie”, and you’ll get where I’m coming from.
And, when it comes down to the crunch, away from the message board, if I were issued a real world invitation to a dry wedding, I’d likely not even do any of this - but as I posted, I’d be sorely tempted.
I attended a wedding with a cash bar - I didn’t think it was at all inappropriate.
The dinner was delicious, the venue was gorgeous, and the DJ was great.
An open bar for 150 thirsty people was beyond the couple’s budget, and I’m glad they didn’t cut back on the necessities to provide for booze - buying my own liquor was no problem at all.
I’ve posted this before, but I was at first repulsed by, and then came to like, the Vietnamese tradition of accepting money as a wedding present.
You, the guest, give about a hundred dollars per person. It’s in an anonymous red envelope to assuage concerns of tackiness, and it’s collected at the door of the reception hall as you walk in. This money pays for the banquet (if the families are lucky, that is - usually there’s a shortfall).
It’s good for the couple, because the money enables them to throw a huge and lavish once-in-a-lifetime reception the likes of which the average couple could never otherwise afford, and the memories of which will be much more valuable than thirty-seven toasters, and it provides the guest with an evening that has high quality food and top shelf liquor, as well as a live band, etc.
The transfer of money is done discreetly, and the rest of the night is “free”.
For mine, if you can’t invite people to a wedding for fear they’ll get tanked and arsehole-ish, then don’t invite them at all. If you can’t avoid inviting them because of who they are, then yes I’d reluctantly agree to run a dry wedding.
My own family is pretty fucked up, but I’ve never been to a wedding where this was an issue. But that’s just luck - if it was an issue, of course, that would be considered in the planning.
I am another one of those puzzled folk - if you remove drinking alcohol from this list, how does that all of a sudden make it impossible to perform the other things on your list?
Here’s the article to which Bricker refers. Clearly there’s more going than worries about the occcaisional flask being smuggled in. I think Carolyn was just making a light hearted comment before addressing the heart of the matter: that both groom and bride come from families with pretty bad drinking problems, and they had better find a way to deal with that and stand up for each other if they want their marriage to work.
Out of context, the idea of smuggling a flask into an alcohol free event seems weird to me. I like to drink, but what I like is to drink freely among friends. Surreptitious nips from a flask defeat the purpose. If I thought the wedding was going to be so deadly dull that I couldn’t take it without booze, I’d skip the thing entirely.
It doesn’t make it impossible at all, it simply makes it different from my personal experience of weddings. Same as if you had all those things but removed “dancing.” It could still be a nice wedding, but I would probably be thinking “Huh, I’m surprised there wasn’t any dancing. I was envisioning dancing. When I was getting ready to go to the wedding, I was looking forward to dancing a bit at the reception. Oh well.”
