Open Bar? Erm...no.

So one of my favourite budget wedding sites, The Broke Ass Bride, recently had a post about bars at wedding, and the different options available and it got me thinking. From what I can gather, it is the norm in America for the bride and groom (or whoever is paying) to take care of the bar bill. They have an open bar, and guests don't have to pay for drinks, either all night or for part of the night. A couple of blogs I've come across even seem to imply that it is tacky to expect your guests to pay for drinks at your wedding.

This is most definitely not the case in the UK! At least, as far as I know! I have never heard of weddings in this country having an open bar, and would always expect to pay for my own drinks if I was invited to a wedding. And I definitely do not think that this is tacky! After all, your guests are coming to celebrate your love and marriage with you - the free meal and free booze is just a bonus, surely?

OK, so realistically, I know that some people probably do go to weddings mainly for the free food and booze, but if it that was the case, we are providing a 3 course meal, reception drinks, table wine and a toast drink. Plus our favours are shots! That's plenty of free alcohol in my opinion. I mean, sure, it would be great to be able to buy drinks for our friends and families all night, but we simply would not be able to afford it, especially with the amount I know some of our friends can drink!

And as for it being tacky - there is a great article on Offbeat Bride explaining that there will always be someone who thinks that something about your wedding is tacky. Hell, there will always be someone who thinks that getting married at all is tacky!
I'm sure there will be someone who doesn't like our venue, someone who doesn't like our colour scheme, someone who doesn't agree with our non religious ceremony. But if there is someone at our wedding who complain because they only got 3 or 4 free drinks, then I doubt they will be the sort of person whose opinions I care about.

Anyway, rant over. I was just getting a bit sick of reading (US based) wedding blogs that listed an open bar as one of the most important aspects of a wedding. If we had an open bar, we would probably have to double our budget! We wont be doing it, and I'm sure our guests will still enjoy themselves.