Wedding Costs- Cash Bar or Open Bar?

Congrats!! I am also recently engaged and my fiance and I are paying for our wedding ourselves at 24 and 27. Depends on where you have the reception for the bar, we found a place that had an open bar option in the dinner price that wasnt too expensive. If you cant find one fairly cheap I would go with beer and wine and the rest cash bar.

Elope. :drinker:

Either open bar or option B.

Guests enjoy free drinks!
Granted, it's YOUR day, and you shouldn't feel the need to be impressing people, but I think everyone would enjoy the celebration of you two getting hitched a lot more if they had free booze.

....or at least, that's what I have planned in the future. Destination wedding with just the 2 of us, giant reception when we come home to friends and family.

Congratulations!!!

Also on your question about how to cut costs. I did a Vegas wedding with just parents and then a reception back home, but for the reception I picked a venue that had everything. We did an appetizer buffet which was more food than most people even wanted for a dinner and then that included a build your own sundae bar so we had no cake (this was a huge hit). I also made sure to pick a venue that had linens and a simple centerpiece so I didn't have to deal with anything like that or chair covers etc. I'm pretty low maintenance when it comes to this stuff though. I also used Etsy for things such as my flowers which were cheaper than a florist would have been and I get to keep them forever. I managed to get a HUGE bang for my buck because I didn't think it was worth it to spend loads of money on the wedding

You could have a "Cocktail Hour" with open bar for a period of time and then cash bar after that. I've been to weddings with all variations and have never been offended to pay for drinks. I would think your friends and family would under stand limited budget.

I've been to 10 weddings in the past 2 years. I can tell you a couple of things:
Weddings without booze need to give people a heads up
Weddings with booze that you pay for will be talked about in a bad way
Weddings with booze that is free will be remembered well even if the guests are drunk enough to forget.

Yup.

Open bar all the way. If you can't afford it then why not have a party at your house after wards and buy all the booze for it? Usually package stores will let you return anything that you didn't use.

I suggest hosting an event that you can afford. And what I mean by that is choose a venue/caterer/dress/whatever that all fits into your budget, without asking your guests to split the bill with you. Yeah yeah I know alcohol is "optional" and guests don't HAVE TO order any, but so is pretty much everything else offered at a wedding reception and you never see hosts asking their guests to pay for anything else, so why would you ask them to pay for their beer? Would you invite someone to your home, offer her a beer, then ask her for $5 in exchange? Probably not.

A wedding reception is typically not a pot luck or a carnival. It's the first event you and your future husband will host as a married couple. If you can afford wine and beer, have wine and beer. If you can afford top shelf and want to offer that, than do it. But having booze and then saying "well we really can't afford the booze so we'll just have cash bar" is basically passing the bill onto your invited guests. If you want to have beer/wine/whatever because you think your guests will enjoy it than find a venue/caterer/etc that will allow you to do that within your budget. It's all in the planning.

I have never been to a cash bar reception in the state of Massachusetts. I have been to a few in NH. The most bizarre is when I've had to pay for my drinks during the "cocktail hour". Really, you're calling it a "cocktail hour" but there are no cocktails, unless I buy my own? Why not just call it "the hour" then? ;/

Also guests shouldn't be going just for the fact they can get free beer, here in England most weddings have a bar where guests pay for their beer themselves but the champagne toast is free.

i just got married on may 12th and we paid for our entire wedding ourselves... we did a cash bar because my husband doesn't drink and i rarely drink anymore but we wanted people to still have alcohol if they wanted it. Our venue allowed beer and wine only so that made it even easier. Our bartending service had us put down a deposit and set a goal of like $300 to sell in order for us to break even. The charged $4 for a large glass of wine and $3 for a can of domestic beer. We hit our goal and nobody at the wedding was trashed which is exactly what we wanted (we skipped the champagne toast and not one person missed it!) in order to save money you have to decide on which key elements of the wedding are the most important to you...we decided music, food and photography would be the places we would spend the most money. Our budget was $5000 for 125 people and we had a gorgeous wedding with dinner and dancing at the reception, people said it was the prettiest venue they'd been to and we got it for a steal!! def research vendors and don't be afraid to bargain shop!! (ps remember for invites, programs etc most of those will end up in the trash so i suggest spending less in that area- you can go on to some wedding sites like weddingchicks.com and download free templates to print invites, table numbers and all kinds of other cool things!) Happy Planning :bigsmile:

paying for your own in early 20's? hell, your guests are lucky you didn't send them a postcard with a pic from the JOP asking for "we just got married" presents.

Do what make the most financial sense.

amen! and having a cash bar is NOT bad or tacky, people these days are well aware that not everyone can afford the average $25,000 on a wedding...who the hell wants to start a marriage out with a mountain of debt for ONE DAY! just sayin....