Money Manners

[busymom]

Count me in with TheOtherMe, that most of the wedding receptions I'd attended when I was younger were in church basements.  Which meant no alcohol.


It wasn't until I was in my 20's,  when friends were getting married, they had receptions at different venues.  VFW's, Legion Halls, and even one at a bowling alley, which meant access to alcohol.  



Personally, I don't have a problem with a cash bar.  Whether it's to prevent "THAT" relative from drinking too much & making a fool of himself, or "certain" relatives from running up a huge tab while they binge drink.  Yup, we've got some of them in my own family, so anything that slows them down works for me.  

[trippypea]

I think cash bars are tacky. If you want to limit what you serve, that's fine, but whatever you DO offer, should not be charged to guests. It's a wedding reception and the guests are already giving a gift, not an office party where guests would expect to have to pay for their drinks.

[Miss Tequila]

I’ve never been to a wedding with a cash bar. I would definitely reduce how much I gave as a gift if it was a cash bar.

[zibazinski]

Nov 20, 2019 20:31:31 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I’ve never been to a wedding with a cash bar. I would definitely reduce how much I gave as a gift if it was a cash bar.

DO you know ahead of time? I’ve never known. I don’t drink a lot so it never matters to me but I do think it’s tacky. If you don’t want to serve alcohol, don’t.

[Miss Tequila]

Nov 23, 2019 7:44:34 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Nov 20, 2019 20:31:31 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I’ve never been to a wedding with a cash bar. I would definitely reduce how much I gave as a gift if it was a cash bar.

DO you know ahead of time? I’ve never known. I don’t drink a lot so it never matters to me but I do think it’s tacky. If you don’t want to serve alcohol, don’t.

For me, I do tie how much I give to the cost of the venue. The norm in my area is cash gifts. I have a very good idea the cost per plate plus open bar at a lot of the venues. Alcohol increases the cost significantly. If the hosts are now expecting me to cover the cost of a couple of drinks, I take it out of what I was giving.

I’ve never been to a wedding that had a cash bar so I’ve never actually had to do the above

[justme]

I think cash bars are tacky too. Either limit the drink options so it's cheaper or just don't have alcohol - and tell your guests too.

Dry weddings end early and cash bar ones usually do too. If you do either don't be mad if everyone starts leaving after food.

[Deleted]

Pretty sure every wedding I've ever gone to...or at least the vast majority...are free beer and free non-alcoholic drinks but everything else you have to purchase.  I had 300 people at my wedding.   I cannot imagine an open bar for 300 people. 

[justme]

To be honest I'm more of a quality over quantity type of person. Rather have a bad ass party for 50 then a meh for 300 where everyone left two hours early making the couple scramble for their exit while enough are still there (a la my bro's first dry wedding).

[weltschmerz]

The last wedding I went to was a Seventh Day Adventist wedding, with absolutely no alcohol.  It was a bore. I would have preferred a cash bar over that, even though I'll only have a glass or two of champagne. 

[zibazinski]

Nov 25, 2019 23:31:04 GMT -5 justme said:

To be honest I'm more of a quality over quantity type of person. Rather have a bad ass party for 50 then a meh for 300 where everyone left two hours early making the couple scramble for their exit while enough are still there (a la my bro's first dry wedding).

We call those “gift grabs .” A friend of ours had one. Church basement at dinner time with no meal, not enough tables and chairs, no music, and a tiny wedding cake so not everyone got a piece. I didn’t even know they had a wedding cake. We left starving and angry. After that they proceeded to have three children and expected gifts each time. I got a card when DS was born from them. Those kind of people would be called “users” now. I’m glad I have no clue what happened to them.

[justme]

Nov 28, 2019 13:40:36 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Nov 25, 2019 23:31:04 GMT -5 justme said:

To be honest I'm more of a quality over quantity type of person. Rather have a bad ass party for 50 then a meh for 300 where everyone left two hours early making the couple scramble for their exit while enough are still there (a la my bro's first dry wedding).

We call those “gift grabs .” A friend of ours had one. Church basement at dinner time with no meal, not enough tables and chairs, no music, and a tiny wedding cake so not everyone got a piece. I didn’t even know they had a wedding cake. We left starving and angry. After that they proceeded to have three children and expected gifts each time. I got a card when DS was born from them. Those kind of people would be called “users” now. I’m glad I have no clue what happened to them.

The people making the food accidentally made it the week before. So they had to donate it and the wedding was mostly pasta since they spent so much money on the stuff they donated.

[Deleted]

Nov 25, 2019 23:31:04 GMT -5 justme said:

To be honest I'm more of a quality over quantity type of person. Rather have a bad ass party for 50 then a meh for 300 where everyone left two hours early making the couple scramble for their exit while enough are still there (a la my bro's first dry wedding).

I wanted all my family and friends there including their kids and it had absolutely nothing to do with wanting more gifts...I don't even like getting gifts...I just couldn't see excluding that many people just to have a more expensive per person party.   My family is large.  Between the two sides there were 11 siblings, 32 aunts and uncles and just shy of 100 first cousins.  And we're all pretty close!   Only inviting 50 would have seemed so odd, and offended so many.  

It wasn't meh though.  But most people in my family are pretty happy with unlimited beer.    

[countrygirl2]

I had little family I knew, was not working just was finishing college. Hubs just came home from Vietnam and folks would not pay for a wedding so we just eloped and paid for it ourselves.  I would have liked to had a wedding but was not to be.  I was an only child so guess the folks felt bad later and let me have the car I was driving to college, they were afraid I would not finish, but I did.  My mom was ashamed of where we were living at first, didn't matter to us.  

Wish they had lived to see us now, dad said he wasn't paying for a wedding as we would never stay married. He later did say I had a good husband. Just thought I should have married someone with a college degree.

[justme]

Nov 30, 2019 19:01:23 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Nov 25, 2019 23:31:04 GMT -5 justme said:

To be honest I'm more of a quality over quantity type of person. Rather have a bad ass party for 50 then a meh for 300 where everyone left two hours early making the couple scramble for their exit while enough are still there (a la my bro's first dry wedding).

I wanted all my family and friends there including their kids and it had absolutely nothing to do with wanting more gifts...I don't even like getting gifts...I just couldn't see excluding that many people just to have a more expensive per person party.   My family is large.  Between the two sides there were 11 siblings, 32 aunts and uncles and just shy of 100 first cousins.  And we're all pretty close!   Only inviting 50 would have seemed so odd, and offended so many.  

It wasn't meh though.  But most people in my family are pretty happy with unlimited beer.    

Unlimited beer isn't dry though! I mean I would have been unhappy cuz I can't drink beer lol.

It is hard to keep it small if your family is so big though. I have one sibling and 8 cousins. And several of the cousins already had weddings without the cousins. I'm also the last never married so I can do whatever I want. Not that I wouldn't have before!

My biggest quandary is one of my cousins is a close friend so I dunno if I can invite her but no other cousins. Prob not.