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Well, I’m not a total teetotaler. I drink the occasional glass of wine or beer, maybe averaging a drink or two per month. But Mr. Mole doesn’t drink. Ever. Not even a little bit.
Only one glass of wine at this table in NYC!
I didn’t find this out until our second date. Chicago offers liquor licensing for BYOB (bring your own booze) restaurants, and we just happened to go to one of those places for our second date. As we hugged hello outside of Habana Libre on Division, I suggested that we pick up a bottle of red wine from the liquor store down the street. “No thanks,” said Mr. Mole, “I don’t drink.” “Ever?” I asked, somewhat incredulously. “Never,” answered Mr. Mole.
He was telling the truth; I’ve never seen him order a drink. He says it makes him feel sleepy and grow red-faced. I definitely won’t see him drink on our wedding day either, especially if I make the arrangements with our chapel to switch out the champagne for some sparkling cider like I am planning. Honestly, I’m pretty happy about it. I like the taste of some alcohol, but I don’t like the way that I often feel after drinking. My tolerance is too low!
Despite our teetotaler status, we’ve decided to offer full bars at our Vegas reception and our Milwaukee party. We want our guests to eat, drink, and be merry—even if we personally will be celebrating with a Coke (Mr. Mole) or a non-alcoholic greyhound: sparkling water and grapefruit juice (me). We will probably offer our beverages of choice up as jokey signature drinks, using mittens11121‘s bar menu as an inspiration. I love her design!
Image via Weddingbee / Design by mittens11121
Plus, we have certain food and beverage minimums to hit—and, based on our expected guest counts, I’m not sure if we would reach them with food alone! So alcohol for everyone (if everyone wants it, of course).
Are you serving up alcohol at your wedding? Are you having an open, limited, or cash bar? How did you make this decision?
We are having an open bar at our reception, but since we are able to provide our own liquor/beer, I think there will be a slightly limited menu. We’re going to try to stick to mainly the crowd favorites.
My fiance doesn’t drink either, but his family does (heavily). I drink, but my family doesn’t– it’s strange. We have a great deal where we can purchase our own alcohol and have it served by bartenders through the caterer. His family has graciously taken on the task of stocking the bar, so we are having an open bar–we kind of have to since we’re having a New Year’s Eve Wedding.
Mr. Unicycle is pretty much a teetotaler too! I’m not planning on drinking much at the wedding because I want to look/feel my best and remember everything, but we’ll definitely be having an open bar, and I picture our wedding being a giant drunk fest if I know my family and friends!
We’re getting married at a vineyard and Mr. Mink works in the craft brewery industry. We’re having an open bar of beer and wine. We probably won’t do liquor since a good chunk of the crowd will be from the beer industry.
I’m not a huge drinker myself, but I love a nice glass of wine or champagne now and then. 
Nice to hear from some other teetotalers! I never drink, and SO rarely does (maybe one drink/month). However, we are having open bar at our wedding because many of our friends drink (a lot) and we want them to have a good time. So we’ll have beer/wine and then sodas.
As far as guests go, I think we’ll have a little bit of each drinking style. Most of my family aren’t big drinkers; they may have a few as part of the celebration but I’d be surprised if they even got buzzed. Our friends will probably drink more heavily and see getting drunk (though not sloppy drunk) as part of the celebration. Most of his family will drink a little more heavier then mine and drink harder liquor. Two of his sisters are an exception; one is a recovered alcoholic and another doesn’t drink because of her religion. I want everyone to feel welcome and part of the party so I’m having an open bar at our wedding along with wine service at dinner and a champaign toast. I’ll have sparkeling cider placed at his sister’s table, offer “mocktails” at the bar, and will have specialty coffees with syrup and other flavorings available for people to drink throughout the nigth or to switch over to towards the end.
Mole! You’re sweet! I can’t take all the credit, I saw a similar design on the Ruffled blog and made it my own. That wasn’t even the final version, as we added some micro brews to it.
I’m not much a drinker either, and I don’t drink wine or beer, so we knew that it was going to be liquor for sure. We did a limited open bar, so we only had those drinks available to order, but we did have all mixers available so I did see someone with a cranberry and vodka which wasn’t on the menu. We totally skipped the wine which worked for our small group but I wouldn’t recommend that for a larger wedding.
We chose to have an open bar, so that our guests could have a good time with whatever drinks they preferred, but we could have drank wine only and been happy.
We’re having a mimosa bar (brunch reception) and champagne toast. The venue has a restaurant/bar right outside our event space, so if anyone wants a morning cocktail they can have one, but I figure most will be happy with a little sparkly orange juice.
Our Best Man doesn’t drink, at all, ever. He toasted with Pepsi at his own wedding. I expect he’ll do the same at ours.
We’re having an open bar at ours, mostly because thats just what our families do. I usually expect an open bar at a wedding unless the reception card or the wedding website says different… and if it does say it’s a cash bar, I’m totally okay with that. Because not everyone can afford to host an open bar. And thats okay!
Ps my FI doesn’t drink either! Same reasons: sleepy and flushed.
I’m on the opposite side of this. I’m not a girl who goes balls to the wall when drinking, but I definitely enjoy my alcohol… especially margaritas… mmmmmm. I guess we’ll figure it out when we get to that point, but all the man and I know for now is that we want a margarita bar 
Lol I love margaritas too much to not have alcohol at our wedding! I want a blended drink bar.
@Miss Hawk: I think that’s always such a win-win scenario! You can save money by limiting your bar and avoiding the mark-up on alcohol that venues and restaurants normally charge! Pretty sweet.
@December2011Bride: How nice of his family to stock the bar! It sounds like your NYE wedding is going to be a blast. What a great way for you to ring in the new year!
@Miss Unicycle: Haha. There’s a couple of people we are inviting that I am already mentally squinting at in terms of how much and what they drink and how it will affect our bar bill! I think we might have to have our venue take some of the 20 dollar fancy beers off the table.
@Miss Mink: Limiting your bar to beer and wine in your situation makes a ton of sense!
@All In: If we weren’t concerned about falling way short of our minimum for our Milwaukee party, we might have limited the bar to beer and wine. It’s what most of our friends and family drink! Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be surprised and see my aunts doing tequila shots! 
@OhioBride: That’s so nice of you to take all of your guests needs into consideration! I definitely want to talk to our restaurant about offering some fancy mocktails for us.
@mittens111211: Thanks for putting up that post! I immediately bookmarked your design; I liked it better even than your original inspiration!
@Mrs. Pony: I feel the same way. I could have one glass of wine and call it a night, but I know that some of our friends definitely drink more!
@Lexy: A mimosa bar sounds great for a brunch reception! When we first started brainstorming, we thought about doing a brunch reception. I still think it’s a great idea.
@jacinda10: I’ve never been to a cash bar, although I have been to some weddings with very limited alcohol offerings. It usually doesn’t bother me too much either way, obviously! I care more about the food.
@futureMFG: Ooh, margaritas are probably the one mixed drink that I will ever order. But, even in Mexico, I tend to order them “sin alcohol!” Haha. A margarita bar sounds like a really fun element!
@Cecilia: I’ve never seen that before, but I bet it creates a really fun atmosphere!
We had an ‘open bar’ but it was stocked with stuff we’d bought. There were 2 beers, 2 wines, vodka, run & gin. Someone brought some scotch and gave that to the bartender to serve too, but otherwise we didn’t have any shots/straight type drinks. More mixers + booze, to appease my parents. They wanted beer + wine only, but I prefer vodka to both those things, so we had the other few types of alcohol and had told the bartenders that no shots (barring a scotch on the rocks) were allowed.
That kept everyone nicely lubricated, but not trashed.
PS: our industry is a sort of a ‘work hard/play hard’ industry, no booze would have been seriously frowned upon by all our friends & coworkers.
We’re having an open bar, and we made this decision based on our own preferences plus the preferences of almost all our guests. There will be a bar well stocked with all their options both alcoholic and not. I applaud your choice to provide drinks for your friends and not make everyone go by your preferences.
We’re going for the open bar… I’ve actually never been to a cash bar before… Open bar is just the way we roll in our family. I guess it’s because we all love to drink. 
@Mrs. Cinnamon Bun: It sounds like you struck a great balance with the bar!
@Miss Kettle: I tend to think that the reception is more about the guests anyway, so I want to make sure that they are happy!
@TinyTina: Haha!
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Mrs. Mole, Los Angeles/Las Vegas Age and Occupation: 29, Test Prep Instructor Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, User Experience Architect Engagement Date: April 2011 Wedding Date: January 2012 Venue: Wynn Las Vegas/Bouchon Bistro About Me: I’m a Wisconsinite-turned-Angeleno who is planning a destination wedding in Las Vegas. I am passionate about education: I spent 23 (!) consecutive years in school, and now I work to help other people get into graduate programs. I love running on the treadmill, buying bath products from Lush, learning new moves in step aerobics, and exploring my neighborhood on foot. I am sometimes snobby about food, but I am rarely snobby about books. I read everything from Geoffrey Chaucer to Iris Murdoch to Chuck Klosterman to Candace Bushnell. My fiance and I are getting married on our third anniversary!
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