Weddingbee boards

Hello, fellow bees!

It's crazy early in the morning, but I'm a bride, so I was of course wide awake with wedding details swimming through my head. :-)

Yesterday was an exciting day. We just booked our reception site, and confirmed our ceremony location. We found a gorgeous park only a mile away from the reception. The reception is at a local brewery, so it will be a very fun, informal reception. We do have a rain plan of a ceremony at the brewery, but the park is our main site, weather permitting.

Anyways, as awesome as the brewery is, we can't purchase a keg for our guests, and they only have wine and beer available for $5 per glass. No exceptions. We're on a tight budget, and an open bar is just out of the question financially.

I'd still like to provide some sort of free cocktails to our guests, because I know that an open bar at $5 per glass is a death sentence to my wallet with this group. The park does allow alcohol on the grounds, provided there are no glass bottles. We could easily set up a keg and premade cocktails in pretty serving containers at the park after the ceremony for a minimal cost. That way, our guests would get some free drinks while we take pictures without us breaking the bank.

I know that a cocktail hour is traditionally at the reception site, though. My question to you is this: is it ok to have the cocktail hour at the ceremony site? And, if so, how would I word that on the invitation to make it less confusing for our guests?

Thanks for your thoughts!

No way!

Sending one drunk driver out into the world could end on disaster. Think about sending out 50! 

For all you know, there could be legal ramifications to that. Say if a guest actually hit and hurt someone and the victim named you on a civil suit...I'm not sure if that's possible but can't people sue for any reason? You are liquoring people up and then asking them to drive to a second location...

Perhaps a brewery is not the best place to hold an alcohol free reception...

Id change the venue or rent a shuttle bus for the night for the guests to use. 

Rereading, I just realized that you won't even be serving food with the drinks. 

Please please please don't do this! Do you really want to chance one or your guests dying, or killing someone with their car, on your wedding day?

If you go through with having this 'cocktail hour' at your ceremony site, I would probably call it something else.  A clever catchphrase or something, so that people understand that they should stay post-ceremony for a couple drinks (to pass the time, a glass of wine, we'll take some pix, then see you at six!)

On the note of safety, I would definitely make sure that you somehow announce this prior (either via your website, email or word of mouth) to make sure that everyone has a DD to the reception site.  Maybe assign your ushers to stay behind and escort any guest who did not think & drink wisely.

Hey, ladies. Thank you so much for your input. I just wanted to let everyone know that, while we are going ahead with a cocktail hour at the ceremony site, it will only be for 1 hour(we're not taking a lot of pictures), and I will have lots of finger food, and lots of water and lemonade. I'm working out shuttle arrangements, and my group is actually pretty good at keeping to a 1 drink per hour rule.

I definitely want my friends and family to be safe, so I'm stressing to all of them not to overindulge. I'm having groomsmen man the refreshments table.

Actually, after reading the comment about "glass of wine, we'll take some pix, then see you at six!", I think I'll make a big sign that says something like that. I've already put in my invites a note about wanting to see everyone safely at the reception, so to please drink responsibly.

I sort of want for the whole wedding to feel like a picnic with my friends and family, and a drink with some snacks in the park just felt right. But I want to make sure everyone's safe, too, so we will have a good transportation plan in place for our guests.