How To Announce A Dry Wedding
A dry wedding is more common than some would think and the reasons for having one vary a lot. What ever the reason for have a dry wedding, there are always questions around when and how to inform your guests (if at all).
Here we go over everything you need to know about dry weddings and how to announce a dry wedding to the wedding guests.
Jump to:
- What is a dry wedding?
- Reasons for dry wedding
- Ways to announce
- Wedding day timeline
- Wedding budget
- Final thoughts
What is a dry wedding?
Weddings with no alcohol served are known as “dry weddings” and happen for many reasons.
While many weddings have an open bar or cash bar during the wedding reception, a dry wedding usually has a combination of a wedding drinks stations and waiting staff walking around offering non-alcoholic drinks to guests.
Reasons for dry wedding?
Having a dry wedding can be decided on due to a range of reasons by the wedding couple or maybe impacted by the parents wishes.
Religious
One of the most common reasons to have a dry wedding is because of religious beliefs. This maybe the wedding couples beliefs or it maybe that the parents are against alcohol for religious reasons.
Islamic and Mormon religions are the most common religious reason for having a dry wedding.
Recovering alcoholic
A close member of the wedding party or family maybe a recovering alcoholic and the wedding couple may choose to have a dry wedding in support of that person.
Budget
The wedding budget is the other main reason to have a dry wedding. Alcohol costs can heavily impact the wedding budget and if looking at ways to trim the budget a dry wedding is sometimes considered.
Venue
The wedding reception venue may not have a liquor license or be able to obtain a temporary one and so the wedding couple may have to choose between a dry wedding at the venue or finding somewhere else to host the reception.
Ways to announce
When looking at how to inform wedding guests of a dry wedding there are a few options to consider. Part of that consideration of how to tell them also involves when you should choose to tell them.
Wedding invitations
For the majority of dry weddings, there is no mention that they are alcohol-free on the invite. However, if you decide to avoid mentioning it, to avoid a backlash when the invites go out, you will likely want to advise them in another way.
If you do not then wedding guests will find out at the wedding, and just because it’s your big day may not stop someone’s disappointment slipping out.
If you do mention “no alcohol” on the wedding invitation, that gives the invitees a chance to decline to attend. If they will decline to attend your wedding, just because they won’t be able to drink, do you really want them there at all?
Word of mouth
If you are worried it might come as a shock to some of your guests, we recommend you rely on word of mouth to spread the word amongst your more festive guests, to “soften the blow”.
Wedding website
This is the likely one of the best options to help advise people that it is planned be a dry wedding. In fact mentioning the wedding website on the wedding invitations is a better option than highlighting that it is a dry wedding on the wedding invites.
A wedding website is also a great tool for collecting RSVPs, so if you do choose to collect RSVPs this way then you can mention on the website that it is a dry wedding.
Once some people have seen that it is a dry wedding on the wedding website the word of mouth will occur to help inform other wedding guests.
Wedding day timeline
If it’s a while to your wedding day and you’re pondering a dry wedding reception, consider having a morning ceremony and early afternoon wedding reception.
People are less likely to expect a full bar service, so you can feel a little better about not serving alcoholic drinks. Alcohol free wedding receptions do not last as long as ones with a full bar service, so you may save on venue hire and staffing costs too.
Wedding budget
As this is one of the main reasons to have a dry wedding it should be mentioned that not only does it save on alcohol costs but it can also save on venue hire and staffing costs.
With the venue possibly not needing to be booked as long and requiring less staff to manage a bar, the wedding budget will benefit from these savings.
Final thoughts
A dry wedding is always an option to consider when planning a wedding. While there are many reasons for having one, how you inform guests can be done in a few ways.
While choosing a dry wedding you will likely save money in your budget that can be put into other things to make your big day special.
For more wedding planning information check out some of these other posts:
