I will first say...the wedding was beautiful, the venue was awesome, and the food was good.
Things the B&G couldn't control...the shuttle from the hotel to the venue was late, so the wedding started late. No biggie, it was nice they held the wedding for the majority of the guests who were riding the shuttle.
Where I did judge....not that the bar was only 3 beers, 2 wines, and 1 cocktail of their choice. They hosted what they could afford and did not have a cash bar for any thing else.....awesome. What I did judge and side eye...The cocktail was not to anybody's liking but the B&G. You could see the full cocktail drinks left at table after table. I tried one..a Moscow Mule, ginger beer, Vodka, Lime juice, didn't like like it very much. Lurkers, when you pick a cocktail for your choices, try to find one that has a pleasant taste. The consensus at our table was that it smelled like sushi.
The other down side was the limited soda, water, and tea. The bartender ran out of soda early in the night, and the water and tea were tucked into a corner in the room and you had to serve yourself. There was no waitstaff for this event, again no biggie, but it would have made my night easier if I had known where to find the water earlier since I didn't want the alcohol choices.
Also...if you host alcohol AND have an time after the ceremony for pictures but before you serve dinner, please please please serve something more than small bowls of chex mix on only 4 small tables. There were no appetizers for the cocktail hour. So free alcohol and no food. Lots of people were getting a little buzzed. The dinner was buffet, tables were called one by one, so some tables had to wait longer than others, more time for empty stomachs and more alcohol. Not a good combo.
Other than that - everything else was awesome.
Re: Mini-Reception Fail...Lurkers please read
True, but I still think you should "please the masses."
We actually had beer, wine and 2 signature drinks at my wedding. One was a vodka soda and the other was a kentucky mule...which is just like a moscow mule but with bourbon. It was a big hit.
Yeah, where I am Moscow Mules are super popular and generally well liked. I would think it is a good choice for a sig drink. I think with sig drinks there is never going to be something everyone enjoys, usually because most people have certain liquors they don't like (I can't stand scotch, whiskey, or bourbon), or flavor sets they don't like (like super sweet drinks). I wonder if the wedding you went to just had shitty bartending or really crappy quality liquor. If a bride and groom host open beer and wine, I see a sig drink as icing on the cake. Even if it's something I hate, that's more about personal taste and not etiquette IMHO. H and I meant to do mai tais as our sig drink (since it included ingredients that weren't in our normal open bar package) but we completely forgot. Boo!
Something similar happened at my boss's shower. She warned us all at work at "come hungry!" because there would be plenty of food served. While there certainly was a good amount of food served, the food service didn't begin until about an hour and a half into the shower, after the free unlimited champagne service was well under way, after which the drink service switched to a white or red wine. Seriously, you tell me to come hungry and then keep refilling my glass of alcohol, I'm not anticipating to have to wait that long before I get some food in my stomach.
I thought the chex-mix more than sufficed for this situation. I probably only drank about 1/4 of my glass of wine during the cocktail "hour," so I definitely wasn't getting tipsy, but thought it was nice to have a little something to munch on as well.
For my wedding, our ceremony is in a different location - there is about a 15-20 minute drive between the two. Our ceremony is at 3 p.m., about a half hour long. With a receiving line and general post ceremony mingling, we expect people to start leaving around 3:45 - 4 p.m. for the reception location and arriving between 4 and 4:15 p.m. Groom and I are planning to leave around 4:20 to make sure everything is accounted for. At the reception, the bar will be open (wine, beer and non alcoholic drinks only). We plan on doing a Bride and Groom "entrance" at around 4:45 and begin serving dinner immediately after. I get that this could be nearly an hour for some who bolt from the ceremony location, but for others if not most, it will be closer to half an hour. Not including the time it takes to go actually get everyone to be all settled in at the their tables.
Do you think little munchies or snacks like chex mix or pretzels will be too little in this situation? I really don't want a full cocktail hour for several reasons, lack of true space, they take too much time (IMO), I want to eat the dinner and get on with the dancing! I am not taking photos after the ceremony so I won't really need the extra time a cocktail hour provides, but I do want something out there for the guests who make a beeline for the reception and get there way earlier than anticipated.
I'd love to hear your thoughts!
ETA: Sorry if I'm hijacking this thread - let me know if I should post a separate one.