Woman Says She Only Wants to Serve Water at Her Wedding

While planning her wedding one woman has decided to not serve alcohol or soda at the reception. In fact the only beverage available will be water. Friends and family are NOT happy with her decision one bit. Would you be?

Writing into Reddit to ask is she was being the a**hole, the woman gave a bit of a background as to how the decision of having a dry wedding came about.

Ok so basically my husband and I are getting married later this year. Each of our sides of the family are fairly big. It will be around 100-150 people total. My husband and I are paying for this all ourselves, as well as my grandma who said she doesn’t care one way or the other on this issue. She just loves weddings.

We have a lot of kids in our family so we decided against making it child-free but we did decide to make it dry. So there will be no alcohol of any kind at our wedding. Honestly, this doesn’t have anything to do with there being kids there but due to the fact that my fiancé and I don’t drink. Nothing against people who do, it’s just not for us and we don’t want to. On top of that, we only really drink water. We rarely, if ever, drink soda so most of the time it’s only water with the occasional juice and milk. We don’t even drink coffee.

So obviously the food (which is a part my grandma is not paying for) is going to be expensive for that many people. We are having our wedding catered so everyone will have a good choice of food to choose from but to drink only water will be provided. We don’t want to have to pay for alcohol or soda, it is just an large added expense when we can just do filtered water for a MUCH cheaper cost.

Well, when family and friends found out being got angry. Some didn’t really care but some are really upset about it. Saying that I can just have an open bar so I don’t have to pay for drinks (we could, but still have to pay for the bartender and we just really don’t want to bother with alcohol there). Or we should at least have soda because how can we expect everyone to drink ONLY water? The kids will be upset. The wedding will be boring. That this is not how weddings work. Etc.

So AITA? I didn’t think this would be a problem! It’s only water. I mean, don’t most people drink water everyday anyway? Should we pay the extra to have soda to make the family happy?

Okay. So let’s break this down. Yes. It’s their wedding and they get to decide how to run it, but really? The no alcohol part we can respect but why no soda or other drinks? Will there be coffee? Tea? Juice?  And while the couple don’t drink that doesn’t mean their guests must also adhere to those rules, don’t you think?

Commenters on Reddit also agreed saying it ‘wasn’t fair to punish everyone else.’ One person summed it up beautifully explaining that their role as hosts was to ensure guests were well taken care of.

“I know that technically you could be in the right, but here’s the thing about weddings, the marriage ceremony is for you and your fiancé. The wedding is for everyone you’ve invited, it’s an event you’re hosting, and not providing any drinks other than water makes you a bad host/hostess.

I’ve been to dry weddings. There was a couple that put real thought and effort into designing mocktails themed around their relationship. It was delightful and everyone connected to the couple through it. Another couple had a sparkling cider tower in place of champagne and everyone cheered with cider in flutes.

When you’re hosting an event, your job as hostess is to take care of your guests. Just because it follows a marriage ceremony doesn’t make you any less the host of an event. And that means providing more than one drink option, especially non alcoholic. Especially to an event your guests are incurring expenses to attend and bringing gifts to.

YTA honestly. I fully support a dry wedding but only water as a beverage is being a cheap host,” the said.

In fact the general consensus was that the couple were being cheap and tacky by only providing water. Here are some more comments from people that agreed the couple were in fact being a**holes:

“It’s cheap and tacky to only serve water. I would 100% be pregaming in the parking lot if I found out I couldn’t even get an iced tea or a soda lol.”

“If you can’t afford food + soft drinks/juice/tea, either your food is too much or your guest list too large. People would be more accepting of a dessert + non alcoholic drinks reception than this.”

“You said it well. Most people don’t care wether or not it’s a dry wedding. However, only serving water is tacky and cheap. People are making the effort, bringing gifts, it’s a CELEBRATION. There is nothing fun about water.”

“I agree. It’s a long evening with food, dancing, and drinking. Not providing anyother options – even bloody juice, is being a very poor host.”

What do you think?

Images: Pixabay