“We told our wedding guests ‘there’s no alcohol at the venue and we don’t want you to bring your own!'” — The rise of dry weddings in the UK

Industry experts speak with as interest in “dry weddings” continue to rise in the UK

As we head into wedding season, and with mindful drinking and sober curiosity rising in popularity across the UK, wedding experts at Hitched.co.uk have spoken with one couple from Coventry on their decision to serve no alcohol at their wedding, how this was received by their guests, and whether they saved money by having a dry wedding. 

This comes as research from the latest National Wedding Survey (of more than 2,400 newlyweds in 2022) commissioned by Hitched revealed that 11% of weddings last year were alcohol-free, an increase from 2021 when the figure was 10%. Only a small increase, but when combined with the latest Pinterest Predicts findings which show that searches for “fancy non-alcoholic drinks” were reportedly up by 220% this year, and there was 75% more interest in “mocktail bar” inspiration by users too, it’s clear that booze-free bars are on the rise driven by Gen Z’s disinterest in the drinking habits of the generations before them. 

Becky and Paul Cribdon from Coventry hosted a dry wedding in 2022, and tell Hitched why it was perfect for them.

“I used to drink, especially in my Uni years,” says Paul, “But I stopped when I ran out of money and didn’t miss it all that much, which was back around 2012, just before I met Becky. Perhaps co-incidentally I was living with an alcoholic when I stopped drinking. It’s fair to say I’ve seen plenty of reasons to avoid alcohol abuse, and I was personally never very good at separating ‘use’ from ‘abuse’,” he adds.

As for Becky, she tells Hitched she has never drank alcohol in her life, and that she’s “just not interested in it”. Paul continues: “We’d always hoped to have a low-alcohol wedding, but were very fuzzy on how that would actually happen. In the end, it was only about a month before the event that we agreed with the venue that they would run a completely dry bar and we asked our guests not to bring any alcohol themselves.”

Paul admits that some guests were a little disappointed, but that many had expected it as their own sobriety was widely known already. “There weren’t many [disappointed guests], and everyone was very polite. We have various friends at the theatre [where the couple were married] who would normally be partying until 4am and they warned that our party would be over very quickly.

“We had more guests tell us how much of a positive experience it was for them. Several guests had travelled from further afield, and when we announced it was a dry wedding they realised they would be able to drive back home the same night and save money on accommodation, which they really appreciated. Other guests just said it was really nice to have such a “chill” event without any worry of the party going over the edge and getting messy or dramatic!”

Paul explains what ultimately made them decide to go from a low-alcohol wedding to a completely dry one instead. “Two things: firstly we realised that we were only considering ‘low-alcohol’ in order to meet other people’s expectations, and it wasn’t what we wanted for our party. Secondly, we wanted to provide clarity and certainty for our guests: it’s much harder to try to discourage alcoholic drinks whilst still having alcoholic drinks available.

“You’re immediately on a sliding scale of different expectations: how much is too much? What counts as heavy drinking? how would we politely control this? In the end, it felt cleaner, easier and truer to tell our guests ‘there’s no alcohol at the venue and we don’t want you to bring your own’.”

The couple made sure the entertainment was top-notch to ensure guests would still have a great time, despite the dry bar. “We were already planning on having a Ceilidh band and caller, and it really fit in well with a dry party. Sober freestyle dancing is a tough skill to learn and most people don’t practise it. But the beauty of a Ceilidh is that you don’t have to worry about what do do with your body because the wonderful caller is telling you exactly where to go and what to do! Our dry party with a Ceilidh band had a whole theatre auditorium full of guests dancing, laughing and having a grand time. We almost certainly had more dancing there than we’d have got with a “traditional” band and free-flowing alcohol.

“The other major piece of entertainment was our karaoke. I’m happy to admit that sober karaoke was a slightly trickier fit than the Ceilidh dancing! After Becky and I opened up the karaoke (our version of the traditional “first dance”) with ‘Suddenly Seymour’ from The Little Shop of Horrors (she sang Seymour, and I sang Audrey, naturally), a fair number of guests started to take their leave and wander home, as they couldn’t really pluck up the courage to get involved.”

With the average cost of a wedding coming in at £18,400, the couple’s dry wedding meant they saved a pretty penny too. 

“Overall, our Civil Partnership was incredibly cheap! The legal ceremony (held the day before the party, at the beautiful Coventry Registry Office, with only direct family in attendance) cost £291 for the room, registrar and certificate. The big party was held the following day, and was strung together with favours and friends: the venue was free, the lunch meal was a crowd-sourced buffet, the cake(s) were favours from friends and even the Ceilidh band was sourced by volunteers from the Earlsdon Morris band (the local Morris dancing team that I dance with).

“We chased down most of these volunteers to provide them small tokens of payment, but the only things from the party which required payment was the evening meal (a Poutine food truck), the cheese from Coventry Market, the Karaoke software and the crockery (hired en-cheap from a local church and a local charity and washed before return by volunteers within the party).

“We didn’t even hire a photographer: we printed off a QR code for people to upload their own photos to a shared Google drive (though we did get a theatre friend to film bits for another voluntary payment). I think the whole thing (including money spent on our clothes, the legal bit and the voluntary payments made to helpers, cake-makers and band members) comes to up about £2,700.”

For more information on the average cost of a wedding, please visit: https://www.hitched.co.uk/wedding-planning/organising-and-planning/the-average-wedding-cost-in-the-uk-revealed/