Wedding Toast

Will your venue not include a toast drink? Most wedding venues I've been to seem to have it as part of the per head package price, albeit the cheapest bubbly they can find probably!

Providing a glass of champagne for the toasts is pretty common across all weddings. Having said that. it's not essential.

This! Our venue does a drinks package with the meal which includes arrival drink, wine with meal and sparkly for toast!

Hi Irishbride 2012,

My only advice would be that of a very selfish nature, it's your wedding, you do what you want, not what anyone else makes you feel 'should be done'. I appreciate that it'll be an awkward situation but they're your family and should only ever want you to have the wedding of your dreams, not theirs. I cant advise exactly how to word it but you know the best way to broach it to them, but thats the main point to highlight really, you're grateful for the financial contributions but don't want that to mean that you have to compromise on what you and your OH really want the day to be like.

Good luck!

x

Not every venue offers packages though. Ours didn't.

No nothing like that is included in our package. I might speak to them & ask them if they can provide something. I'm not being tight & hope I don't come across this way. We're not scrimping on anything else.

In my experience very few people seem to like bubbly anyway, it always seems to not get finished, people get onto the spirits and beer as soon as they can haha.

So, it would be fair to say that weddings in Ireland are WAAAAY more expensive than those in the UK (my cousin's was E45k, and he claimed that to be normal). E700 sounds like a lot to us here but it's plausibly a small amount in the context of an Irish wedding? Your parents may not have really registered the absolute amount and how it might impact you.

Thoughts. If your parents want it, would they be prepared to add some more cash to fund it? Is it possible for you to choose the toast drink for everyone, rather than giving free choice? If you want to offer a choice, can you discuss with venue about limiting this to suitably-priced choices?

If it helps, we had our toasts with the drinks guests already had (which we had bought for the table, so wine/beer/soft drinks) but didn't purchase anything "extra", if you see what I mean. Nobody batted an eyelid, as far as I can tell (but, to be fair, they'd be unlikely to mention it to me!). We did buy everyone liqueurs afterwards, offering a free choice, but the venue ensured nobody took the mick. And for our bar tab, again the venue made sure that nobody bought 100 year old whiskey (except the groom, gulp).

I don't know if we're going to provide drinks. We can add on a drinks package - welcome drink, wine for table, bubbly for toast - but it's at least an extra £8 per person. If we have the money for it then we will, but I'd not I'm sure nobody will mind just using whatever drink they already have. A lot of people don't drink wine or champagne do it seems a waste of money for me. We might have a look at prices for a pint, a short and mixer and a glass of wine and if they're the same-ish price give everyone a free drink token with their favours so they can get something in specifically for the toast, then just settle the bill after, if we're allowed. Hope that makes sense

Hi Irishbride,

I understand your dilema. Ultimately it's your wedding so should be up to you and your fiance to decide, but it can always get complicated when families are helping towards the cost. If your venue doesnt include a toast as part of the package, would it be an option for your to buy several bottles of sparkling wine? This way you can control the cost a bit better and not get caught with paying prices per glass? I'm trying to work out how much a glass is normally filled for a toast, and guess it's somewhere around 100 - 150ml. So you could get roughly 7 drinks per bottle. I know champagne isnt cheap but this may be a bit more economical depending on the number of your guests.

Good luck!

Just for info - the standard is 6 glasses of champagne/sparkling to a bottle. You could ask about corkage and buy in some Cava?

Hi Irishbride, If you are providing wine with the wedding breakfast, when people sit down they will probably have a drink so you could do the toasts before the meal so they can toast with that. That's what we're doing because we're having arrival drinks and wine with meal and its too much to do all three!

Thank you all for your advice. It has definately given me few options to think about.