How to Not Over-Serve Alcohol at a Wedding When Some Guests Have a Drinking Problem

While weddings are a festive occasion, if friends of family have problems with drinking too much alcohol, you might want to decide how to handle the matter in advance. Apart from potentially causing embarrassment, there is some liability for over-serving someone if they have any sort of accident or incident on the way home from an event that you provide alcohol. If you are having a wedding at home or renting a hall instead of having a wedding at a restaurant or hotel, you may face the majority of the legal responsibility for over-serving this individual. If you are hiring a caterer who is serving alcohol, enquire with your caterer about what they suggest to limit the risk of over imbibing. Likely they have alternative suggestions for those with religious or dietary objections to unlimited alcohol or recovering alcoholic guests. Here are some ways to limit the chance of over indulging without having a completely dry wedding. Since they are technically serving the alcohol, they would need to be aware of this in advance if they want to provide any sort of non-alcoholic options.

A first option is to limit alcohol to a champagne toast or non-hard liquor such as beer and wine, or reduce the number of hours that there is an open bar, especially in the hours before people are going to be leaving. While someone can still get drunk, at least it will take a little longer and they can be monitored to a degree by an appointed friend or family member seated at the same table to make sure things don't get out of control. At one wedding, I saw the bride and groom seat a friend at each table that offered to get rounds of drinks for the table periodically, but spaced it out with adequate food and non-liquor drinks to ensure no one over-drank before driving home. This person was equipped with some stories and jokes and sort of entertained those who were most likely to cause a scene if they drank too much. Depending on the relationship with the over-drinker or recovering alcoholic, perhaps they could help with something like pointing out important family members to the photographer to make sure to get good photos. If this is not feasible, consider assigning a waiter to keep tabs on their general alcohol consumption.

If necessary, arrange the food service based on the presumption that someone might over indulge, and arrange for the two main ways to pre-empt that, namely, staying hydrated and eating some protein so that the body metabolizes the alcohol better. Make sure any food items with uncooked alcohol in them (such as desserts) are labeled as to alcohol content.

Another option is to make sure plenty of food is available whenever alcohol is served. If you are offering liquor during a cocktail hour or before substantial food is being served, it is likely that someone can be drinking on an empty or nearly empty stomach. Most women will have spent time getting ready for the event and might have skipped lunch and most people will be eating light before a big food event, so by the time they get to the reception, if they head straight for the bar, alcohol will have a bigger effect than they might bargain for. I have seen two nice ways to handle this: first, the best way to mitigate the affect of alcohol is protein - so offer a small table with tiny tea sandwiches with protein rich foods - some good examples are turkey or chicken or other protein. The second way is when people line up at the bar, have someone assigned to offer hors deserves to those standing in line first. Hopefully they will have something on their stomachs' by the time the alcohol hits their system. I didn't even realize what was being done until the bride mentioned afterwards how the grooms' uncles drink too much and they wanted to prevent things getting awkward between his grandmother and his uncles. Turkey sandwiches were one uncles' favorite, and the chemicals in turkey help offset alcohol, so when this uncle was offered a tiny turkey sandwich from a sandwich tray that was passed around hors doerves style, this helped take care of the problem by keeping ahead of it and averting a family argument on their wedding day. As a guest who was not drinking other than the champagne that day, I still enjoyed being offered hors doerves when I was in line for the bar for a drink. This was a nice subtle way to make sure guests who are probably hungry and thirsty don't just drink alcohol on an empty stomach, they will feel attended to, not part of a "liquor check".

Have a punch that has alcohol in it, but very watered down. This is a good option for once dessert and wedding cake is served, offering just the cake and desserts, perhaps fruit, coffee, tea, punch, and soft drinks.

Have a protocol in mind if someone does over-drink. I observed at a wedding that had an open bar, that when a table of people got especially rowdy and a woman in her 60's began dancing on her chair, the bartender immediately sent over a bottle of fancy artisan water to each guest with glasses of ice with lemon it in. While the actual drinking guest did not get that the bartender considered her officially over-served, the table calmed down and began drinking the fancy water, which helped disipate the liquor in their systems. Have a friend or family member do a general survey of everyone towards the end of the evening to see if they are all capable of driving home. If not, have them make arrangements for getting this person home. If you are having your wedding at a hotel or at a destination wedding, this is a good option since someone who drank too much will have a place to crash without driving.

Alcohol is almost always part of a festive occasion, but with gatherings as large as a wedding, as the bridal couple you will not be able to personally watch everyone yourself like when they come over for dinner, yet you are still partially responsible for how much they have been served. Deciding how to handle the possibility of over-consumption in advance can save you the embarrassment, burden and worry of someone suffering the consequences of over-drinking at your wedding.