Danny Tyree Column: Will alcohol-free weddings catch on?

Published 8:30 am Friday, August 1, 2025

“For whenever two or more of you are gathered in his name/ There is booze, there is booze … ” — apologies to Paul Stookey

According to the Wall Street Journal, six percent of couples polled by wedding-planning website Zola will host a completely alcohol-free wedding in 2025.

(Coincidentally, six percent of America’s potential guests find themselves telling each other, “Dear, I’d love to attend your sister’s wedding in November, but I think that’s the weekend I’m having an emergency elective root canal, darn it.”)

Yes, whether it’s because of health-consciousness, religious values or guilt about unleashing inebriated guests on the highway, more couples are embracing the “dry” weddings trend.

But their more traditional friends and family are ready to put up a fight against substitutes such as mocktails, coffee and soft drinks. And those aggrieved loved ones don’t intend to holler “uncle.” “Drunk uncle,” perhaps, but not “uncle.”

Generations of celebrants have come to regard wedding reception liquor as an outright entitlement. (“I believe Sir Isaac Newton said it best: “For every gift-wrapped toaster, there is an equal and opposite flow of vermouth.”)

The wedding attendees even invoke scripture to bolster their position: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: ‘cause everybody wants an excuse to watch an impersonation of Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail’!”

“It’s not really a wedding if you can’t drop your inhibitions and have a little fun,” is a familiar refrain. But when you consider that Aunt Zelda can accumulate four divorces, seven maxed-out credit cards and 273 speeding tickets while stone-cold sober, maybe we should keep some inhibitions handy.

Many people think it’s an existential crisis to spend three or four hours in a room with fellow well-wishers without imbibing. I’m glad they somehow manage to control their other impulses, or wedding halls would ring with cries of “Anybody seen my toenail clippers? Hey, kid, quit bearing that ring and bear a can of Cheez Whiz instead and there’s five bucks in it for you. Ahh…freedom for my man-boobs! What? They don’t teach you about man-boobs in flower-girl school?”

There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. Most couples assume that the wedding day is THEIR Big Day. Many friends and relatives think the guests should be pampered. I guess they’re looking for one of those $8 “ultra-deluxe speshul” ceremonies that Marryin’ Sam promoted in the “Li’l Abner” comic strip. Sam would officiate while being drawn and quartered by four raging jackasses. (“Yeah, I could go for that. But I’ll provide the four jackasses. See if your father and his brothers have gotten liquored up enough.”)

If you’re contemplating a dry wedding, don’t be surprised if you suddenly get pushback from the cousins who built backyard forts with you, the former co-workers who braved countless deadlines with you, the little old ladies who taught you in Sunday school. (“Just lemme finish this second pot of coffee an’ maybe I’ll remember which of those categories I fit in. *Hic*”)

If I sound prejudiced, it might be because my wife and I have been happily married for 34 years, even though our wedding reception boasted only the simple refreshments whipped up by the Methodist ladies and the single bottle of Pink Chablis that my father-in-law sprang for.

Love (or her threats to pencil in an emergency elective root canal) will keep us together.

Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.”