Have you ever gone to a function where you had to PAY for soda???

[SydSim]

I can only speak for my culture, I can't speak for yours. But around here, the the "dry" weddings have consisted of people sitting around their own dinner table all night i.e. not much mixing going on. It was hard to be sociable. The great thing about parties with alcohol is that people get a bit more relaxed, and the conversation then flows a little easier amoung those that don't know each well. I'm not just talking about me here - I'm talking about all the shy people at the party. I also have never found that alcohol at a party causes a bunch of drunk people. In my country we drink from young, so it's really no big deal to have free alcohol. People don't go nuts just because suddenly the booze is available! It's hard to explain what happens when there is alcohol - I just know that there's a different "vibe" to the evening.

Ok, I totally understand what you are saying. I think that my family (and the families that I socialize with) must be of a different breed. We are always more relaxed and can have conversations flow with each other and strangers while being dry (as you all call it ) I have no problem with drinking alcohol (and do drink socially, myself). I just thought that it was odd when people said that they won't go to functions that didn't have alcohol. But if the dry parties that you have experienced seem to have very dry behavior , then I could understand why you wouldn't want to be there.

 

[U2_rocks!]

But if the dry parties that you have experienced seem to have very dry behavior , then I could understand why you wouldn't want to be there.

The 2 weddings were very religious ones, where they didn't believe in alcohol, and they were fairly conservative, almost "stuffy". Of course, if I had known them well it would have felt different, but I was recently married to DH, was meeting this part of the family for the first time, and really, it was just boring.

Like I said, my parents don't drink, but for their own personal health reasons. Most times we get together the alcohol doesn't really flow, but we have the best times! It's just that no-one here ever has dry weddings unless they are ultra-religious, ultra-stuffy ones, which is why I've just grown to associate them as being boring.

 

[MontanaZoo]

My (new) aunt and uncle's wedding reception in their backyard where everyone was drinking mudslides, there was karaoke and lawn furniture ended up in a tree and on the roof was definitely a different vibe than my sister's wedding reception with no alcohol or dancing. I'm not going to say if one was better than the other....one was definitely shorter than the other. Honestly though the backyard one was so relaxed and just my family even without alcohol it would have been wild and we would have played card games or something and still had fun.

We've been known to draw blood and break tables when we play the card game spoons, my mom has 6 younger brothers and a younger sister. And that's with or without alcohol.