No alcohol at a class reunion - unusual?

[portocall]

The others "boycotting" as you say are upset they don't have a "choice", that the party organizers have made a unilateral decision, right? You don't get a choice of alcohol at MK, I don't get a choice of Pepsi at Cracker Barrel. Not every place has sweet tea. IMO, just because those "choices" are "limited" doesn't mean those places aren't worth going to.

What if the organizers decided NOT to have a dance floor or had a DJ instead of a band? Would those be valid reasons to skip the event?

Your logic is slightly flawed here. What you aren't realizing is when you choose to go to the Magic Kingdom you go realizing that your not going to be able to drink, but there are other parks that you could go to if you wanted to have a drink and other vacation options. Still a choice.

With a reunion, there isn't a choice so to speak. You aren't going to go to another schools reunion. You only graduated with one class. The choice you are forced to make is go or not and if you go, follow the rules vs breaking them.

My personal issue would be that it would feel like I am still not considered grown enough to make the choice if it was still banned. I tend to be a rule follower but being told absolutely no would be a deal breaker for me.

 

[Andtototoo]

You might want to go back through the thread...


The others "boycotting" as you say are upset they don't have a "choice", that the party organizers have made a unilateral decision, right? You don't get a choice of alcohol at MK, I don't get a choice of Pepsi at Cracker Barrel. Not every place has sweet tea. IMO, just because those "choices" are "limited" doesn't mean those places aren't worth going to.

What if the organizers decided NOT to have a dance floor or had a DJ instead of a band? Would those be valid reasons to skip the event?

Since you quoted me in an attempt to argue that people are refusing to attend without alcohol, I'll point out that you did not seem to note my LOL which indicated that my "need" for alcohol was a joke at the expense of the reunion's worthiness of my time at all. And I also note that you did not quote my later comment that the real issue for me is someone making a decision for me.

So I'll repeat -- the real issue is someone imposing their own religious values ON me at an event meant for everyone. That choice means that they are essentially turning the class reunion into an extension of their church. No thanks.

I will also add that I've been to some "dry" private events, e.g. weddings, due to the religious convictions of one or both of the families -- and I've found some of them quite insufferable not due to the lack of alcohol but due to the smug commentary about how THIS wedding is really closer to God and is more "upright" and "righteous" than "other people's drunken messes", usually made by the parents. In those case the "dryness" of the event has actually become the "main" event. At one wedding, for example, the groom made a huge and quite public fit over the fact that the venue included birch beer in the list of beverage options at the "dry" bar. HUGE fit. Birch beer is, of course, non-alcoholic. All of us heathen drinkers were fine with a dry reception until he had a fit and in the course of the fit revealed he had wanted to excise from his bride's guest list anyone who MIGHT ever have had an alcoholic drink as being unfit to "witness them yoked in holy matrimony." When his bride was finally able to get in a word edgewise and inform him that birch beer is not really beer, he did not apologize to the venue staff whom he had excoriated at length nor to the rest of us whom he had insulted. We ended up leaving early. And going to a bar, where I can assure that none of us behaved like a rude jerkface.

 

[C.Ann]

I don't know if it's unusual or not, but I do know of two different people (in two different sections of the country) who have been/are participants in "no alcohol" reunions.. It's not a religious thing - just a matter of the people attending deciding it wasn't worth the additional cost, nor was there any real need to have alcohol available..

It hasn't been an issue, so I assume that everyone has still been able to relax and have a good time catching up with their former classmates..

 

[Acklander]

I don't know if it's unusual or not, but I do know of two different people (in two different sections of the country) who have been/are participants in "no alcohol" reunions.. It's not a religious thing - just a matter of the people attending deciding it wasn't worth the additional cost, nor was there any real need to have alcohol available..

It hasn't been an issue, so I assume that everyone has still been able to relax and have a good time catching up with their former classmates..

See the difference? In your situation, The people attending deciding they didn't want alcohol. In this case it was the organizers deciding-the attendees made it clear on the facebook page that they wanted cocktails at the cocktail party and the organizers just deleted their comments.

 

[disykat]

I don't get it. Go to the party, then out for drinks later. No big deal.

Whoever plans the event gets to choose. Alcohol, no alcohol, doesn't matter to me.

As for the OP's DH not noticing any issues at the last party -I had to laugh. We've been to several parties where my dh has been absolutely oblivious to what was going on. Someone actually got fired for their behavior at a work party (she was the person in charge of the event!) and dh hadn't noticed a thing.

From what has been described, they aren't at a bar and not allowing alcohol. They are at a venue that doesn't serve alcohol and simply choosing not to bring it in from the outside. That doesn't seem odd to me at all. What does seem odd to me is that they even mentioned it - but apparently there are a lot of people who need to know they will be able to get alcohol in order to come so I guess there is a need to know!

 

[Disney Doll]

Chiming in too agree with this, too. As we planned our reunion, I got so sick of hearing things like - why didn't you do such and such, it's too much money, it's cheap & you could have done more, etc....it never ended. Most people were fine but there was a vocal set of people. I so wanted to retort back that I would put them on the commuter for the 15 year, then, since they had so many fabulous ideas.

I am in a civic group and we had a woman that would do that all the time. She'd tell everyone that the way we did this was wrong, she had a better idea for doing that and so forth. Finally one day I said to the President "Look, here's next year's President, she is chock full fo great ideas!". That shut her up. She never said another word.

As far as the reunion....I don't care whether or not I have a drink, so it wouldn't bother me from that perspective, but it is the principle of the matter. An evening that is to be ab adult evening should offer adult ebeverages for those who might want to have A glass of wine with dinner or A mixed drink. I didn't go to my 30 year reunion though, cuz I wasn't really interested un seeing too many of the people I went to HS with, and those I was interested in, I have kept in touch with.

 

[ms.yt]

OP here. I thought you'd all like an update on the reunion. We got there right before we entered into the area for dinner (remember we skipped the dry cocktail hour).

There were three rows of tables in a big room, so you pretty much just got to talk to whoever you sat across from. One of the three organizers stood up and read off a card about how glad she was to see everybody there, then we ate our salads. As we were doing this, they showed a 3 minute video of pictures and clips from sports events from their senior year.

Then we lined up and got our food buffet style. After about 30 minutes, they gave out some reunion awards like who traveled farthest (though they didn't say where the winner came from), most changed, least changed, etc. Next they read some 1991 trivia.

After that they had the big finale that they had been hyping up on the FB page for the last few days. Are you ready for what the big event was? A guy and the three organizers lip synched to "Addicted to Love."

When that was over, they said that was all they had planned and thanked everybody for coming. It was over by 8:20. They made no announcement about any after party, so we had to ask around to find out about it. We were about to head out there when one of my husband's good friends from high school asked him if he wanted us to go get a cup of coffee with him and his wife. My husband wanted to catch up with him, so we went to the Dixie Cafe and sat with them for about 30 minutes. They are very devout Church of Christ, so they were totally against going to the after party.

By the time we got to the place where the after party was (it was in another town about 30 minutes away), there was a long line out the door to get in, and a live band was blaring inside, so we knew it was going to be hard to talk to anybody once we got inside. We opted instead to go to a pub across the street that was a little quieter and have a couple of drinks just the two of us. It was nice to have time together, but I felt bad that my husband didn't get to hang out with his class much.

The organized reunion part was pretty lame, to be honest. Even the couple that we went to the Dixie Cafe with brought it up. They didn't have much going on at the evening event, and the stuff they did have was kind of cringe-worthy. A drink or two would have made it much funnier!

 

[mdsoccermom]

OP here. I thought you'd all like an update on the reunion. We got there right before we entered into the area for dinner (remember we skipped the dry cocktail hour).

There were three rows of tables in a big room, so you pretty much just got to talk to whoever you sat across from. One of the three organizers stood up and read off a card about how glad she was to see everybody there, then we ate our salads. As we were doing this, they showed a 3 minute video of pictures and clips from sports events from their senior year.

Then we lined up and got our food buffet style. After about 30 minutes, they gave out some reunion awards like who traveled farthest (though they didn't say where the winner came from), most changed, least changed, etc. Next they read some 1991 trivia.

After that they had the big finale that they had been hyping up on the FB page for the last few days. Are you ready for what the big event was? A guy and the three organizers lip synched to "Addicted to Love."

When that was over, they said that was all they had planned and thanked everybody for coming. It was over by 8:20. They made no announcement about any after party, so we had to ask around to find out about it. We were about to head out there when one of my husband's good friends from high school asked him if he wanted us to go get a cup of coffee with him and his wife. My husband wanted to catch up with him, so we went to the Dixie Cafe and sat with them for about 30 minutes. They are very devout Church of Christ, so they were totally against going to the after party.

By the time we got to the place where the after party was (it was in another town about 30 minutes away), there was a long line out the door to get in, and a live band was blaring inside, so we knew it was going to be hard to talk to anybody once we got inside. We opted instead to go to a pub across the street that was a little quieter and have a couple of drinks just the two of us. It was nice to have time together, but I felt bad that my husband didn't get to hang out with his class much.

The organized reunion part was pretty lame, to be honest. Even the couple that we went to the Dixie Cafe with brought it up. They didn't have much going on at the evening event, and the stuff they did have was kind of cringe-worthy. A drink or two would have made it much funnier!

OMG! That sounds like a complete snoozefest! My reunions have always been held in a bar, LOL! We had a class of only 134 so it was very easy to mingle. Don't know what they have planned for the 25th next year.

 

[Pamlur]

I am so sorry the reunion was blah. My HS class was small, and close knit, so we have never had any problems like that. We are having a "big number" reunion in September, that will actually go on for three days/nights. I have no idea what food will be served, because I'm too far away to go to the planning meetings.

OP, I grew up in Arkansas; could you PM me with the town? I had relatives all over the state, so I am familiar with most of it.

 

[ms.yt]

OMG! That sounds like a complete snoozefest! My reunions have always been held in a bar, LOL! We had a class of only 134 so it was very easy to mingle. Don't know what they have planned for the 25th next year.

Yeah, it was pretty bad. People were complaining about the food, too. I thought it tasted okay. We had chicken, salisbury steak, twice baked potatoes, green beans and new potatoes. There was an assortment of cakes and pies for dessert. They ran out of chicken about halfway through the line, and the woman insisted that that was all the chicken they brought. After everybody was about done, she came out and announced that they had "found some more chicken" if anybody wanted any. We all wanted to know how they just "found" some more chicken since all the food was brought in. That was probably the funniest moment of the evening.

 

[auntpoly]

You might want to go back through the thread...














The others "boycotting" as you say are upset they don't have a "choice", that the party organizers have made a unilateral decision, right? You don't get a choice of alcohol at MK, I don't get a choice of Pepsi at Cracker Barrel. Not every place has sweet tea. IMO, just because those "choices" are "limited" doesn't mean those places aren't worth going to.

What if the organizers decided NOT to have a dance floor or had a DJ instead of a band? Would those be valid reasons to skip the event?

Sorry to bump this back up if the discussion is over but I just saw this and wanted to comment, since I had been quoted -

Here's the valid reason not to go to something - If I don't want to go.

It's not a question of "needing" a drink at a party or anything like that, it's a question of FUN. The OP's reunion didn't sound like any fun and I wouldn't have gone. I really don't think any of us have to justify not wanting to attend a party that sounds like it will be boring.

This is my opinion, but it's also my right to decide what I'll attend and what I want. The party planners can plan whatever they want but that doesn't mean I have to go.