When you're planning a wedding outside the confines of a resort, you'll need to answer the age-old question: open bar or cash bar?

Here's the deal: Liquor is served at almost all receptions, whether they're afternoon or evening affairs; even morning receptions usually have a champagne toast. Most of your guests will arrive expecting to have a drink or two (and some will expect to have far more). It's just wrong to invite people to a party and then ask them to pay for their own liquor.

When you're going to a friend's cocktail party, you bring something — a snack, a bottle of wine — and then you spend the night noshing and drinking on someone else's dime. Same thing when you have friends over to your house — sure, they'll bring a little something, but as the hostess, most of the financial burden is going to be yours.

So now it comes time for the biggest party of all: your wedding. Your friends have made the trip, they brought you a gift, and now you want them to pay for their own liquor? Wrong. A cash bar at a wedding reception is one of the most tactless things that you can do — so don't.

Grumble if you must about the cost of an open bar; lament the fact that you're going to pay for half-consumed glasses of wine and gin-and-tonics. Doesn't matter. This is one of those wedding expenses that just about kills you but is worth it in the end.

Why? Because if you have a cash bar, you're going to hear the discontent of your guests. Some will be louder about it than others, but you can bank on the fact that no one is going to sincerely say, “I'm so glad I came all the way to this wedding and now I'm paying six dollars for a glass of Chardonnay!”

Some couples go with what they feel is a happy medium: Beer and wine are free; cocktails cost the guests. Depending on the crowd you're inviting, this could work out all right, or it could be as bad as having a cash bar if it turns out that no one drinks wine or beer — they all want vodka!