Couple host alcohol-free wedding to promote healthy partying

During the November ceremony, the 23-year-old bride Pham Hong Thanh Tam replaced the ritual of offering wine to the betrothed parents with tea and red roses instead.

The champagne-pouring ritual often seen at Vietnamese weddings was also replaced with the bride and groom watering a potted plant on stage.

Tam and Hau watering a plant instead of pouring champagne over the traditional towering pyramid of glasses at their wedding ceremony, November 2023. Photo courtesy of Tam and Hau

Thanh Tam and Cong Hau are both professional event organizers, and they both said they have witnessed more than their fair share of guests getting into drunken accidents after leaving parties.

When the couple held their engagement ceremony in August, they agreed to hold a wedding without the presence of alcohol.

“No one wants to see their loved ones get hurt on their happy day,” Tam said. “It’s ironic to see them wish each other a safe trip home when they’re all drunk.”

In order to remind guests of this rule, Tam and Hau emphasized it three times.

Their engagement announcement cards read: “We will not serve alcohol at this wedding, but it will be just as joyful.”

The message was also repeated on the digital wedding announcements they sent out. Finally, when they hand-delivered the cards, they explained it to the guests in person once again.

It was not difficult to convince the bride and groom’s friends, but older guests were harder to persuade away from tradition. Many asked how a wedding could be cheerful without alcohol.

Even Hau’s father opposed the idea. It took the young couple three weeks to convince him, reasoning that it was for everyone’s safety and it would prevent people from getting into alcohol-inspired altercations, a regrettably all-too common wart on the face of many wedding parties.

Instead, to create a fun and engaging atmosphere, the couple hosted mini-games to play with the guests.

The couple with joyous friends and family at the party on Nov. 11. Photo courtesy of Tam and Hau

On Nov. 11, the wedding went smoothly with the attendance of friends and family from both sides.

“Everyone there realized that a party could still be fun without alcohol,” Tam said.

One of the guests was Tran Pham Duc Tin, a 32-year-old man who lives 60 km away from the wedding’s location. He said that when he received the wedding invitation, he was surprised but relieved by the message.

As Tin drives a car on his own to parties, he usually has to decline drinking, which is not an easy thing to do as drinking traditions – shared pouring, clinking glasses and cheers’ to health and good luck – are the absolute norm at Vietnamese parties.

Tin said that the wedding’s atmosphere was still fun and lively without the presence of alcohol. He also noted that the sober conversations flowing throughout the party were also better than most overheard at beer-soaked events.

Tam now sees this new mode of gather as a positive life change for the future:

“My wife and I are also planning to not serve alcohol at our child’s upcoming first birthday.”