The Worst Cocktails To Serve At Your Wedding

When planning your dream wedding, every single detail matters, from the music to the cake to the perfect dress or tuxedo. One element that's often overlooked until the last minute can make or break your celebration: the cocktail menu. While couples spend months deciding over flower arrangements, cake flavors, and seating charts, choosing the wrong cocktails can create disasters that no amount of planning can fix. The truth is, not all drinks are created equal when it comes to weddings. What works perfectly at a casual house party or night out with friends can become a nightmare when served to your great grandparents, your work colleagues, and your college roommates all in the same room.

In my bartending career, I've had the opportunity to work at a handful of weddings. When my partners and I first opened our cocktail bar, we tested our first few cocktail menus at industry parties, corporate events, food festivals, and most importantly, weddings. Our primary goal was to determine which drinks deserved a permanent spot on our menu and spread the word of our new bar. However, this experience revealed which cocktails truly don't really fit too well in celebratory environments like weddings. If you're planning your big day, you might want to take a look at this list for the 10 worst cocktails to serve at your wedding.

Probably one of the strongest cocktails on this list, the Long Island iced teas feature equal parts vodka, tequila, gin, white rum, and triple sec (or another orange liqueur). This combination of spirits makes for a pretty potent cocktail, a quality you might want to avoid when deciding your cocktail menu for your special day. It also includes lemon juice, simple syrup, and a splash of cola, helping it give it a similar color to iced tea. Despite its name, the cocktail doesn't actually contain any iced tea at all. The cocktail is known for having a bright, tropical, and refreshing taste with a subtle bitter flavor. The alcohol flavor is often masked with the other ingredients, making a deceptively strong drink that can lead to guests becoming unexpectedly intoxicated during the festivities.

For those who want the tropical, refreshing character of Long Island iced tea without the excessive alcohol content, there are plenty of alternatives. The classic Mai Tai cocktail is an excellent choice, including a mixture of rum, Curaçao liqueur, orgeat syrup, and lime juice. It has a delightful citrusy and tropical flavor, making it the perfect summer cocktail to feature at your beachside wedding. Sticking to the tropical theme, you could also serve the Bahama Mama cocktail, which includes a mixture of orange juice, pineapple juice, rum, coconut-flavored rum, and grenadine. It has the same citrusy, fruity flavors as a Long Island iced tea, but with half the amount of alcohol content.

If you're looking to avoid a cocktail that will create lines longer than your guest list, then you should steer clear of the Ramos Gin Fizz. For those of you who don't know, traditionally, a Ramos Gin Fizz requires 10-12 minutes of continuous, vigorous shaking to achieve its signature frothy texture. At a wedding with hundreds of guests, bartenders would need to dedicate enormous time to make each drink, creating a long line and, even worse, frustrated guests. Featuring a combination of gin, citrus, and a simple syrup as the base, alongside an egg white foam, and a splash of heavy cream that provides a smooth, creamy texture and richness. While the cocktail is absolutely delicious, a wedding isn't the best environment to serve it in.

In place of Ramos Gin Fizz, you can serve a classic Gin Fizz instead. A Gin Fizz features all the same ingredients except for the heavy cream and excessive shaking, making it suitable for bartenders to whip up on the fly. Unlike its creamy counterpart, this cocktail has a lighter consistency, which is perfect for a wedding, since the last thing dancing guests want is a creamy, milky cocktail. Another option is a whiskey sour, which includes a base of whiskey (typically bourbon), lemon juice, simple syrup, and an optional egg white foam. The whiskey provides the cocktail with notes of vanilla and caramel, while the lemon juice provides a punch of bright, sour flavor.

Wedding speeches can be disrupted by various interruptions, like a phone ringing, an upset baby, an unexpected objection, or the loud whir of blenders making frozen cocktails. Cocktails like frozen margaritas require powerful culinary blenders that generate significant noise and ruckus, making them a poor choice for weddings where you want guests to hear vows, toasts, and speeches. To be on the safe side, it's better to skip blender-dependent cocktails on your special day to avoid any noisy interruptions during these important moments.

Don't worry, though, since you can easily substitute frozen margaritas for the classic version instead. With the simple combination of tequila, triple sec or Cointreau, lime juice, simple syrup, and salt, most bartenders will already have all the ingredients on hand to make them. If you want to take your margarita game up a notch, you can replace the lime juice with blood orange or incorporate a bit of yuzu citrus for a spicy, peppery kick. If you and your future forever partner are big fans of tequila, try setting up a tequila tasting station and let your guest customize their own margaritas. Another plus side of having margaritas on the menu is that they can easily be made into a mocktail for anyone who doesn't drink alcohol.

It's hard to resist a glass of red wine sangria. The tasty cocktail concoction of chilled red wine, chopped fruit, fruit juices, and a splash of liqueur (either brandy, triple sec, or Cointreau) is the perfect refresher on a hot summer's day. However, it's just a tad laid back for a wedding environment. The picnic-like, beachside feel of the drink gives it an informal presence for elegant events like a wedding. Plus, red wine sangria can easily stain wedding dresses, light-colored suits, and formal attire more easily than lighter-colored drinks. With guests in their finest clothes, spills become a bigger worry. The last thing you want to happen on your special day is someone accidentally spilling a splash of sangria on your beautiful wedding dress.

To avoid any accidents from happening, you can replace it with white wine sangria. While it isn't as common as its red wine counterpart, white wine sangria is incredibly tasty. The white wine provides the sangria with a lighter and more refreshing taste. Red wine sangrias are often a bit more on the heavier side with a bolder, richer flavor. Having a white sangria instead will ensure your guests aren't too bloated to dance the night away. You can also replace it with a white wine spritz or Hugo spritz, which features a splash of St-Germain, sparkling wine, soda water, and fresh mint. Both cocktails are excellent substitutes for sangria, delivering the same light and refreshing quality.

Similar to red wine sangrias, Bloody Marys can stain easily, and the last thing you want on your special day is your wedding dress or tuxedo ruined by a speckle of tomato juice. Plus, Bloody Marys don't have the celebratory feel often associated with weddings. Everything from the tomato juice, horseradish, and celery stick garnish, all being served in a tall beer glass doesn't give off a formal black tie appearance or taste.

Leave the Bloody Marys for brunch and replace them with another savory cocktail option. You can serve dirty martinis, negronis, or even a Gibson. If you haven't had one before, a Gibson is similar to a martini, but instead of an olive garnish, it has a skewered pickled onion. The pickled onion provides the cocktail with a salty, tangy, umami flavor, similar to a Bloody Mary.

However, if you really want to include a tomato-based beverage on your menu, try hiring a mixologist and have them craft a tomato-flavored martini. A tomato-flavored martini might sound a bit odd, but in recent years, mixologists have been crafting martini variations with unexpected savory ingredients. You can do this by creating a tomato-infused spirit by soaking tomatoes in vodka or gin for a long period of time. If you want to keep it simple, just request your bartenders to make this delicious Spicy Tomatini recipe from Tasting Table.

A Mudslide is a creamy, dessert-like cocktail that typically combines vodka, coffee liqueur, Irish cream liqueur, vanilla ice cream, and heavy cream. The thick, creamy consistency creates sticky, difficult-to-clean messes that can easily be spilled on suits, dance floors, reception linens, or even worse, a wedding dress. Unlike clear and light colored cocktails that might just leave wet spots, mudslides leave chocolate stains and sticky residues. Plus, the muddy brown color isn't particularly the most photogenic cocktail and can look quite unappetizing in wedding photos.

For a wedding-appropriate alternative to a mudslide that's less messy but still has those rich coffee and delectable cream flavors, you've got a few different options. An espresso martini is your best bet. This martini features a mixture of vodka, coffee liqueur (often Kahlùa), simple syrup, and, of course, a shot of freshly brewed espresso. It has a rich, bold coffee flavor with a balanced sweetness from the liqueur and pleasant smoothness from the vodka. Alternatively, you can also serve a White Russian. This cocktail features just three ingredients: vodka, Kahlùa, and a splash of heavy cream. Similar to Mudslide, the White Russian has an irresistible creamy, sweet, and rich flavor that's a bit more sophisticated and easy to serve than its milkshake-like counterpart.

News flash: just because you're having a beachside wedding doesn't mean you need to include tropical or kitchy cocktails to stick on theme. The Blue Hawaiian is the ultimate tropical cocktail that exudes tackiness and poolside party energy, which definitely isn't wanted during a sophisticated occasion. This cocktail features a combination of vodka, rum, blue curaçao, and pineapple juice. Blue Hawaiian cocktails can create a few different photo-ruining problems at weddings. The artificial blue coloring leaves guests with stained teeth, tongues, and lips that will look quite unflattering in wedding pictures and ceremony moments. Plus, the bright neon blue appearance clashes with elegant wedding aesthetics, making the drink look a bit cheap and out of place at a formal event.

It's best to leave the Blue Hawaiians at the beach clubs in Maui and keep it a bit more classic for your special day. However, if you do still want those tropical flavors showcased at your wedding, choose a cocktail that looks a tad more refined. You can serve a mojito, which includes a mix of white rum, lime juice, fresh mint, sugar cubes, and soda water. Alongside its bright flavor from the mint and lime juice, the cocktail still has the same refreshing quality as a Blue Hawaiian that people crave. If you want to keep it simple, just serve margaritas. They're the classic tropical cocktail, but take a lot less effort to make. Plus, you won't have anyone passing judgment since they're timeless and universally appealing.

A Jagerbomb at a wedding is definitely a no, and probably should be left behind in your college years. For those of you who don't know, a Jagerbomb is basically a party shot. It's not a cocktail for a sophisticated event, and the energy drink mixer can lead guests to have an uncomfortable mix of jitters and inebriation. The Jagerbomb typically includes a shot of Jagermeister liqueur into a glass of energy drink, typically Red Bull. It is usually taken as a shot, however, it can be sipped on with some ice.

If you're a big fan of Jagermeister and still want to include the German liqueur on your cocktail menu, there are plenty of more sophisticated ways to serve it. For instance, you can substitute Jägermeister for vodka in a Moscow Mule. This cocktail combines Jagermeister with ginger beer and lime juice, where the herbal complexity of the liqueur complements the spicy ginger beer and tart lime juice perfectly. You can also serve a Jagermeister Old-Fashioned with bourbon, Jagermeister, and Cointreau. The warmth of the bourbon and citrusy notes of the Cointreau pair beautifully with herbal flavors of the Jagermeister. The key to serving Jagermeister in a sophisticated way is to treat it as a complex herbal liqueur rather than a party shot.

A Red Bull vodka, also referred to as an "RBV," combines a shot of vodka with ice, topped with a splash of Red Bull. It's often drunk by bartenders and college students to keep them energized during long shifts or parties. The cocktail has a strong, distinctive flavor of Red Bull, with the vodka adding a slightly smooth warmth in the background. It's essentially Red Bull with an extra boost, as the vodka's neutral flavor is largely subdued by the sugary energy drink. This caffeine-alcohol combination creates an overly energetic, jittery beverage that might make guests who can't sit still during ceremonies and speeches, or even worse, people won't leave the dance floor when it's time to head home. The last thing you want when you're saying your vows or having your first dance is people bouncing off the walls.

You can still serve some caffeinated cocktails at your weddings, but you want to make sure they look appealing and have a sophisticated energy. Beyond espresso martinis and White Russians, you can try serving an Irish coffee. Winter and autumn weddings require at least one cozy cocktail to keep your guests warm, and Irish coffee is ideal for caffeine connoisseurs. For those who are unfamiliar, an Irish coffee features a mixture of hot coffee, Irish whiskey, sugar, whipped cream, and occasionally, Irish coffee liqueur. Whether it's an espresso martini, White Russian, or Irish coffee, these cocktails will give you a caffeine kick without the party vibe of a Red Bull vodka.