Nothing posted has convinced me that a cash bar is tacky. Still don't see any problem with it. I would graciously accept the bride & groom paying for my drinks, but I can pay for them myself if I have to. Not a big deal at all.
What if it was a byob wedding? I don't have a problem with them. My fiancee lives in a pretty small, farmish type town. They literally have one stoplight in the entire city limits. The weddings are generally very cheap, because if you make $10 an hour, you're making great money. The last two weddings we went to were cash bar, and I wasn't offended at all, we sat at picnic tables during the ceremony. It's just not something we wanted to do with our personal wedding. We opted for fake rose petals in our centerpieces on the tables (in a vase full of water with a floating candle, they look real as can be saved about $500), Chinette plates, forks etc instead of "real ones", which saved close to $1k. And then spent that 1500 on three kegs, a bunch of wine and a few bottles of liqour for our two drinks. I guess it really depends on the wedding. We decided we'd rather serve a bit nicer meal and free drinks.