The excitement is building. You’ve purchased your wine, your beer, your snacks. Most importantly, you early-birded your tickets and saved some moola, and now the evening is here and you’re heading down to Uncorked Inspiration for your very first paint and sip class! Yes, it IS this exciting. Yes it IS going to be fun. And yes, there are a few things we love for people to know about when they come down. After all, we want this to be a fun, enjoyable, memorable, safe, and comfortable event for you to attend. So here’s a little bit of the low down on what you can expect, and a few general paint and sip etiquette items.
BYOB – Some basic etiquette and some legal stuff
One of the most awesome things about paint and sip with Uncorked Inspiration is that it’s a BYOB event. We know you know this, but if you don’t, BYOB simply means “Bring Your Own Bottle”. Now, depending on how old you are, what that bottle contains is entirely up to you.
For our BYOB events, most of our friends bring wine, beer, sparkling adult sodas, etc. However, Kansas law allows you to BYOB wine, beer, and spirits/hard liquor. Once you’re at Uncorked, you can even mix your own drinks with the stuff you bring, but you must be the one to bring it. We don’t have a liquor license at this time, so none of our staff are allowed to provide any type of alcoholic beverage or serve any type of alcoholic beverage. We can uncork your wine for you, pop your beer top for you, and even open your bottles of liquor, but we cannot, under any circumstances serve it to you. This even means we can’t pour it into your glass. We figure you can handle that, anyway, though.
Legally, you also need to not only be 21 to drink alcohol, but you must always keep your booze with you. So basically, if you bring a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer, keep it close by your canvas on the table or in a cooler underneath the table at your feet. Some other legal stuff is that you’re technically not supposed to leave with an open container of any type of alcohol. There are a couple of ways to solve this, though. First, simply leave it with us and we’ll “dispose” of it properly. And by dispose, we mean we’ll most likely drink it. Keep in mind that Andrea loves Moscato, so you’re welcome to leave Cupcake or Roscatto with her. I’m into reds and good beer, and the occasional pinot noir, or a good solid white. Come to think of it, I’m really not that picky when it comes to good booze.
That being said… if you have a sealable bag, you can take re-corked wine home with you. A beer growler that can be sealed (usually with electrical tape). Unsealed remaining beers in a six-pack can be taken home, obviously. And while we don’t recommend it, you can re-cork your wine and place it in your trunk so that you cannot access it while you drive. This is important, though… if you have a hatchback, mini-van, station wagon or other trunkless vehicle, you really shouldn’t travel with an opened bottle, even if it’s been re-corked. Open container is no joke and we don’t want you to lose your license because it would suck for you to have to ride the Green Apple bikes to our events.
Another very general thing is that you are absolutely welcome to offer Neal or Andrea a glass of your hooch. Most likely we’ll turn it down, simply because we feel you’ve paid your hard earned money for it, so you should get to drink it. But, every now and then, we may accept, but we’ll likely have to make a toast!
One final thing about drinking at our events. We love it when you have a couple of glasses of wine. I personally think it helps loosen up the creative flow, and I even joke about how if you drink another glass of wine, your painting will look better! But the reality is that drinking too much can be really dangerous. You know yourself better than anyone, so just know when you’ve reached your limit, and please, under no circumstances should you ever get behind the wheel of your car if you’ve been drinking. We are more than happy to call an Uber or a taxi for you. Hell, if it comes down to it, I’ll even drive you home myself. We love all of our friends who come to paint with us, and we want to make sure that you can come back if you want.
One thing to keep in mind is that we may or may not have glasses or cups, so it’s always a good idea to bring your own.
Should we bring snacks?
Absolutely! We also love it when you bring snacks! Two hours can be a long time to go without a yummy snack, so feel free to bring your charcuterie, your meats, your cheeses, your crackers, cakes, cookies, or whatever other yummy items your tummy craves. When you bring snacks, you’re welcome to share with whomever you choose, or keep them all for yourself. Entirely up to you. We’ve had people bring entire spreads of snacky food to share with their group and others, or just for themselves, and we’ve had people bring nothing at all. It’s really just a personal choice.
Try to avoid splattering your friends/neighbors
One minute, you’re just painting and sipping away, having a great old time. The next, you notice little colored spots on your canvas that you didn’t put there. Or worse, you realize you just splattered your neighbor’s canvas with the color paint you were just using!
Okay, so it’s not a YUUUUUUUGE deal. And yes, you can paint over the little splatters. But it can be kind of inconvenient. The bottom line is that in a well-attended paint and sip, we may have 30 painters just painting away having a blast, but we do have to sit fairly close together. So, just remember to kind of keep your brush in check as you paint those gorgeous brush strokes onto your canvas.
Where should we sit?
Seating can be a crazy thing at a paint and sip. Sometimes people come by themselves. Other times they bring a friend, or three, or five. That’s when seating can get tricky. We usually tell our single friends to try and sit by someone. This helps keep free spaces for groups and couples open without us having to ask people to play musical chairs so that everyone can sit with the group they came with. We always feel badly when we have to ask people to move, but we’ve found everyone is generally very understanding.
If you come as a single try to sit next to someone, they might become your new best friend. We’ve actually seen this happen. People come down, sit by each other, chat, share a few laughs, and the next thing you know they’re going out for dinner together afterward. It’s one of our favorite things to see happen at an Uncorked Inspiration event.
Speaking of coming with friends, it’s definitely okay to save seats for them. We suggest grabbing the number of aprons you need, and draping them across the stools you need to save. Easy peesy happy little treesies.
Be on time
Okay, so yeah, this one is kind of a sticky subject. We know sometimes traffic sucks. Finding a parking space can be a pain. Or sometimes the darn kids won’t listen to the babysitter and you end up getting stuck at home for a few minutes while you call in reinforcements. We really do get it, and most of the time, I can get people caught up on the painting if we’re forced to start without them. The one thing we do ask is that if you have a bit of a drive, try to plan ahead. We love to start on time because it’s more about being considerate of our friends who are there painting than it is about us.
What if you don’t want to use our brushes?
Then by all means, if you have some of your own awesome paint brushes, you are absolutely welcome to bring them. You can even bring palette knives and paints if you want. Our friend and local artist Mitch Steimers does this all the time. We’re pretty “cas” (is that how it’s spelled?) as Andrea likes to say, and as we all know, there just aren’t that many rules in painting or making art. So we’re even happy when people bring their own ideas and do their own paintings at our events.
Are you an extravert like me?
Great! Socializing is completely acceptable. We also think it’s cool when our friends get up, chat with other friends, walk around the tables to look at everyone’s paintings, compliment others on their paintings, and just having fun.
Neal did such an amazing job, we want to tip him.
Awe, you guys are so sweet. I assume you mean money and not some really good advice? I mean, I’ll take either. All kidding aside, tipping the artist at our paint and sip events is absolutely unnecessary. That’s not to say it isn’t unheard of, or unacceptable. It’s just that you’ve paid for your ticket, your wine, your gas to come down. We’re perfectly fine with that. Which is why we don’t put a tip jar out. (I like $20’s by the way, though. IJS).
Cleaning up your personal space after the event
Okay, we get it. Some of you have told us that you just have to clean your area up or you’ll feel weird. We won’t try to tackle you and keep you from doing it, but keep in mind, this event was your time to unwind, socialize, have fun, have a few drinks, and paint a cool painting. You paid us for that experience, and part of that experience is not having to clean up your area. So, as I tell everyone, let me clean your area up. Let me take your easel down. Let me put the lids on your painting and take your empties to the recycling bin. I love doing it. It’s the most glamorous part of the paint and sip business! Plus, it’s very rare that a group of women get to watch a man clean anything up.
So, there you have it. No real rules, but just some general etiquette thoughts about what to do or not do once you come to one of our paint and sip events. As always, we love having you here so come on down and meet up, paint up, and drink up.