How much booze?

lburkey21

We're doing a beer, wine and soda bar for our reception. Our venue only allows for 4 hours of bar service so it will be open for the cocktail hour, closed during during dinner and then open again for the remaining 3 hours of the reception. We're also going to be using kegs rather than bottles/cans as it more cost effective.My question is how much booze should I estimate for the bar? We obviously have to buy the kegs up front, but the wine is by consumption. I'd like to have some sort of idea of our cost going into it rather then being completely shocked when we get the bill afterward.We're having approx 130 people at our wedding. I've used the drink calculator on evite and thought that the numbers given seemed high (65 bottles of wine?) but I really have no idea!Can anyone help?!!?

ffmaid

Think about your guests do they drink not at all, a little , moderate , or heavy? Do they drink wine with dinner or beer? How many of your guests are underaged? 65 bottles for 130 people is every guest drinks 2-3 glasses of wine. That is very reasonable for 4 hours including dinner in my circle. When you and your family goes to events like this what would you drink? I would personally be likely to drink mainly wine and drink about 4 glasses or a glass an hour.

lburkey21

My guess is the majority of our guests will drink beer. I'd say probaby 2/3 would drink beer and 1/3 drink wine. We cover both spectrums in terms of drinking amount. Some barely drink at all and others (ie. college friends) drink more. Should I just take a 4 drink per person average and figure it out from there?

gottahavashorti

That sounds about right.  I think e-vite's calculator, for 4 hours bar, calculates around 3 drinks for light drinkers, 5 for average and 7 for heavy.  Do an approximation of how many light, average and heavy drinkers you have and use that for the calculation.  Lower the wine count and raise the beer if you have more beer drinkers.

Leah&Christian09

6 drinks seems about average for that time period.  Most people will have 1-2 drinks during cocktail hour, then go get a drink (maybe two) to drink with dinner.  As soon as the bar reopens, people will be back up for another drink and then maybe 1-2 hour from there.  Add up the number of drinks based on the number or drinkers, assume 2/3 of it will be beer and go from there.  There are 4 glasses of wine in a bottle.  Remember, people will drink a lot more at a party than they would on a normal Saturday night.

Reynoldsmom312

Just an FYI that my bartender told me: kegs aren't always the best idea simply because if you don't finish the keg you've wasted the beer (unless you plan on drinking it the next morning). With bottles/cans if there is any left over it stays "fresher" longer. So you could drink it the next door or have it a few weeks later. Again, just a thought. Good luck!