How much alcohol do I need?

Re: How much alcohol do I need?

• MobKaz member

  

  July 2017

  
  

  MeredithWalker said:

  
  

  Hi everyone,
  
  I'm getting married on September 16 and we will have approximately 150 - 175 guests. We will provide unlimited free beer, wine, and 2 specialty drinks - whiskey/coke and vodka/cranberry. Can anyone guestimate how much of each we will need?

  
  

  
  
  There are scores of drink calculators....
  http://search.aol.com/aol/search?s_it=sb-top&v_t=customfirefoxright-ff&q=how+many+drinks+per+person
  
  http://search.aol.com/aol/search?s_it=sb-top&v_t=customfirefoxright-ff&q=drink+calculator
  
  You
  basically need to know your guests.  It also depends on the time of day
  you are hosting your event, and the traveling your guests need to do to
  get to and from your event, etc.
  
  I do suggest you purchase your alcohol from a store that will allow you to return any unused liquor. 
  
  Are you also purchasing soft drinks?
  
  
  
  
  

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• ahoywedding member

  

  July 2017

  I used the drink calculator on Total Wine & More's website, and found it pretty helpful. The general rule (I think) is 2 drinks per guest for each hour of cocktail hour, and one drink per hour after that. HOWEVER, you really have to know your crowd. I had our caterer up the beer counts three times, and we still almost ran out!
  
  You can also adjust specific items, like if you know only a few of your guests drink red wine, don't do a 50/50 split of red & white. If you have a store near you that accepts returns, over-purchase. I had our caterer provide bottled beer, since we could keep any leftovers & bottles were easier to store, transport, send home with family, etc. If your venue doesn't allow glass bottles, a lot of really decent brands are now available in cans, too.

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• southernbelle0915 mod

  

  July 2017

  How much you need depends heavily on your crowd. Are they more wine drinkers? Red or white? Beer drinkers? Mixed drink drinkers? Not a huge drinking crowd? 
  
  Generally, you should plan on one drink for each guest per hour of the reception. So if your reception is 4 hours and you have 175 guests, you need 700 drinks. Now how you break that up and whether you adjust the total depends on the questions above. I'm guessing you're having whiskey/coke and vodka/cranberry because it's y'alls drinks of choice and not because they're everyone's favorite. If so, you won't need as much of those. 
  
  A serving of wine is 5oz
  A serving of beer is 12oz (but check with your vendor on glass size)
  A serving of liquor is 1.5oz (plus 6oz coke/cranberry juice)
  
  If this were my crowd, I would get:
  
  3 kegs of beer (420 - 12oz servings)
  40 bottles of red (200 - 5oz servings, more if cool weather wedding)
  40 bottles of white (200 - 5oz servings, more if warm weather wedding)
  15 bottles of whiskey (240 - 1.5oz servings)
  15 bottles of vodka (240 - 1.5oz servings)
  22 two liters of coke (240 - 6oz servings, more if people will just want coke)
  22 two liters of cranberry juice (240 - 6oz servings, more if ppl just want juice)
  
  I'm assuming since you're buying you can take the leftovers home. So overbuy. Worse case scenario, you will have leftover booze and wine from your wedding which, if quality and aged properly, would be fun to break out on special occasions. 

  *********************************************************************************

  
  

  

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• Australian_girl_in_Paris member

  

  July 2017

  Oh my gosh - we're getting married on the 16th too!! 
  
  And I've been thinking about alcohol too. Our venue has said one bottle for three people of both wines and then we have extras. 
  
  It depends on your crowd. I have Australians coming to my French wedding so I'm worried that it won't be enough. So this had been helpful!

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• knottie77380c59bc9c88ec member

  

  July 2017

  wow this is the topic i was looking for my own wedding!
  

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