Booze Calculator
Pro tips for purchasing wedding day booze:
- Go through your guest list and sort out the drinks vs non drinkers - try to determine roughly how many drinks each person would have (ex. Men might consume 5 to 8 drinks and women might consume 3 to 6 drinks).
- I recommend purchasing wine (red & white), champagne or prosecco (for toasts or just to have behind bar), beer (2 to 3 types), bourdon, scotch, vodka, gin. Having a limited bar works best when purchasing your own alcohol. Most weddings only have full bars when the venue provides the bar service.
- Wine: If you are getting married in the summer you would want to have more white wine than red wine, but if your crowd prefers red then purchase more red. In the fall or winter you would want to purchase more red wine.
- Wine: Depending on the size of the glass or bottle you will get 5 to 6 pours per bottle - most weddings are on average 120 guests and most weddings purchase 2 to 3 cases of each kind of wine. Each case is 12 bottles.
- Champagne: Depending on the size of the glass or bottle you will get 6 to 8 pours per bottle - most weddings have champagne poured and passed and not put at each place setting - on average purchasing 1 to 2 cases of champagne for toasts or to serve behind the bar. A popular thing to do to not serve champagne is to let guests toasts with drinks in hand.
- Beer: The vast majority of what is always left over at weddings is beer. Be smart about how much you buy and what you buy when supplying beer. I recommend only doing 1 maybe 2 craft beers, most people don't drink a lot of beer at weddings so they might only have 1 or 2 beers. I normally recommend purchasing 2 to 4 12 packs of a crowd pleaser like a Miller Light etc (don't buy a lot), same amount for a craft beer and then about the same amount for an imported beer. If you are serving liquor at the bar - most people will choose the liquor over the beer.
- Liquor: The most popular choice at the bar. Each handle of liquor contains about 40 shots. I normally recommend for a wedding of about 120 guests to get 6 to 8 handles or larger bottle of each kind of liquor.
- Signature Cocktails: You can do a couples drinks OR a bride's drink and a groom's drink - keep it simple and pick drinks that would be popular choices at a wedding or social gathering and that would be easy for the bartenders to make and serve quickly.
- You can create bar signs OR make small signs/coasters or programs to put around with QR codes with the drink menu.
Popular Signature Cocktails:
Old Fashioned
Moscow Mule
Aperol Spritz
Berry Mojito |
Gin and Tonic
Blackberry Bramble
Whiskey Sour
Vodka Soda |
Bee's Knees
French 75
Spicy Margarita
Blackberry Lavender Champagne |
Where to purchase the booze?!?!
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When you purchase the alcohol make sure to ask about delivery/currier services to have your alcohol delivered to your venue if you do not plan on delivering it yourself. Confirm with your venue if you can bring the alcohol at the rehearsal and store at the venue or what time it can be delivered on the day of your wedding. Your caterer is normally also working as your bartender and will take care of the alcohol (icing it down etc) at setup on wedding day.
