Wedding Times

Most people who supply their own alcohol at their wedding tend to err on the side of caution and buy too much. This is generally a good principle to follow. Make sure however, that the store where you are ordering the alcohol from will allow you to return it or you will be taking home a lot of alcohol with you. There are some general guidelines to follow so you don’t end up buying far too much or far too little.

One bottle of wine is enough for five glasses. One bottle of champagne is enough for six glasses. This will help you determine how many cases of wine and champagne you will need. Wine and champagne both come in cases that contain twelve bottles. When purchasing hard liquor, you are best to go with a 1¾ liter bottle. This contains forty 1.5 ounce servings, giving you between forty and fifty shots, depending on how strong you want to make them. The standard mixed drink has one ounce of alcohol in it so if you’re looking to cut back on the alcohol costs, there’s nothing wrong with telling the bartender to only mix the standard one ounce when making the drinks, unless the guest requests otherwise. When serving beer, you may be better off getting a keg, which holds 53 twelve-ounce servings, rather than buying individual bottles.

Typically each will have one drink an hour. On average, ¼ of the guests don’t drink at weddings. This is especially true if your guest list includes children, elderly, or women that are expecting. Use the formula of one drink per guest, per hour to determine how much alcohol you will need. If you are going to only bring in wine, based on the formula you will need five cases of wine for a four-hour reception with 100 guests.

The same formula applies to other alcohol. For the same four hour reception with 100 guests, you will generally need: two cases of beer, 1½ cases of white wine, ¾ case of red wine, 1½ cases of champagne, three bottles of scotch, one bottle of bourbon, two bottles of gin, four bottles of vodka, one bottle of rum, tequila, dry vermouth, and sweet vermouth.

Remember to take the following factors into consideration. People are more likely to drink white wine than red wine at weddings. This may be because people are afraid of spilling the red wine, or simply because there is a certain elegance about white wine. Buy enough champagne for everyone and don’t be bitter if at the end of the night, you see most of it left untouched at the tables. If you are looking to save money on your alcohol, forego tequila. This liquor is generally the less popular and the least likely to be missed. By the same token, splurge on the scotch. People sip this so they won’t costly need a refill and those that regularly drink scotch will notice if it’s not good quality.