Alcohol and soda

First find a store that will let you return unopened bottles. Second, there are beverage calculators, but you can probably make a conservative estimate given that it's a daytime wedding.

Congrats and welcome!

It sounds like you are buying your own bottles? There are liquor calculators on the net. Here's one from Evite...http://www.evite.com/pages/party/drink-calculator.jsp

I had a consumption bar during our brunch buffet reception and served drinks from 11:35 am thru 4 pm. A consumption bar is means that we paid "per drink". We served beer, wine, bloody marys & mimosa's. We had 55 ppl - 40 of those ppl were over the age of 21 and at $3.50 per drink I spent close to $700.00 on alcohol. Since it was an afternoon wedding, I think ppl drank a little less then usual.

Spicy - You have no idea how much you just helped me. My Wedding is 11:30am-4pm. So I would assume that my bar bill will be about the same. Approximately the same number of people as well. We're having beer, wine, bloody marys, mimosas and bellinis.

Thanks for posting this question! I had no idea either! Lol

Hi 2nd chance! I'm glad I helped!!

I had budgeted $1,000.00 for alcohol and I didn't come close to spending it all! I was really nervous too. My guests are light to moderate drinkers but the afternoon wedding seemed to cut back the volume.

During my planning, I did tell my venue to let me know if I hit the $750.00 mark at any point during the reception. Never happened and I'm glad my venue's drinks were reasonably priced.

Stock your own Bar - Alcohol Calculator - shopping list

http://www.thatsthespirit.com/en/drinks/party_calculator.asp

Estimate the total bill for the alcohol

http://thesavvyevent.blogspot.com/2009/02/free-drink-calculator-for-your-next.html

estimate for how much beer/wine you will need

http://www.weddingannouncer.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-8638.html

sample shopping list for 100 people

How Many Drinks??? - figured for a 3 to 3 1/2-hour party - adjust as needed

http://www.greatpartyrecipes.com/how_to_stock_a_bar.html

~ congrats

This is a good question, thanks for the links. I have set my bar limit to $500. I will only have 24 guest and more than have do not drink. We will have a lot of soda, tea, and COFFEE.