Buying your own alcohol

For 250 guests, I'm spending about $5k, beer (kegs), wine (boxed), vodka, gin, whiskey & mixers/fruit.

There are sites to figure out how much is needed by how many guests you have ...but I think its like 2 drink minimum per guest.

so to answer your question.....a shit-ton

Http://www.thealcoholcalculator.com/ This may help you get a general idea. ETA : I was once told 2 drinks pp/ph minimum.

This is the article that I like:

http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/01/calculate-alcohol-for-wedding/

Http://www.totalwine.com/eng/party-planning/how-to-plan-a-party.cfm. Here's another.

@GeekyBride I think the 2 drinks pp/ph might be for alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks.

I've read for buying alcohol 1 hr/pp and for non-alcoholic drinks 2 drinks for the 1st hour /pp and 1 drink/pp for each hour after that.

Double post arggggghhhhhhhhh

I have never seen one of those websites work out to anything reasonable, FYI. Go talk to a liquor store and your caterer re: numbers.

2 drinks per person per hour is about right. 5 glasses (depending on how full the glasses will be poured) per bottle of wine, and about 125 twelve ounce glasses of beer per keg.

Ya I agree m. I tried some before, and tried the one from GeekyBride, but it's always an extreme amount. I'm not going for an open bar feel, just enough for everyone who wants to partake to be able. Non-alcoholic drinks are provided, just the alcohol we have to worry about.

That helps,. Do you have to provide mixers or fruit? Limes, lemons, tonic water, etc etc? That drives up the price too.

Honestly, call wherever you're sourcing your liquor from for pricing, and then multiply it out by guest.

In theory the calculator works, but I found in practice I got super high numbers, or super low numbers.

We're actually just putting 3 bottles of wine on each table (each table seats 8) and having beer/wine during the cocktail hour so we're buying way less. And if we run out we run out, not the end of the world.

But I do think you should have non-alcoholic drinks (especially water) in a 1-2/hr/pp even if you don't use those calculators for the alcohol.

Good article Emaebe, that was really informative. I guess it comes down to knowing my crowd too. I'm probably looking at 50% alcohol drinkers, if that.

Ya we do have to provide that stuff m, I think we are going to do lemon and limes. Since we are only doing beer and wine, Idk if the rest is really necessary.

In LA there is a company called Liquid Catering that is awesome. they estimate the amount for you and afterwards they come pick up any unopened bottles and reimburse you. anything like that near you? it was especially helpful to have them deliver it all to the venue. we had planned to use costco and I had looked up alcohol wedding amounts needed for a wedding online and calculated it all myself. I don't have the spreadsheet with me at work but you can find that info online easy. I think bevmo even calculates it for you on their website

This is what bevmo.com said for 200 people, 4 hours with champagne toast:

Beverages Needed

100 - Bottle(s) of 750ml Wine

500 - Bottle(s) of 12oz Beer

0 - Bottle(s) of 1.75L of Spirits

40 - Bottle(s) of 750ml Champagne/Sparkling Wine

Thank you sooo much Mrs.Temme...I will look into that!

You're welcome!

We have about 85 guests, and we're doing beer and wine with one signature cocktail for cocktail hour. But for that amount of guests, we are doing four cases of wine (2 red, 1 white and 1 sparkling) and three kegs. If I used the alcohol calculator, that's way too much beer and not enough wine - like the others said, it's about knowing your crowd. We have a heavy beer -drinking crowd. At my close friend's wedding last year, the caterer went with standard numbers and actually ran out of alcohol (they had to run out and get more!), and they didn't have the family I have. So if you know you don't have a lot of drinkers, you can plan accordingly.

We are looking at beer and hard cider only. When I was doing my calculations for 180 people we were looking at 30 cases total