How much alcohol do I bring for 50 guests?

Figure on 2-3 drinks per person is a good rule of thumb. I'd recommend a keg of a basic crowd pleasing beer like Yuengling.

Here is a calculator that should help: http://www.realsimple.com/weddings/wedding-wine-liquor-calculator-00000000008314/

I would find a wholesaler who will let you return unopened wine and beer so you don't have to worry about buying the exact right amount. Also, make sure your bartender locks up any leftover alcohol - I've heard more than a few horror stories of tipsy guests helping themselves to a bottle or two on their way out the door.

If you do kegs, it's hard to say how many you'll need without knowing more about your crowd. Are they usually beer drinkers? Are you doing beer and wine, or are you serving liquor as well?

Oh, and the usual calculation per guest is 2 drinks for the first hour, then one drink per hour thereafter. So in a five hour reception, that's six drinks each, so 300 total.

A bottle of wine is 4-5 glasses, and a full-size keg is 165. So if you do one keg, I'd do about 30-35 bottles of wine. I'd do about half red and half white, or 15 red, 15 white, and 5-10 sparkling (Jaume Serra Cristallino brand cava is inexpensive but tastes great).

@Koch bride, what is Yuengling? It sounds interesting lol is it domestic?

I'll answer - Yuengling is a lager from a brewery in Pennsylvania. It's very popular in the mid-Atlantic because it's affordable, but very drinkable (most cheap beers give me a migraine).

It's not available nationwide, and it's a bit of a cult thing in areas where it's not available. I went to a wedding in Maine a few years ago where the Yuengling keg was tapped within 30 minutes (and was limited to wedding party only, which...ugh. Rude.)

We are doing canned beer because they are actually more cost effective than kegs now where we are when we calculted out the drinks. My brother had kegs at his wedding and they ended up having a lot leftover. They didn't have keg drinkers though...I know a lot of people don't care, but ours seem to and we realized that Sams Club is pretty cheap on beer as well as just local sales. Depending on what kind of beer you are planning on. We are going pretty simple, so that may make a difference as well.

We are having an outdoor barn yard type wedding and getting two kegs ourselves...Plus we are having a "his drink" some sort of rum/coke drink a "her drink" vokda/cranberry and wine. WE have 175 people coming and I am still trying to figure out how much exactly we will need

I think 2-3 drinks per person is way low. I would say 1-2 drinks per person per hour.

I did some research on kegs and in the end, they can actually end up costing more than bottles/can. If the venue has the taps, then you're probably fine, but if you need to rent a tap/jockey box/kegerator/etc, then go with bottles/cans. Plus, any excess is easier to take home with you. And like Eleanor said, go with 1-2 drinks/pp/ph. Don't count any children or non-drinkers.

Agreed, and it's all about knowing your crowd. The Maine wedding I mentioned earlier was a hard-drinking crowd, so the kegs were tapped three hours in and the groom's uncle had to go on a beer run.

I have seen all the calculation things on the web for this and my first thought is this would not work with my guests, we are drinkers but we are also making our own wine. we will have about 8 cases of wine total (which may or may not be enough) and we are also doing beer which I have not figured out yet. STUPID Utah and not allowing kegs.

Kegs are fine and many do that. I think it's an easy crowd pleaser