UGH, supplying the alcohol, how much/what to get?

1) chardonnay

2) merlot

3) Sam Adams

4) Blue Moon

5) Guinness

6) Some kind of brandy or whisky? I don't really drink hard liquor so won't be much help on that.

Why make the switch to a full open bar?

For 125 people, figure on of age people having 1 drink an hour. Don't do a full open bar if you are buying all the booze. Buy vodka, rum and gin. I'd recommend Titos for vodka, it has the taste of expensive stuff without the pricetag. Have mixers like club, tonic, coke and cranberry juice. This way people can get vodka club, vodka tonic, gin and tonic, and vodka cranberry.

Then have wine, beer and your signature drink as whatever else is possible to drink.

1 bottle of wine = 5 servings

1 case = 12 bottles

750ml bottle of liquor = 18 servings (1.5 oz servings)

1 bottle/can = 1 serving of beer

1 full sized keg = 165 beers

General rule of thumb is to also go heavier one wine. You could do 50% wine, 30% alcohol, 20% beer.

@Koch Bride, okay, see, that shows how little I drink or what "full bar" means! HAHA, I pretty much thought that if you have more than a few types of liquor, you've got a full bar! LOL. That's right, I forgot that we have kids there also, there are 10 kids, so our of age drinkers are 115 adults.

This is a really good post about it.

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

One last thing, I've googled this before, and one case of beer is actually 24 bottles.

We are doing 2 wines (white & red) 2 beers (Bud Light & Dos Equis), Vodka & Whiskey. We have to pay a corkage fee with our venue. If not I would add a rum.

I have to supply my alcohol too. My wedding planner is actually going to send me a list of what I need to get. Once she sends it to me I can post it here in the comments. I'm having 100 people, so you'll just have to bump it up a little.

We are expecting 400 people for our outdoor reception.

We are only doing Chardonnay and White Zinfandel and those will be boxed.

We are only getting Bud and Bud Light in kegs.

We are only serving Captain, Stoli’s and Jack Daniels.

And that’s all.

We’ll have this information on our website so if you don’t want to drink what we have, then BYOB.

Do a VERY limited bar or you'll spend outrageous money. My parents supplied the alcohol for my sister's wedding and they ran out but we had 250 people who drink heavily. For 125 you'll probably need

One keg each of a light and dark beer, Bud Light and Shiner.

If you're doing full liquor do a vodka, whiskey, and rum around three - four bottles of each.

3-4 bottles of a white and red wine.

Make sure you have a lot of liquor that goes into the signature drink because everyone will want to try that. And don't forget the typical mixers; coke, sprite, soda water, cranberry.

A couple of things to add to the PP's comments:

Have at least a lighter beer/lager (Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Etc.) and a darker/good beer (Sam Adams, Heineken or Stella, etc). That should satisfy most people's tastes. Price out kegs before you order them - I found bottle and cans from Total Wine & More (or Costco or BevMo) were actually cheaper than a keg once you factored in all the rental fees. But of course that depends on what type of beer you're getting - just do your research before you buy.

For wine, do a white (Chardonnay is the most popular, I hate it but that's just me. LOL) and a red (Cabernet Sauvigon or Merlot). The sweeter wines (white zin and moscato) are hit or miss but could be added as a third wine option.

I agree with Vodka, Dark Rum, and I would probably do Whiskey over Gin. I guess that depends on your crowd though - I don't know many Gin drinkers. Coke, Diet, Tonic, and OJ and/or Cranberry should suffice for mixers.

Thanks for asking this! We have 109 adults, and we're just doing beer and wine...so I have the same question!

We had to supply our own alcohol too and so decided on serving just wine and beer. We had 7-8 cases of wine (12 bottles each) and probably around 10 cases of beer for about 110 people. I was paranoid that we'd run out (because I've heard stories!) and we had tons left over. We were able to return what wasn't opened (about 3 cases of wine and 2 of beer). I'd rather have to return than to run out though!

People seemed fine with not having liquor as they could have as much as they wanted of the beer and wine and we also served punch, tea/coffee, pop, sparkling juice and water. Unless you know that a good number of your guests will only drink the hard stuff, I'd keep it simple and just do beer and wine.

@erin, I think you're right. We may be better of just doing our signature drink, beer, and wine. After that, people will just have to get over it, haha! Unless budget permits, that may be what we end up doing.

Thanks for this post, rusticbride! I needed the same information!

Koch Bride, thank you for sharing that link... VERY helpful. :-)

We did open bar and had 100 guests ( adults only) and paid to have the upgraded package to include liquor as well as beer and wine. We did the inclusive package with our venue so we ended up paying 18/ per person and if there were any other drinks not included, we just bought them and gave them to the bartender and she only served those particular bottles to us. It turned out great for everyone and still affordable for us. But the price was predetermined so we knew before it happened how much was going to be spent and didn't have to worry if we would go over budget. And champagne wasn't included either, but that didn't bother us, we still has our toasts just fine without it. It wasn't a biggie for me or husband. But to each their own, everybody feels differently. Whatever you do, it's gonna be a great time!

Super-duper helpful

Calculate 9 ounces per person for everything. Some will drink more wine and less beer or vice versa, but this way everything will come out very close in the end and you won't have an overabundance of booze leftover.

Careful with kegs--you usually end up with a lot of waste (keg not kept to proper temperature, overpumping, if it doesn't get finished you can't take it home with you...). Cans offer more variety, plus you can take the leftovers home

We are having 118 people. We went through our guest list and categorized guests into (1) drinkers (2) moderate and (3) non-drinkers. This helped us to really narrow things down. There are drink calculators on line too if you just type in a search like, "calculate alcohol for a party of 120". Lastly, liquor stores tend to have knowledgeable people on staff and they will recommend not only amount but kinds. Someone was able to help me pair the food on our menu with wines too. We are only serving a few mixed drinks to keep it easy. Rum and coke. Vodka and OJ/cranberry juice. Beer we are getting a half keg.