Wedding alcohol

Are you purchasing the alcohol yourself? Also how many hours do you plan to have the alcohol? If everyone won’t be drinking I’d say maybe 20 bottles of wine, 10 red & 10 white.

View Quoted Comment I am buying it all myself! Probably 3 hours (after ceremony)

View Quoted Comment Oh okok. 3 hours isn’t bad at all. Do the people who do drink, drink a lot?

View Quoted Comment Yes ma’am. They are “drinking scientist” haha

View Quoted Comment Lol, fair enough. Maybe up it to 15 bottles each 😅 and prob two different beer options depending on what you both like. Do you have a strict budget?

A bottle of wine is roughly 4 glasses. Here is a beverage calculator: https://www.bevmo.com/drink-calculator Perhaps you can purchase from a vendor that takes back extra bottles like Total Wine.

I think it is totally ok to have that only because you're still hosting it

Just beer / wine is totally fine and a great compromise for a tight budget. I cant imagine anyone would be upset and if they are they're not really being reasonable.

It is totally fine that you have that selection, the average person drinks 1.5 (if your guests drink a lot, you consider 2drinke per person per hour) drinks per hour, so you can calculate this.

55 people x 2drinks x 3 hours = 330 drinks approx

Consider 4 drinks per bottle.

**Purchase from a vendor who will accept back leftover bottles.

View Quoted Comment Right and If we had the funds and could afford rides home it would be different. We definitely do not want people too drunk to drive home!

I would add seltzers into the mix because they are so popular.

Just beer and wine is a pretty common alcohol option, but if you're buying all the alcohol yourself then you might be able to get different alcohols/ mixers. If you figure it's like a shot or two per drink and you get however many shots per bottle (especially if you get a bigger bulk-sized bottle that's a better cost per ounce than a smaller one), and then mix that with juice or pop (both usually cheaper than alcohol) that evens out to a fairly decent deal. You could even come up with a signature cocktail that could be mixed ahead of time and then just have it on tap. Are you having someone bartend?

View Quoted Comment I am actually having someone bartend.

You can serve anything you want. Some people love beer/wine and others won’t touch it so make sure you have a wide selection of non alcoholic beverages. A box is the equivalent of 2-3 full bottles of wine. Ask your local BevMo/Total Wine/liquor wholesaler what their suggestions are.


Also there is a misconception that people don’t get drunk on beer/wine like they do liquor and that is not true more often than not.

View Quoted Comment

Good call! Your plans of beer and wine sound great.

I agree with what most others are saying. We had two signature drinks that we bought Ingredients for, some beer, and some wine. People were just fine and everyone got home ok. Don’t overthink it. Use those calculators above.

Where I live it's standard to serve 1 drink for cocktail hour (fruit cocktail or fizz), wine with each course of the meal, and bubbly for toasting with speeches.

There are also soft drinks but doesn't need to be a massive selection, and tea/coffee with the cake.

It's more than enough an puts a cap on the spending, plus it's fun to spend time selecting nice but affordable wines to go with the meal.