Wedding Alcohol Calculator

Stocking the bar for a wedding comes down to one question: how much wine, beer, and spirits will the room actually drink? The estimate here answers it, landing on quantities that keep guests refreshed without leaving you to either overspend or scramble when the bottles run low.

The math assumes 10% of guests don't drink. Of the rest, 30% are light drinkers at 0.5 drinks an hour, the share you enter as heavy drinkers (20% by default) have 1.5 an hour, and everyone else has 1 an hour, for the length of the reception. A Beer & Wine bar splits the drinks 60% wine and 40% beer; a Full Bar splits them 30% wine, 30% beer and 40% spirits. Wine is counted at 5 glasses per 750 ml bottle ($12), beer in 24-can cases ($30) and spirits at 17 pours per bottle ($25), with $2 a guest for mixers on a full bar and $0.50 a guest for ice. There's no built-in buffer, so the planning tips suggest buying 10-15% extra.

Non-alcoholic options deserve a spot on the list too, and when the count is close, rounding up beats running short. Length is the variable people misjudge most: a five-hour reception drinks far more than a two-hour cocktail hour, so scale the order to how long the bar will actually be open.