How much Alcohol Should You Buy For YOUR Wedding?
Most brides find out the hard way that "how much alcohol do I need" doesn't have a clean answer. It depends on your guest count, your cocktail recipes, how long you're serving, and how your specific crowd drinks. A 150-person wedding with a beer crowd looks completely different on paper than a 150-person wedding full of cocktail drinkers, even at the same guest count.
There's no universal calculator that accounts for all of that. What there is, is a process, and we walk every single Sipsy client through it before they buy a single bottle.
Why we start with questions, not numbers
Before we touch a spreadsheet or recommend a single brand, we send every client a questionnaire. We need to know your desired menu, what your bar style looks like, and how your guests drink. Every crowd is different and you know your guests better than anyone. We're just here to help you translate that into a list.
Some crowds are beer heavy. Some will plant themselves at the cocktail station all night. Some barely drink at all, and buying for "average drinkers" would leave you with a trunk full of unopened bottles the morning after. The formula only works when it's built around real information about your real wedding, which is why we don't skip this step for anyone.
Here's what most people don't realize: you don't have to offer everything. No rule says your bar needs beer, wine, seltzers, champagne, AND cocktails. You're in control of the menu, and ultimately, that means you're in control of your budget. If your crowd doesn't drink wine, skip it. If nobody's going to touch a seltzer, don't buy a case. Your bar should reflect what your guests will actually enjoy, not some checklist of what a wedding bar is supposed to look like. No two weddings we do are the same, and that's the whole point.
Once we know your vision, your guests, and your budget, we build the list around all three.
The formula we actually use
For average drinkers, we plan for 2 drinks in the first hour and 1 drink per hour after that. It accounts for the fact that people front-load early in the evening and naturally slow down as the night goes on. For a 4-hour reception that's about 5 drinks per person. For light drinkers we pull back and heavy drinkers we add a buffer. Average is the baseline most Oklahoma weddings land on and it holds up pretty consistently across the events we've done.
From there, we split by drink type. In our experience serving drinks in Oklahoma weddings, when cocktails are being offered, it is a pretty safe assumption that about 60% of your guests will enjoy cocktails, 30% beer, and 10% wine, but we apply that loosely and adjust based on what you tell us. It's a starting point, not a rule.
What it actually looks like: Andrea and Mark's wedding
When Andrea first reached out, we started where we always do. Questions. What did she and Mark love to drink? What did their friend group look like? What feeling did they want the bar to have?
She mentioned almost immediately that she and Mark had their first date at a cocktail bar, and she'd ordered a Lemon Drop Martini. She still remembered it! Mark, on the other hand, is a bourbon guy through and through, the kind who has opinions about which distilleries are worth the price. So when it came time to build their cocktail menu, it wasn't really a hard decision. A Lemon Drop for her. An Old Fashioned for him. Two drinks that meant something, served to the people who'd watched them fall in love.
That's what a bar menu can be when you actually think about it.
They had 150 guests total, 120 of them drinking, with 4 hours of service. Andrea mentioned their guest list skewed heavily female, so we knew going in that the Lemon Drop would likely run at a much higher volume than the Old Fashioned. We planned for 60% of cocktail orders going to the Lemon Drop and 40% to the Old Fashioned. In order to maintain their budget, Mark and Andrea decided not to offer seltzers and they also decided they did not want any awkward speeches which meant no champagne toast. Their guests were average drinkers across the board.
Once we had all of that information, we whipped out the calculator.
120 guests at 5 drinks each comes to 600 total drinks for the night. Split by type that comes out to 360 cocktails, 180 beers, and 60 glasses of wine.
Of those 360 cocktails, 216 are Lemon Drops and 144 are Old Fashioneds.
Our Lemon Drop recipe takes 2 oz of vodka and 3/4 oz of triple sec. At 216 drinks, that's 432 oz of vodka, which is 8 1.75L handles, and 162 oz of triple sec, or 3 handles. The Old Fashioned takes 2 oz of bourbon, so 144 drinks comes out to 288 oz, which is 5 handles of bourbon.
For the beer: 180 beers, so 7 to 8 cases of 24.
Wine: 60 glasses at 5 pours per bottle comes to 12 bottles. For their winter wedding we recommended buying more red, and going lighter on the white, and rosé.
Every number on that list came from their actual wedding. Their actual cocktails. Their actual crowd. Not a template.
The part that actually saves you money
When we send your finalized shopping list, we connect you directly with one of our trusted local liquor distributors based on where your venue is located. You send them your list along with your brand preferences and budget, and they handle the rest. Our liquor distributors will place your bulk order, package it up for you and have it ready for pickup or in most cases they can deliver it straight to your venue.
Our clients also receive a discount through these distributors that you won't find at retail. On an order for a 150-person wedding, that's real money back in your pocket.
You get that connection when you book with us. It's part of what we do.
We also always remind clients to ask about return policies before they shop. Most distributors will take back unopened cases and bottles, which means you can buy a comfortable buffer without the anxiety of being stuck with product after the wedding.
The bottom line
Anyone giving you a flat alcohol number without knowing your guest count, your recipes, your crowd, and your budget is simply guessing. We don't guess. Every shopping list we build is specific to your event because a generic answer to this question costs you either money or a dry bar, and neither one is acceptable on your wedding day.
If you want a list built around your actual wedding, that's exactly what we do. Get a quote at sipsyschooner.com and we'll start with the questionnaire.
