How Much Alcohol for a Wedding: The Formula, and Shopping Lists for 50 to 200 Guests

The question of how much alcohol for a wedding has a real answer, and it is not "a lot". It is a per-person formula that caterers and bar managers have used for decades, and once you have it you can produce a shopping list for any guest count in five minutes.

This guide gives you the formula, the conversions from drinks to bottles and cases, complete shopping lists for 50, 100, 150, and 200 guests, and the adjustments for a beer-and-wine bar, signature cocktails, and dinner wine. If you want the numbers for your exact count, the wedding alcohol calculator does all of this live, with prices.

The formula

Three inputs decide everything: how many guests drink, how long the bar is open, and what they drink.

Step 1 — Guests who drink. Not everyone will. Take your guest count and multiply by the share who drink: 75% is a safe planning number for a mixed crowd, 60% if there are lots of children or non-drinkers, 85% for a young, party-heavy list.

Step 2 — Drinks per drinker. The consumption curve is front-loaded. Everyone arrives at once, thirsty, and then settles.

A 5-hour bar comes to 5.75 drinks per drinker; a 6-hour bar 6.5; an 8-hour bar 7.5. The old rule of "one drink per person per hour" overestimates a long night and underestimates the first hour, which is exactly when the queue forms.

Step 3 — The split. Most mixed crowds pour about 40% beer, 40% wine, 20% spirits. Shift it 10 points toward whichever your friends actually drink.

Worked example, 100 guests, 5 hours: 100 × 75% = 75 drinkers. 75 × 5.75 = 431 drinks. Split 40/40/20: 172 beers, 172 glasses of wine, 86 spirit drinks.

Turning drinks into bottles

The toast is counted on all guests, not just drinkers: a non-drinker still gets a glass to raise. Ice is the line most often bought on the day in a panic; it is cheap, so buy it early and put it in a cool box in the shade.

Shopping lists by guest count

All four lists assume 75% of guests drink, a 5-hour bar, a 40/40/20 split, and a sparkling toast. Round up to whole cases; most shops take back unopened ones.

Spirits look low because a bottle goes a long way: 16 drinks each at a measured pour. If you have a free-pouring friend behind the bar, double it.

Adjusting for your bar

Beer and wine only

Drop the spirits line and let beer and wine take its share (a 50/50 split is typical). For 100 guests that becomes about 216 beers (9 cases) and 43 bottles of wine (4 cases), no mixers, and about a third less ice. On bottles alone it costs about the same as a full bar — a measured spirit pour is cheap per drink — but it needs no mixers, a third less ice, fewer glasses, and one bartender fewer, and at a venue it is the package that costs 25 to 40 percent less per head. Nobody notices the missing shelf after the first hour.

Two signature cocktails

Signature cocktails are the middle ground: the character of a spirits bar without stocking a whole shelf. Decide what share of all drinks will be cocktails — 30% is common — and work out each one from its recipe. A cocktail with 50ml of spirit needs a 750ml bottle for every 15 drinks; with 90ml of mixer, 100 cocktails need 9 litres. For 100 guests at 30%, that is about 130 cocktails, split between two recipes: 9 bottles of spirit and 10 litres of mixer, and the rest of the bar reverts to beer and wine.

Wine at dinner

If wine is poured at the tables during a seated meal, it comes on top of the bar, not out of it. Plan half a bottle per drinker for the meal: 38 extra bottles for 100 guests. This is the line most home-run bars forget, and it is why the wine runs out at 9 p.m.

A longer or shorter bar

Use the hourly table above. A 4-hour bar is 5 drinks per drinker; 6 hours is 6.5; an all-day wedding with an 8-hour bar is 7.5, not 9, because people slow down.

Cash bar

If guests pay for their own drinks after a welcome drink and the toast, you only buy those two: one pour of something on arrival and one sparkling pour each. For 100 guests that is about 20 bottles of sparkling and 20 of whatever the welcome drink is.

What it costs

Multiply the list by your local prices. Using round supermarket numbers — $2.50 a beer, $14 a bottle of wine, $28 a bottle of spirits, $18 for sparkling, $2 a litre for mixers — the 100-guest list above comes to roughly $1,400, or $14 a guest. A venue's per-head open-bar package for the same guests is typically $35–60 a head, which is the argument for a dry-hire venue if you have one.

The alcohol calculator takes your own prices and returns the total, cost per guest, and cost per drinker; the wedding cost estimator puts the bar in the context of everything else.

Ten things the formula doesn't tell you

1. Buy on a returns policy. Most wine merchants and warehouse shops take back unopened cases. That makes rounding up free.
2. Chill more than you think. A case of beer takes 4 hours in ice to get cold. Start the afternoon before.
3. Two bartenders per 100 guests for the first hour, or the queue becomes the cocktail hour.
4. Put water out, visibly, everywhere. It slows the bar down in the good way.
5. Non-alcoholic options that aren't an afterthought. One real mocktail, not just cola. Plan a soft drink per guest per hour.
6. Don't leave the spirits self-serve. Free pouring roughly doubles consumption.
7. Close the bar for dinner and speeches. Nobody queues during a toast, and the bar staff get a break.
8. Last orders 30 minutes before the end, announced once.
9. Label the bar. A sign saying what's free and what isn't saves the bartender a hundred conversations — the wedding sign maker has a bar sign with a who's-paying line.
10. Someone is photographing the bar all night. It is where guests are relaxed and their phones are out, which is why the candid photos from the bar are usually better than the ones from the dance floor. A small QR sign there, opening a shared album, gets you those photos; see wedding QR code ideas.

For the food side of the same arithmetic — how much of everything else to buy — see the party food calculator.

FAQ

How much alcohol do you need for 100 wedding guests?

For 100 guests over a 5-hour reception, plan on about 430 drinks. With a typical 40/40/20 beer/wine/spirits split that is roughly 7 cases of beer, 3 cases of wine, and 6 bottles of spirits, plus 13 bottles of sparkling for a toast and 150 lb of ice.

How many drinks per person at a wedding?

Plan two drinks in the first hour, one an hour for hours two to four, and about three-quarters of a drink an hour after that. Over a 5-hour bar that is about 5.75 drinks for each guest who drinks, which is usually 70 to 80 percent of the room.

How much wine do you need for a wedding of 150?

At 40 percent wine and 5 glasses a bottle, 150 guests over 5 hours need about 52 bottles for the bar, or 4.5 cases. If you also pour wine at dinner, add half a bottle per drinker: another 56 bottles.

Is it cheaper to do a beer and wine only wedding bar?

At a venue, yes: beer-and-wine packages typically run 25 to 40 percent less per head than a full bar. If you're buying the bottles yourself the saving is smaller, because a measured spirit pour is cheap per drink — what you save is mixers, ice, glassware, and bartender time. Either way, most guests don't notice the missing shelf after the first hour.