Post # 1
Member
601 posts
Busy bee
- Wedding: September 2010 - Heinz Chapel Ceremony, Museum Reception
My venue allows us to bring in our own alcohol, which is great, because we will save lots of money! The only thing is, we don’t know how much to purchase, or how much it will cost. We are planning to have a cocktail hour first, and we’re not going to shut the bar down until the reception is over, so 5 hours of alcohol service. As of right now, we’re thinking of providing two kinds of beer, a red and a white wine, and 2-3 signature cocktails. We will have about 120 guests, but probably only 100-110 of them will be drinking. On the other hand, some of the drinkers will drink pretty heavily, I expect. So, what do you think? For you bees who did your own alcohol, what did you spend? Can you think of an estimate for this situation?
Post # 3
Bee
11826 posts
Sugar Beekeeper
- Wedding: September 2009 - Barr Mansion
We did alcohol (full bar, beer, wine) for about 100 guests, I’m guessing 80% were drinking? We spent a little under $700 and we had a TON of leftovers. We also drank more of it at the after party. The total time the bar was open at the wedding was about 4 hours.
Post # 4
Member
2889 posts
Sugar bee
I guess your costs can vary greatly depending on quality. We are also in a BYOB situation and planning on beer and wine with the possiility of a few signature drinks for cocktail hour. For 100 people we, plan 80% will drink and are planning on 40 bottles of wine, 2 quarter kegs of local beer, 10 bottles of champagne (just for the toast), whatever we need for signature drinks, planning 2 per person for cocktail hour. I think we wil also buy some back up wine and save the reciept in case it is left over. I know some guests could easily drink a bottle of wine alone but others don’t drink at all. I guess you really need to know your guest list. We are aiming for a wine that costs about $10 per bottle.
Post # 5
Member
235 posts
Helper bee
Maybe I’m totally off…we have $3500 bugeted for 125 people: 2 types of beer, 2 wine (one red, one white) champagne (prosecco, probably), signature drink, vodka (absolute), burbon (marker’s), and gin… It would be so nice if it was less!
Post # 6
Member
43 posts
Newbee
With that size of wedding you should be able to budget for less than $600 based on the type of drinks you want. I would def. suggest looking inot your area liquor/wine stores that do buy-back services. Alot of places will let you purchase what you think you need and if you have any left over unopen bottles they will buy back. That way if your nervous, you can buy a liitle extra and sell it back to store if its not used.
Post # 7
Member
601 posts
Busy bee
- Wedding: September 2010 - Heinz Chapel Ceremony, Museum Reception
Holy cow, you all had some really different experiences! Hahaha, so far I can narrow it down to anywhere between $600 and $3500.
Post # 8
Member
1260 posts
Bumble bee
I think someone posted this from this site – but here it is again!
http://www.evite.com/pages/party/drink-calculator.jsp’ defer=’defer
http://www.perfect-party-planning.net/drinks_calculator.html
We have bugeted $600, and that is for a wedding with 60 guests. We are serving wine and beer only, along with a non-alcoholic fruit punch. But some of our guests are likely to drink heavier, while others might only have a polite glass. You know your guests best, so try out those drink calculators and see if they help.
Also of note: Many liquor stores will let you return unopened bottles of wine. We plan on doing this if our guests don’t end up drinking as much as we thought!
Post # 9
Member
601 posts
Busy bee
- Wedding: September 2010 - Heinz Chapel Ceremony, Museum Reception
Ooh, Valhalla, thanks! I hadn’t seen those before! That’s helpful.
