How much alcohol for a wedding

[Galliano]

Venue where you supply your own alcohol.
Bar staff and glasses hired.
Wedding in August.
There will be 130 guests. It's not a child free wedding but I don't think there are that many children in the 130 (maybe 10 under 16). There are also a small number of guests who don't drink for religious reasons.
I am urging the groom (my DS) to keep it simple - fizz, wine, couple of premixed cocktails of which one will be pimms, beer.
Googling says allow half a bottle of wine per guest but I assume that's where there's wine on tables and people then move on to ordering drinks from a bar so I think we'll need more.
I'm thinking of at least ordering champagne this week whilst 25% off six bottles offers are around for the bank holiday.
I have no idea how much to get - in total or of champagne specifically.
Any thoughts from anyone?

Keep champagne for toasts so aim for half a glass per person (even tho some won’t drink)

I wouldn’t bother with pre mixed cocktails to be honest Unless you know that’s popular with people?

I would stick with wine, beers and possibly some spirits and soft drinks that double as mixers

If you order from Majestic wine warehouse you can do sale or return on alcohol. That’ll be the best way to do it then you’re not having to judge or get left with loads at the end.

Half a bottle of wine per person is a guide for just a sit down meal, not an entire wedding, you’ll need much more than that!

Will the staff serving also chill the drinks and provide ice too?

Details for Majestic here, I’ve used them before they’re very good.
https://www.majestic.co.uk/services/weddings

we provided drinks at our wedding so told people what was available and gave them the option to bring their own if they wanted something different

hard to know how much but you don’t want to run out. Do you know the split of who will drink beer vs wine?

I'm embarrassed to say there are some problem drinkers which mean I don't want spirits on offer 😨 DS and I thought if we premixed pimms then at least it limits the maximum strength to 20% approx and hopefully it's unpalatable without lemonade!).

Thanks I think this is the right way to go for still wine at least.

They do fizz, beers & spirits too, and ice.

No idea on beer v wine
I wonder if there is a rule of thumb for it
DS is a craft beer nerd and not a lager drinker, not sure if that also applies to his mates and cousins

Ask bar staff what they would usually need or ask a wedding venue. Depends where it is too....

It will also depend on what time you are getting married and how long you are planning to be at the venue.

It is often amazing just how much alcohol can be consumed when it is free.

You might find a local brewery that can do a keg - that was popular at our wedding. We over ordered from majestic and took some back. Allowed about a bottle of wine per person with a red and a white wine. Also I know the rule is 1/2 glass of champagne/sparkling for the toasts but a half glass looks a bit sad so we allowed for 6 glasses from each bottle. I think we returned about 1/3 of the wine we bought but I didn’t want to run out.

No spirits or cocktails but did provide plenty of soft drinks and mixers for anyone that wanted to bring their own. And asked the catering crew to keep the water jugs topped up all day/evening. A lot of people drink too much because they’re thirsty so plenty of water helps.

Do sale or return so you don’t have to spend any time worrying about running out of booze. We did sale or return, over ordered deliberately and returned what wasn’t drunk and we didn’t want to keep.

Far more was drunk than those guides suggest so I’m pleased I didn’t rely on one. I would have been so embarrassed to run out of booze or food.

We used majestic and went with their rule of thumb (and then bought half again). Nearly ran out! Lots of half drunk bottles left on tables unfortunately- if people aren’t paying they tend to put down a glass, forget where, and just get another.

It's not local to us. DS and his fiancée are from opposite ends of the country and have chosen a barn venue in the middle. It makes it very difficult to get a handle on anything not least because the happy couple are not being very communicative. I'm of course keen not to be the interfering MIL so trying to limit how much I press them. However it's been agreed from beginning that we would contribute the alcohol so I do feel I can plan that a little bit! We are going down to the area for the weekend a couple of months before. I'll give the local majestic a ring to see if that's adequate time or if I should be making arrangements further in advance. I'm still inclined to order some champagne from Sainsbury's or Tesco because if you layer 25% off on top of one that's already on offer it just makes it so cheap

Ceremony at 3, one meal, closes at midnight I think

If doubling up on offers from Sainsburys/Tesco works out much cheaper than Majestic, which it probably will, you could err on the generous side and if there's some left, drink it yourself or give it away to friends and family either at the wedding or over the coming months.

I agree that half a bottle of wine/few cans won't be enough for an all day wedding for heavier drinkers. A know many on MN would be happy with a couple of small glasses of wine/champagne, but many would drink two bottles of wine in that time without being particularly drunk as it's over a long time and with food.

A keg from a craft brewery is a good idea if you have a few people who drink that.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that buying champagne from a supermarket - even at 25% off - is cheaper than getting it from a wine merchant. Because the supermarkets stock champagnes by big names but, IMO, aren’t actually very good and are more a triumph of marketing.

We arranged a Champagne tasting with our wine merchant. We ended up choosing a Champagne that was by a producer I hadn’t heard of. It was only £20 odd a bottle, despite a declared vintage, and people raved about it. So much better than LP or Moet etc which is more expensive for poorer quality. You’re just paying for the name.

That sounds like a lot of drinking time. I would definitely go with a bottle of wine per guest, plus beer, lots of beer😁

I would offer wine, beer, cider. For beers and ciders, if you can get them in kegs/boxes rather than individual at retail price, it will likely be cheaper.

Limiting spirits won't do anything for the problem drinkers - I say this as a former problem drinker - unless you put an overall limit on everyone.

Only you know how much people in your circle drink, but if it's a long afternoon/evening with pre-dinner drinks (1-2), drinks at dinner (1-2), and then music/dancing late into the evening (another 2-3), I'd budget about 1.5-2 bottles of wine per person or 4-8 beers/ciders plus extra.

You likely won't use all of those, but better to have extra than run out. You can always send the leftovers home with guests/wedding party as a thank you.

I went to a wedding where we had drinks tokens. I think we got 3 each (meal had red and white wine on the table and a champagne toast) and after that you paid a set price (£4?) for a glass of wine, beer or prosecco. Soft drinks were free. It was to avoid the half drunk glasses being abandoned situation and as to not encourage over excess just because it’s free.

it seemed quite sensible.

We were advised by Majestic it's half a bottle of wine pp for the sit down meal - that takes into account those not drinking, drinking a little and those drinking a lot - it was pretty accurate as I think we only had one bottle left.

I would ask in Majestic - they will have a better idea.

This is definitely my experience too from when I used to work at a wedding venue. When the bar was a free bar, I have never seen as many 3/4 filled glasses abandoned everywhere, because people know they can freely and easily get another drink.

IME at a "free" bar most people will drink much more than half a bottle, especially if the do is over several hours.

I wouldn't bother with the cocktails, but if you're not offering any spirits, I think you need to tell people in advance. I'd be happy to drink want I'm offered from beer or wine, but I can think of a number of people I know who wouldn't be at all happy with that/ would think there was nothing for them to drink because they don't like either.

You should be able to get bottles on sale or return?

When we did this, we just did wine, beer, and a sparkling wine toast. We skipped the spirits entirely. I normally prefer spirits, but they just make for a much more complicated bar and honestly, we had some people attending that didn’t need access . I have absolutely no memory of how much we bought.

I know we got the beer in kegs from a small craft brewery. It was the only request my husband had about the whole wedding was his favorite beer from university.

DH and I went on a booze cruise weekend to France to get champagne and wine for our wedding years ago. I bought 1 bottle of fizzy wine/prosecco per 8 guest for bucks fizz drink on arrival at reception, 1 bottle of Champagne per 6 guests for the toast. I bought 5 bottles of wine per 8 guests to drink with the meal. I supplied soft drinks of squash and lemonade. I put money behind the bar to pay for our guests first drink. I also bought 2 cases of wine for offering a glass to our evening guests when they arrived. There was enough wine for it to flow freely at our afternoon reception as quite a few guests did not drink alcohol or just had toast and soft drinks and some champagne and wine left over. We had one bottle of leftover Champagne when we got back from our honeymoon. I also kept a bottle of leftover Champagne back for our first wedding anniversary. Of the leftover bottles of wine more were red than white. We had Nicolas Champagne because that's our favourite one. Those were amounts a friend who runs a restaurant told us to cater for if we didn't want to run out.

I would do Prosecco for welcome drinks, white and red wine with dinner, champagne for the toast. After dinner have a bar with Prosecco, wine, lager and beer. In my experience many people with drink fizz all night, that was what we got through the most of. We got through way more than a bottle per person!