All About Alcohol

We're inviting 85 people and we're only service beer & wine, no hard liquor. The articles I've read say to account for 2 drinks per person for cocktail hour and 1 drink per person every hour after until the end of the reception. We're having a Sunday afternoon wedding, most of our guests will be working the next day, and not all of our guests drink so we're doing roughly half of the suggested amount so the heavy drinkers don't go overboard. I vote bottles over kegs, they're much less hassle and kegs are barely cheaper (if at all). We're having three kinds of beer: bud light, yuengling, and miller lite. We're also having one white and one red wine. The articles also say to do 75% wine and 25% beer but we're all southern and our crowd drinks way more beer than wine so we're doing more like 65% beer and 35% wine. I'll probably start buying alcohol around the first of the year and I plan on getting most of it from Total Wine, Sam's Club, or Walmart. Hope this helps!

Beer and wine DO go bad! I wouldn’t worry about liquor though.
For a self-serve bar, I’d definitely avoid liquor though— lots of reasons: too much mess and hassle if people are mixing their own drinks, WAY too much opportunity for people to over serve themselves.

As far as how much to buy (and what)— definitely consider your crowd! You know them best. There are loads of online calculators for party planning - and the general average suggestion is , per person: 2 drinks for the first hour, and 1 drink per hour after that. Some drink more, some drink less, some don’t drink at all, so there’s a bit of a balance...but for MY crowd, I knew that EVERYONE would be drinking and we had more heavy drinkers than light, so we WAY rounded up (and I’m glad of it!), we had some leftovers & returns, but I’d rather that than running out.
As far as WHAT to get— we looked down our guestlist and noted what each person tended to drink when we hang out (liquor type, beer type, wine type) and factored that in to our considerations. We knew we had a big craft beer crowd so we chose 3 fun options (ipa, pilsner, summer wheat) and then a bud light for the light beer crowd. We did 2 reds & 2 whites and a sparking for wine , that we knew would appeal to most people. And we did liquor too (with a bartender).

As far as SHOPPING— id actually advise doing it all at once is helpful . Look around at local stores for good discounts and return policy. We were eyeing Total Wine, but found an even better deal close by with a discount store that offered a Case discount (some thing like if you buy 12 bottles, you get 10% off— this is often true of wine, but our store offered the same discount on liquor which was nice), and had a no hassle return policy of unopened bottles. (Everyone’s return policy is a little different. Total wine for example allows returns except for anything carbonated that was chilled), so definitely check into the nuances of that. The other benefit to all-at-once shopping was, we were able to purchase the cold stuff cold: we ordered all the white wine cases a couple days in advance and they held them in their refrigerators for us until the day of! We chose brands based on discounts at the moment — we knew we wanted a cab, found a cab they had on sale, and bought a couple cases of it (note : * in some stores , sale prices and case discounts may not be combined, so watch out of that!). Re: beer, bottles vs kegs, in most scenarios, bottles would be my advice— due to ability to have variety, salvageability of leftovers, easier to keep cold , etc

We planned for 40 drinkers and made sure everything we bought was something we would be able to enjoy later. I bought 15 bottles of 19 Crimes, 15 bottles of Fetzer (a sweeter white that isn't sickly sweet like Moscato), 6 bottles of a red called Witching Hour (a bit lighter than the other red), and 6 bottles of Mendoza Station Torrontes (a crisp white). We bought 2 cases of variety packs of beer, one of Michelob Ultra, and one Mike's variety pack. We also had 10 bottles of champagne for toasting. We made 2 batches of our signature drink which was gone by the end of the night. We overbought because I would rather have too much than run out. Everyone was able to find something to enjoy but there were a few more that didn't drink than I expected.

We started purchasing about 3 months before the day. We went to Costco and Wine Depot when items went on sale. The leftovers we do have are already being put away for get-togethers coming up in the next couple of months and should all be gone by the end of the year. Wine and beer definitely do go bad.

Depending on the beer or wine - they do go bad. IPAs (anything super hoppy) need to be enjoyed fresh, whereas darker beers like porters and stouts can get better if aged several months. Hard liquor typically doesn't go bad, especially if sealed, at least not in the timeframe of a typical engagement.

How much to buy and what to buy really depends on your guests. This is a know your crowd type of thing. Cheap beer folks? Get a kegs of Budweiser or cases of PBR. Craft beer type? You'll need bottles or cans of a variety of beers ranging from IPAs and saisons to porters and stouts, depending on the season. Wine snobs? Make sure you get at least a red and white, or a couple varieties of each. Cocktails and liquor? Get some mixers, garnishes, and bottles of the standard alcohols - gin, vodka, and rum (or whiskey or tequila depending on your crowd). Are you going to have champagne for toasts, or special coffee cocktails for dessert? Quantity also depends on your crowd and how long your wedding celebration is and what form it takes. You'll need more alcohol to serve people who like to drink over several hours of cocktails/appetizers, dinner, and dancing vs enjoying a sit-down meal in the private room of a restaurant with a number of people who are don't drink or usually just have a single glass of wine with a meal.

There isn't one right answer to this unfortunately. Asking what beer/type is like asking someone what the best restaurant is - the people who consider Applebees a treat aren't the same people who eat at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

We haven't looked at how much to buy yet but as far as what type we're planning on doing mostly beer and cider and my FH was going to choose 2-3 beers and I was going to choose 2-3 ciders. If you asked me right now which brands specifically based on our current drinking prefetences I would guess we would'll end up doing Blue Moon, Yuengling, Stella Artois Cidre, Black Widow Original Sin cider (it's a blackberry cider, very tasty) and a local brewery's blackberry lemon sour beer that I like a lot. I have no idea what kind of wine because neither me nor my FH like wine a ton but a lot of our family and friends do so we'll probably end up doing a red and a white and I'll poll by bridal party for what types since they all like wine a lot. As far as hard liquor we weren't going to have hard liquor outside of a signature cocktail or two during cocktail hour.