How many drinks per person?

Idiophreak

moongarden wrote: »

Can anyone please tell me how to work out how many drinks to allow per person for a wedding with a free bar?

We are buying in wholesale so how many barrels of beer/bottles of wine to allow. We are expecting 100 guests but 11 are children so working on 90 drinking.

thanks

I'd be interested to know what the average proportion of adults that actually drink is....We're having 120 to ours, but I can imagine quite a few not drinking their allocation...We've some tee-totallers, some elderly folks who'll have a couple of glasses, some couples who will have one of them drive and a handful of families where the parents can't get too drunk because they've young children with them.

I think all of those considered, we're looking at around 80 people who we might expect to drink their share of the booze...but it's hard to be sure! Don't want to spend more than I have to, but don't want to have too little booze on the day!

Dekazer

Without being too scientific about it, I have been trying to guesstimate how much we'll need to provide for our evening reception. Going dry is my WORST wedding fear - I actually had a nightmare about it the other day :eek:

For everyone on the list I've given them a score of 0 to 2. Teetotallers get a 0 (there are a handful), people like my granny get a 0.5, as they'll probably have something small to be polite. 'Normal' people get a 1, and 'enthusiastic' people get a 1.5. A few very special friends get a 2

Then I'm figuring that a score of 1 = 1 bottle of wine or a half bottle of spirits or a six pack, and multiplying accordingly. Sale or return will hopefully mean that we can have plenty on site but will only pay for what's needed on the day. That, or we'll buy the lot and take the rest on our honeymoon :rotfl:

zcrat41

Dekaser I'm with you! We've 120 people all day and a free bar of wine, beer, g & t and strawberry Daquiris. We went through our guest list and guesstimted (e.g. Great Uncle albert, glass of wine with dinner, old Young Farmer friend, 10 cans of beer). Then we're doing Tesco (their 28 day return policy covers drinks) and adding 20% to make sure we don't run dry.

In terms of wine I'd really recommend speaking to Tesco wedding wine and Majestic. Both helped us work out we need 200 bottles of wine to last the meal and the bar.

Idiophreak

zcrat41 wrote: »

Dekaser I'm with you! We've 120 people all day and a free bar of wine, beer, g & t and strawberry Daquiris. We went through our guest list and guesstimted (e.g. Great Uncle albert, glass of wine with dinner, old Young Farmer friend, 10 cans of beer). Then we're doing Tesco (their 28 day return policy covers drinks) and adding 20% to make sure we don't run dry.

In terms of wine I'd really recommend speaking to Tesco wedding wine and Majestic. Both helped us work out we need 200 bottles of wine to last the meal and the bar.

Really? as much as that?

So that's 120 people drinking, on average, 1.8 bottles of wine (call it 8 glasses?) each, plus beers, G&ts and daquiris? Hope you've got a good photographer - that's the only way anyone's ever going to remember the day

Dekazer

zcrat41 wrote: »

[SNIP]Then we're doing Tesco (their 28 day return policy covers drinks) and adding 20% to make sure we don't run dry.

In terms of wine I'd really recommend speaking to Tesco wedding wine and Majestic. Both helped us work out we need 200 bottles of wine to last the meal and the bar.

That's a really helpful tip - tesco also stock our favourite wine, and it's often on half price, so I'll look into it! Thanks very much

LaurensMummy

How about giving out 'free drink' vouchers and say give each couple a few each - we used to do this at company parties as some people abuse the whole 'free' bar!

zcrat41

Idiophreak - our caterer recommended at least 1 bottle per person. And we have lots of rugby playing hard drink farmers. We really don't want to run out and we do have a bbq on the Sunday we're going to use the leftovers at!

And I didn't mention the whisky or the champers ;-)

moongarden

Dekazer wrote: »

For everyone on the list I've given them a score of 0 to 2. Teetotallers get a 0 (there are a handful), people like my granny get a 0.5, as they'll probably have something small to be polite. 'Normal' people get a 1, and 'enthusiastic' people get a 1.5. A few very special friends get a 2

Then I'm figuring that a score of 1 = 1 bottle of wine or a half bottle of spirits or a six pack, and multiplying accordingly.

Fantastic Dekazer - i'm going through the guest list tonight with the scoring system.
Also will check out Tesco wine for sale or return.

MrsDrink

OMG you guys have completely freaked me out!! Making me worry that I won't have enough!

I have followed Dekazer's brilliant advice about judging what each person will drink, I've also added to that how many hours I expect them to attend for. (We're essentially having a garden party - I expect people will start dwindling after a few hours, but we're opening the gates at 5, so to speak... some I'm sure will stay with us till the early hours.)

So I have worked out that for 53 of us, there may be around 323 drinks being drank.
6 underaged children
6 borderline children who between them may be allowed (by their parents) to drink 9 drinks. (1.5 drinks each)
14 relatives that won't stay till the small hours, and who will drink enough to be sociable - not to get blathered = 54 drinks. (3.8 drinks each)
15 friends/relatives that will stay with us till the small hours but who won't get blathered = 99 drinks (6.6 drinks each)
12 friends/relatives that will stay with us till the small hours and who will probably drink a lot = 161 drinks (13.4 drinks each - over 7+ hrs)

Could someone please scan their eye over this to see if it sounds reasonable? I'm hoping I'm being totally over the top to imagine my 12 drinking guests would manage one drink every 30 mins for 7 hrs!! But as it's been a very long time since I last seriously drank I have no idea what 'normal' is!!

Oh I then broke the 323 drinks down into:

48 bottles of cider
151 bottles/cans of beer/lager
42 bottles of wine = 210 glasses (at 150ml each)

=409 drinks so that gives 86 drinks extra... nearly 2 drinks each more than I've planned for.

Whilst I really don't want anyone to run dry I don't want to waste money on all of this!!

This isn't even thinking about all the pop and squash I'll have to get in!!

Robinred

Mrs Drink - it is so hard to know isn't it?! I guess it really depends on your guests - in my experience people do drink a lot at weddings.

If I was a borderline teenager I would probably want to have as many drinks as possible because you don't get many opportunities to drink at that age!

Plus sometimes people after they've had a few, get tipsy, and have a few more, so your adults staying late but not getting blathered might surprise you!

Could you ask a sample of your guests what they would normally drink at a wedding so you can feel more secure in your estimates?

Can you do sale or return? I am doing that and it is a great relief from the pressure. Or failing that maybe get some extra bottles of wine which you could hide away and get out if you run out, if you don't run out then you could give them as Xmas presents?

HTH

PS: Not saying that your younger guests should have as many drinks as they can, just maybe be prepared for them sneaking a few cheeky ones!