How much wine and beer for a wedding with 120 guests?

[Vroomer]

Advice is all over the place if you do a search but I’m confident I’ll get some good advice here.

How many bottles of champagne to cover one hour reception plus toast.?

How many bottles of wine and how many pints of beer for wedding breakfast and dancing afterwards?

(Assume 80 enthusiastic drinkers and 40 more restrained.)

Thanks in advance.

[kiethton]

I had my own wedding for a similar number of people in late 2019 and found I over-ordered.....

6 bottles of very posh champagne for the toast (all used)
24 bottles of prosecco for afternoon drinking (18 used)
36 bottles of red (25 used)
28 bottles of white (16 used)

4 crates of 12 big bottles of Speckled hen (1 used)
12 crates of 20 bottles Peroni (10 used)
4 crates of 12 bottles Magners (2 used)

3 litres Vodka (1.5 used)
4 litres Gin (2.5 used)
3 bottles JD (1.2 used)
1 bottle Bacardi and 1 of rum (both barely touched)
2 bottles Jagermeister (all used)

Then loads of tonic, coke, diet coke lemonade, orange juice and red bull etc

I got the spirits, beers, ciders and mixers from Tesco and went to town, getting double what I thought we'd need knowing that I could return them - the day after the wedding I took back everything that wasn't used

[LooneyTunes]

Depends on how long the event is, weather, how enthusiastic the enthusiastic ones are expected to be, and what they like to drink. We got through virtually none of the beer we provided at ours, but the quantities of wine Kiethton quoted for the wine were multiplied up. Easy for the drinkers to get through an average of a couple of glasses an hour…

Remember, if you’re footing the bill people will drink a lot more than if they need to open their wallet each time their glass runs dry. Even more pronounced if it’s “grab a bottle” where, instead of having the delay/moderating effect of queuing at a bar, people will be more generous topping up others.

I’d suggest ordering way more than you expect from a local merchant that will do sale or return and also provide delivered clean/return dirty glass hire. Your other big challenge will probably be fridge space as the whites will get drunk quicker than they can chill if it’s a hot day.