Wedding Alcohol Calculator — How Much to Buy
Enter your guest count, reception length, and drinking pace to get a shopping list of wine bottles, beer cases, and spirit bottles for your wedding bar — with a 10% safety buffer.
people
hours
Drinking style
%
%
Includes a 10% buffer; split into beer, wine, and spirits below
- 1
Drinks per person per hour
1Moderate drinking pace. - 2
Raw drink count
100 × 5 × 1 = 500 - 3
Total drinks (with 10% buffer)
⌈500 × 1.1⌉ = 550
How does this calculator work?
Total drinks = guests × hours × pace (0.75/1.0/1.5 per hour) × 1.1 buffer. Split by your beer/wine/spirits preference: 5 glasses per wine bottle, 24 per beer case, 17 per spirit bottle. A moderate 5-hour open bar for 100 guests needs roughly 37 wine bottles, 8 beer cases, and 12 spirit bottles.
Formula
How this is calculated
The calculation starts from a drinks-per-person-per-hour rate: roughly 0.75 for a light gathering, 1 for a typical wedding reception, and 1.5 for a fully open bar with heavy drinkers. Multiplying by guest count and reception hours gives a total drink count. A 10% buffer is added on top — it is far better to have a few bottles left over than to run out mid-reception.
You control the split between beer, wine, and spirits by percentages (beer % + wine % = up to 100%; remainder is spirits and cocktails). Standard conversion factors are 5 glasses per 750 ml wine bottle, 24 cans per case of beer, and 17 drinks per 750 ml spirit bottle (at a standard 44 ml / 1.5 oz pour). Ice is estimated at about 1 lb per guest plus a little extra for chilling bottles.
These figures are planning guidelines based on commonly used catering rules of thumb. Actual consumption varies with the crowd’s age and culture, time of day, weather, and how long the dinner portion runs before dancing. If your guest list skews older or includes a large non-drinking contingent, reducing the drinks/hour rate will give a more accurate figure. Buying a mix of beer cases (easier to return unopened) rather than individual cans lets you recoup some cost if consumption is lower than expected.
Frequently asked questions
At 1 drink per person per hour for a 5-hour reception, 100 guests consume roughly 550 drinks (with 10% buffer). If 33% are wine, that is about 183 wine servings, or 37 bottles. Adjust the wine percentage slider in the calculator for your crowd’s preferences.
Always over-buy slightly. Unopened bottles of wine and spirits can often be returned to the retailer (check the store’s policy before purchase), while running out mid-reception is disruptive. The calculator already includes a 10% buffer for this reason.
Plan on about 1 lb of ice per guest for chilling drinks plus extra for ice buckets. In warm weather or if you are serving a lot of cocktails requiring ice in glasses, increase to 1.5–2 lb per guest. The calculator uses 1 lb/guest as a baseline.
Also known as
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. (2026). Wedding Alcohol Calculator — How Much to Buy [Online calculator]. TG we-Calculate. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/wedding-alcohol-calculator
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. "Wedding Alcohol Calculator — How Much to Buy." TG we-Calculate. 2026. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/wedding-alcohol-calculator.
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team, "Wedding Alcohol Calculator — How Much to Buy," TG we-Calculate, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://we-calculate.com/calculator/wedding-alcohol-calculator
@misc{wecalculate_wedding_alcohol_calculator, title = {Wedding Alcohol Calculator — How Much to Buy}, author = {{TG we-Calculate Editorial Team}}, howpublished = {\url{https://we-calculate.com/calculator/wedding-alcohol-calculator}}, year = {2026}, note = {TG we-Calculate} }
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