How much alcohol for a wedding, in containers
A hundred guests, seventy of them drinking, two drinks each: 140 drinks, which is 3 cases of beer, 9 bottles of wine and 3 bottles of spirits. The same hundred guests over a cocktail hour and a seated dinner at 5 drinks each: 350 drinks, 6 cases, 21 wine bottles and 7 spirits. Same guest list, twice the order.
How much alcohol do I need for a wedding?
At two drinks per drinking guest, 100 guests need 3 cases of beer, 9 bottles of wine and 3 bottles of spirits on a balanced split. At five drinks each, the same guests need 6 cases, 21 wine bottles and 7 spirits. Container sizes are conventions: 24 bottles per case, 5 glasses per 750 ml bottle, 17 pours per 750 ml spirits bottle.
Two drinks per drinking guest
70% of guests drinking, 2 drinks per drinking guest, the calculator default, 24 bottles per case, 5 glasses per 750 ml bottle, 17 pours per 750 ml spirits bottle. Every container rounds up, because a partial case is still a delivery.
| Guests | Drinking | Drinks | Beer cases | Wine bottles | Spirits bottles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 35 | 70 | 2 | 5 | 2 |
| 100 | 70 | 140 | 3 | 9 | 3 |
| 150 | 105 | 210 | 4 | 13 | 4 |
| 200 | 140 | 280 | 5 | 17 | 5 |
| 300 | 210 | 420 | 7 | 26 | 8 |
Five drinks: a cocktail hour and a dinner
Two drinks is a short reception with wine poured at the table. A cocktail hour followed by a seated dinner runs closer to five per drinking guest, and the container counts roughly double. The gap between the two tables is the single most useful thing on this page: the guest list did not change, the shape of the evening did.
Use the lower table for a brunch or a weekday lunch, the higher one for a Saturday evening with a bar open before dinner. Rather than guess between them, count the hours the bar is open and add one drink per drinking guest per hour after the first.
| Guests | Drinking | Drinks | Beer cases | Wine bottles | Spirits bottles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 35 | 175 | 3 | 11 | 4 |
| 100 | 70 | 350 | 6 | 21 | 7 |
| 150 | 105 | 525 | 9 | 32 | 10 |
| 200 | 140 | 700 | 12 | 42 | 13 |
| 300 | 210 | 1050 | 18 | 63 | 19 |
What the mix changes
The split moves the order more than the guest count does. On the same 350 drinks, a beer-heavy plan needs nine cases where a balanced one needs six, and a wine-heavy plan needs forty-two bottles where the balanced plan needs twenty-one.
Pick the split from what your guests actually drink. Ask ten of them. If the answer is mostly wine, order mostly wine and keep a couple of bottles of spirits for the requests you already know are coming.
| Guests | Drinks | Beer cases, heavy | Beer cases, balanced | Wine bottles, heavy | Wine bottles, balanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 175 | 5 | 3 | 21 | 11 |
| 100 | 350 | 9 | 6 | 42 | 21 |
| 150 | 525 | 14 | 9 | 63 | 32 |
| 200 | 700 | 18 | 12 | 84 | 42 |
| 300 | 1050 | 27 | 18 | 126 | 63 |
What these tables leave out
Mixers, citrus, syrup, ice, garnishes and the non-alcoholic table are separate orders, and the ice is the one people underestimate: about a pound per guest for drinks alone. Nothing here covers corkage, a venue that refuses outside alcohol, or a supplier who will not take returns.
Ask about returns before you order. If sealed cases come back, the right answer changes from an exact estimate to a deliberate slight over-order, which is the cheaper mistake of the two.
- Add ice, mixers and soft drinks on top of these counts.
- Confirm corkage before you buy anything.
- Ask what the supplier takes back, and in what condition.
- Keep the delivery receipt; quantity disputes are settled with paper.
If somebody else runs the bar
A package or a consumption bar replaces the shopping list with a rate. Ask for three figures before you compare: the per-person package price, what a comparable event actually consumed, and the fee for bringing your own bottles. Those three numbers, side by side, are the decision.
If corkage is refused, the container maths on this page stops being a shopping list and becomes a sanity check. Run it anyway: a package that prices well below the bottles it serves is either generous or short-pouring, and the arithmetic tells you which one to ask about.
A signature drink comes out of the spirits line
Batching a cocktail for 60 servings at two ounces of spirits each takes about 5 bottles, and those bottles belong to the spirits order rather than beside it. A signature drink does not add a line to the shopping list; it moves where the money goes inside the same total.
Keep the batch to one recipe. Two batched drinks double the prep and halve the shelf life, and a bar making cocktails to order in a queue is the same mistake with labour instead of bottles.
Why this page exists
We read 216 pages that rank for wedding seating and planning questions: 47 percent mention drinks or the bar, and 5 percent give you a container quantity. Advice about the bar is abundant; arithmetic is not.
In 7,290 TikTok posts collected across 25 wedding-planning queries, 129 mention drinks or the bar, with a median of 5 saves and a p90 of 877. Drinks are not what couples save; they are what they buy at the last minute.
Order in this order
Count the drinking guests, choose the intensity, pick the split, then convert to containers once. Multiply through bottles only at the end: round once, at the end, because rounding twice rounds twice.
- Drinking guests first, not the whole list.
- Intensity second: two drinks or five.
- Split third, from what your guests actually drink.
- Containers last, rounding every one up.
- Ice, mixers and soft drinks as separate lines.
Keep going
About 10 minutes. Software, not a waitlist — your chart tonight.