Alcohol Catering Guide for Perth Events
How much alcohol should I provide for my wedding?
Weddings are a great celebration of families and friends and people drink more than any other social gathering. Couples often underestimate the amount of alcohol their guests will consume, so I caution you to slightly overestimate. If you are buying your alcohol yourself you can usually request the supplier to take back un-open cartons so it is best to over do it than be caught out without enough.
Also read: How To Calculate Food Portions For Catering
Here’s how to get a relatively accurate cost per person for alcohol consumption at your wedding:
First Hour (while the bridal party are having pics taken) – For a (1) hour cocktail reception, estimate (2) drinks per person. For a (1.5) hour cocktail reception, estimate (3) drinks per person and so on. The idea here is that each person will go through roughly 2 drinks within the first hour then start to slow down a little.
Reception, Dinner & Dancing – A good rule is to estimate one (1) drink per person for every hour of the reception. Some will drink more and some less so it will even out.
Example – drinks for first hour (2 drinks/person) + Reception for five hours (5 drinks/person) = 7 drinks per person.
If you think this number feels high, remember it os better to have more that run out. In our experience coordinating weddings and functions, it balances out most of the time between younger guests who drink lots more and older guests who drink less or switch to water later in the evening. This also accounts for guests who start drinking a beverage, place it down half full and then head to the bar for another drink.
Example for 100 guests – 7 hour reception – 7 drinks per person min
50% guests Beer and 50% wine. This covers guests changing frim beer to wine ( you may want to vary this according to your guests, you may know more will drink beer/wine/red)
15 cartons beer and approx. 60 bottle wine
Full strength beer (24 carton) = 10
Light beer (24 carton) =5
Red wine bottle= 12
Dry White wine (ssb)= 24
Sweet/bubbles(Asti)= 24
700ml bottle wine = approx. 5 glasses
700ml Sparkling wine/bubble = approx. 6 glasses
(if you are having bubbles for toast only allow approx. 7-8 glass per bottle so 13-14 bottles for 100 glass)
Soft drinks and water at least 1 per person. If you know your guests are not big drinkers then include soft drinks in your 7 drinks per person.
