Amount of drink for open bar

barbiegirl

Hi

We're getting married in Italy in August and are providing all drink for our guests. We will have 140, 20 under 16's, about 10 non drinkers, 40 heavey drinkers and 70 normal drinkers. We will be having a Prosecco reception, then 4 course dinner and party til 1.30 am, about 8 hours in all. Mixed drinkers, wine, beer and spirits. Any suggestions for how much to order? We're begining to feel like it's a maths question. "One train leaves Dublin at 4 the other leaves Cork at 6 how many bottles of wine do we need for our wedding?"

Gillo

Quite a lot!!!

I've always noticed at free bar's that people tend to order way more drink tha they usually work (admittedly these were work events). What about putting a fund behind the bar instead, when it's gone people buy their own drink; it'll make it a lot easier to budget and TBH I really don't think people mind paying for their own drink.

the_syco

Gillo wrote: »

Quite a lot!!!

I've always noticed at free bar's that people tend to order way more drink tha they usually work (admittedly these were work events). What about putting a fund behind the bar instead, when it's gone people buy their own drink; it'll make it a lot easier to budget and TBH I really don't think people mind paying for their own drink.

Agreed with the budget, otherwise you'll be fleeced!

Yes, sir, you ordered one €500 bottle of champagne for each of your guests.
Erm, no I didn't.
Sir, you were quite drunk at the time, so you may have forgotten...

barbiegirl wrote: »

We will have 140, 20 under 16's, about 10 non drinkers, 40 heavey drinkers and 70 normal drinkers.

140 minus 10 equals 130, minus 10 under 15's who couldn't get someone older to get them drink = 120 * 3 times the amount a normal person would drink, cos it's free, equals 240, and as some are "heavy drinkers", add 50, so that gets you to 290, and as everyone will buy at least 5 drinks at the end, so they can continue drinking...

€3,000 starting off. Maybe another €3000 after 10pm, depending how the party is going.

barbiegirl

The open bar is on account of the fact the wedding is in Italy and people have already paid so much to be there. The cost is far from exhorbitant as its €1.20 per bottle of Heineken, €17 a litre of vodka, €8 for a bottle of really nice white wine, €11 a bottle of Chianti etc etc. It will be a proper bar set up but what isn't drank, and unopened can be brought back to the off license and we get our money back. Still we don't want to overstock it as it will be an expense to be paid befor ethe wedding, even if we get some of it back. I was thinking about 2 glasses of prosecco per person for the before dinner drinks, 1/2 a bottle of white wine, and 1/4 bottle of red per person for over dinner, and then 450 beers, 6 litres of vodka, 1 litre gin, 1 litre scotch, 1 litre JD, 1 litre bacardi and plenty of mixers. Is that too much or too little? The worst thing would be if we ran out cause the bar will only have what we order. We can also have an open bar they they will be responsible to stock for the whole night at €20 per person but that includes all the kids etc. and not the wine or proseccco as these will be with dinner and before. So I think it'll be cheaper if we dictate what we want.

Rej

Hi, we're getting married in France, and are having a similar set up. Except unlike your wedding, the distributer is supplying the drink, and whatever is unopened he'll take back. We have about 100 people, mixed about half half french and Irish. We are not running a full bar, just wine, beer and a limited selection of spirits.. There is no way we could acommodate everyone, so we did a survey amoungst our guests and have included at least one drink that they like.

heres our list... it might be of some help
60 bottles of cremant d'alsase (cheaper but nice alt to champagne)
72 cans of guinness
5 50l kegs of larger
2 30l kegs of larger
8 bottles of whiskey
20 bottles of vodka
4 bottles of baccardi
2 bottles of gin
40 bottles of white wine
48 bottles of red wine
20 bottles of rose wine
plus mixers etc... should all come to about 3k

the_syco

You're returning what you don't open?:D

Oldest trick in the book is to open every f**king bottle of wine in the back room: you gotta pay for it all, then, and you'll never catch the f**ker who was ordered to do it.

DJ_Spider

Rej wrote: »

60 bottles of cremant d'alsase (cheaper but nice alt to champagne)
72 cans of guinness
5 50l kegs of larger
2 30l kegs of larger
8 bottles of whiskey
20 bottles of vodka
4 bottles of baccardi
2 bottles of gin
40 bottles of white wine
48 bottles of red wine
20 bottles of rose wine
plus mixers etc...

Looks like my bar tab on a saturday night! :eek::pac::p

Rej

the_syco wrote: »

You're returning what you don't open?:D

Oldest trick in the book is to open every f**king bottle of wine in the back room: you gotta pay for it all, then, and you'll never catch the f**ker who was ordered to do it.

Normally, I'd agree with you... But our Chef is a former Army guy, best friend of the grooms dad. And he's in control of all food & drink for the night, so dont think anyone will cross him..

Although to be honest... I reckon that all the drink will be drunk.
Imagine the scene, twenty or so irish guys, one or two kegs left, couple of bottles of spirits etc.. they will see it as a challenge to drink the bar dry