Wedding alcohol calculator

How this calculator works

The calculator starts with the guests who will actually drink, not your full guest list. It gives each of them two drinks in the first hour and one an hour after that, then adds your safety buffer. Zola's wedding alcohol guide uses a flat one drink per guest per hour. Our version lands close to that number, but it reflects a bar that gets busiest right after the ceremony.

Next it splits those drinks by your mix. The starting mixes come from the same Zola guide: 50% wine, 30% liquor and 20% beer for a full bar, and 75% wine with 25% beer for beer and wine only. The signature cocktail mix of 40% wine, 40% cocktails and 20% beer is our own starting point. Summer moves 5 points toward beer and winter moves 5 points away from it. Move the sliders if you know your guests.

The pour sizes behind the bottle counts

We use the standard drink sizes from NIAAA: 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine and 1.5 oz of 80-proof spirits.

• Wine: 5 glasses per 750 ml bottle, 12 bottles to a case.
• Beer: 24 to a case, rounded up to whole cases. Zola counts 165 servings in a keg, which we show once you need one.
• Liquor: a 750 ml bottle holds 25.4 oz, or 16.9 pours. We count 16 whole pours so spills do not leave you short.
• Toast: 8 pours per bottle, for every guest, because non-drinkers usually still want a glass to raise.

Mixers, ice and soft drinks use our own planning assumptions. We allow 4 oz of mixer for each mixed drink, one lime or lemon for every 8 drinks, one soft drink an hour for non-drinkers, and 1.5 lb of ice per guest (2 lb in summer). If you are chilling bottles in tubs, buy more ice.

A worked example

Take 100 guests, 80% drinking, a 5-hour full bar in spring or fall with a 10% buffer. That is 80 drinkers at 6 drinks each, or 480 drinks, and 528 with the buffer.

• Beer: 106 drinks, so 5 cases.
• Wine: 264 drinks, so 27 bottles of white, 22 of red and 6 of rosé.
• Liquor: 158 drinks, so 12 bottles across five spirits.
• Toast: 100 guests, so 13 bottles of sparkling wine.

At our default prices that comes to about $1,564, or $15.64 a guest. Those prices are estimates, so type in what your store charges. For comparison, Zola reports an average bar services cost of $5,542, though that figure covers weddings of all sizes and a store receipt is not the same thing as a staffed bar.

When to change the defaults

• Short receptions: under three hours, drinking runs faster, so set the crowd to heavy.
• Morning or brunch weddings: choose light and move the mix toward sparkling wine and beer.
• Lots of families: lower the share of guests who drink. Children count as guests, not drinkers.
• Very large weddings: check with bartenders before buying. Above a few hundred guests, service speed limits what gets poured.

Before you buy

Ask your venue three things first: whether outside alcohol is allowed, whether they charge corkage, and whether you must hire licensed bartenders or carry event insurance. Then print the list above and take it to the store. Some stores discount by the case, so a quote on the whole order is worth asking for.

If the bar is eating your budget, the wedding budget calculator shows what else can give. A cash registry on RegistryBee can help too, since guests' gifts go to you as money.

Sources checked November 2026.