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Mr. S and I are finally trying to nail down our wedding budget. We’re trying to figure out how much everything is going to cost, who is responsible for paying it, and when it needs to be paid.
Our caterer won’t be providing alcoholic beverages. And that’s fine; I know it’s cheaper to provide it ourselves. But we’re trying to figure out exactly how much we’ll need and how much it’ll cost. Some websites say that you need to budget for one drink per guest per hour. To which I give a mighty snort. They’ve obviously never met our friends or Mr. S’s family.
But then I found Real Simple’s Wedding Wine and Liquor Calculator. It’s pretty rad. Enter in how many guests you’re expecting, what kind of booze you’ll be serving (full bar vs. wine and beer only), and if it’s a daytime or nighttime affair, and it tells you how much you need.
The only problem is that it only provides calculations for guests in multiples of 50, so you have to round up or down. We’re going to round up, since many of our guests can DRANK!
Here is what it says that we need for 100 guests (but we’re only having 80):
It’s a good starting-off point, but not exact. Here is how I’d like to update it:
And some additions:
This is probably going to cost a grand. That’s really a lot of money. I’m going to see if we can buy some Two Buck Chuck at the only Trader Joe’s in the area that sells booze. (It’s an hour and a half but totally worth it if we can get a case for $40 instead of $120). Has anyone ever tried Two Buck Chuck? Is it any good?
How did you handle the purchase of booze for your wedding?
I know people who drive literally over a hundred miles to get cases of Chuck since it’s not available in their area. Chuck is good!
Miss Sloth, my FI and I are also working on this now. And we just went to our local TJ’s and brought the two buck chuck (which is actually 3.29 a bottle here lol) in cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc and merlot for now. We’ve had it in the past but hadn’t had it in a while so we did a taste test this past weekend and it was pretty good! Not the most amazing wine I’ve ever had but it holds its own!
Just make sure to shop around for prices and find a place where you can return unopened bottles. We had 100 guests, and less that were drinking. We originally spent about $800 on booze but ended up with a $400 credit so it was really only about $400 or so.
Two buck Chuck is a fantastic choice. The cab-sauv is one of my favorites– and I’ve been wine tasting multiple times in Napa/Sonoma!
That calculator is pretty great… As to the Chuck… I think it works better for youngin’s (I’m over thirty, so I can be a grandma!) The Chuck (and Yellow Tail/Barefoot) tends to not taste so great to people that have been drinking for more than a decade. 
Maybe a compromise? You know, put out the better wine first, then follow up with the cheap stuff. By then, nobody can tell the difference.
I totally wish we had your liquor budget. We’re buying 2 kegs of beer, and that’s it. Most of Mr. SD’s friends (who all drink excessively) bring their own ice chest to a wedding. Once the provided is gone, they bust out their private collection. Yeah, we’re classy like that.
@Miss Snapdragon: I actually tried some Chuck after I wrote this originally, and it was just okay. I agree with you that we should probably start with something better and follow up with the Chuck!
HI Ms. Sloth, I got married in Philadelphia and we supplied the wine, beer, liquor for our wedding. The best thing about this is that you can return any unopened bottles to the state store. Just make sure you tell the bartender not to open things untill the other bottle is empty. With 80 people you can make do just fine with 1 bar so you don’t need to have mutiple bottles of each thing open. We had a few bars so it was not as easy to control and at one of the bars they uncorked every wine bottle so they were ready incase 100 people need a glass at one time. Needless to say we couldn’t return it and had to drink it all in the next week. Good and bad, I guess.
Oh and watch the sales - you can get good liquor cheep if you pay attention!
I’m not trying to be mean but 2 Buck Chuck is pretty bad. I used to buy it and use it to catch gnats that were buzzing around the house. They’re attracted to wine, go in the glass and drown. I think if you spend a few bucks more you can get something tastier.
Two buck chuck is responsible for most of my hangovers in college.
We bought the Walmart version of Two Buck Chuck. I bought three varieties and made my own labels so no one would know. (Not that it’s readily apparent anyway.) I thought it went over very well. We also purchased two kegs through our venue to save money. We had to pay a $15 corkage fee for each $2 bottle of wine, but it was still cheaper than their cheapest bottle.
People had no problem with ponying up for their own liquor and beer other than Guiness and Hefeweizen. They knew we were paying for the wedding ourselves and couldn’t afford all their irish car bombs.
We supplied our own too and it worked out great. We have an awesome beer/wine store that helped us out. We were able to taste and find good/awesome wines for under $10 a bottle. Granted, we spent some money tasting, but it was a lot of fun too. We had friends over for opinions so it wouldn’t just be wines we loved. It sounds impossible, but it truly is. As for champagne, why not try perseco (sp) or cava? Personally, I prefer perseco (sp), but it’s so much cheaper. If you’d like me to go home and figure out what wines we used, just let me know. All of them were well received. Also, we had a 1/2 keg for 56 people, a lot of them were hitting the keg hard and it lasted almost to the end, so I think you’re good. Again, a good local beer/wine store can help you out a lot. Ours even offered to take back the unused wine (we kept it though).
Two buck chuck is actually an overstock type brand - they buy whatever’s left over on the market. So sometimes you’re getting pretty decent wine and other times you’re getting dreck.
If you are going to Trader Joe’s, they have a really good Sangiovese for $2.99 a bottle in the Italian section - at least they do out here in California but definitely worth looking for, especially at that price. I’d also suggest the Honey Moon Viognier or one of the other something Moon wines for a white - those tend to be in the five buck range and a little more reliable than the chucks.
That calendar is great!! I say forgo the champagne entirely if you are skipping the champagne toast. No one will be the wiser and that stuff can get pricey.
Two buck chuck (which is 3 bucks anywhere but California) is just okay.
I suggest looking into a wholesale liquor store or even trying a Sam’s Club or Costco. Kegs are just fine to save money and that is less trash in the environment later!
Do you have a Grocery Outlet near you?
I’m not sure where they have those and where they don’t…
They have a really great wine selection and the prices vary from $3.99 all the way to $20 something. We just bought a bottle of Archetype Cabernet Shiraz blend (Barbosa 2006 vintage) it was outstanding and at $3.99 a bottle we went back and bought a case! I did a little google research and found out that it has sold for $15.99 a bottle on wine.com
So my long winded reply is trying to simply say shop around, if you have a Grocery Outlet or know someone is close to one, it’s a great resource.
Are you planning on heading over to DE to purchase your liquor? tax free :).
(and lol on the subject line!)
Is there is BevMo anywhere near you? For my BFF’s wedding, we bought everything there, and we were able to return what we didn’t use.
Also, a few times a year, they have a penny wine sale - but one bottle reg price, get the second for .01 cent. It’s how we bought all of her wine. And we didn’t return that - we drank the leftovers for months and months after!
And, I agree with the PP. Chuck is hit or miss. It’s overtstock - you never know what you’re really gonna get.
That calculator seems off. You have to edit it compared to how much your friends/family drink. Our reception was about 85-90 people and we went through 4 cases of Chardonnay, 3 1/2 cases of Merlot, 3 full kegs and a 5 liter keg. I thought we had more than enough, but we almost didn’t have enough! You can always drink it later or return it…..
This may seem a little unlikely, depending on you, your friends and family, but have you considered making your own wine? My friend did it, they made huge amounts of fruit and flower wines about 5 or 6 months before her wedding, and it was wonderful (and cheap of course). If you’re having a rustic-themed wedding, most guests will thing it’s just another charming detail!
Another option, which again depends on you and your guests, is for a bring-your-own booze wedding. No shame in that. Hell, I’d rather bring a couple bottles to a friend’s wedding than expect her to go into 10 year’s debt for the sake of saving face.
For our wedding, we were fortunate in that hubby’s dad insisted on buying the wine and champagne for us. And he bought lots. It was his way of contributing to an event which was really important to him, and it worked out perfectly. I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of grooms’ families felt the same way.
I found most of the booze calculators online (including the Real Simple one) to be fairly useless, since there are so many factors that contribute to the amount of alcohol consumed at an event. This one from Evite was a little bit better because it lets you designate your guests as heavy or light drinkers, which makes a big difference: http://www.evite.com/pages/party/drink-calculator.jsp
In the end, we were lucky because both our beer and wine were billed on consumption post-event, so we didn’t have to mess with any estimating. As for the liquor, we just fairly wildly estimated one handle each of the four major liquors (bourbon, vodka, rum, gin) plus one bottle of very nice scotch. We figured if the liquor ran out, there would be plenty of wine and beer.
There are a lot of great deals to be had when searching for alcohol options, and my strongest recommendation would be to go to your Trader Joe’s or other local wine-specializing grocery and seek assistance from their wine buyer in finding bottles <$10 that pair well with your food. They’ll probably give a 10% case discount. And, my apologies to everyone who likes it, but I have to agree with Miss Snapdragon’s gentle caution against the Chuck. The Chuck pretty much fits into my “Bud Lite” category of beverages… which I mentally refer to as “I would rather drink straight vinegar.”
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Ms. Sloth, Philadelphia Age and Occupation: 35, Account Manager and Fashion Blogger Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Design Admin Engagement Date: December 25, 2009 Wedding Date: May 2011 Venue: Bartram's Garden About Me: I'm an internet junkie and music snob with a good eye for a bargain. I couldn't live without thrift store shopping, cheeseburgers, sushi, Coke Zero, websites devoted to silly photos of baby animals, Photoshop, and Mr. Sloth. Speaking of which, he and I are a pair of goofball homebody nerds who love our beagle (the most ridiculously adorable dog EVER) to an embarrassing degree. We're planning a low-key and intimate yet festive and quirky outdoor wedding with DIY details and deeply personal touches, and it's all taking place in the city where we fell in love and call home: Philadelphia.
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