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BYOB Wedding Alcohol & Ice Calculator

How much beer, wine, liquor and ice to buy for your wedding — vendor-standard consumption math, not guesswork, with return-policy math for what you don't pour.

Wedding details

Shopping list

Total drinks poured
170
Beer
96 btl (4 cases)
Wine
12 btl
Liquor
2 × 750ml
Ice
8 × 20lb bags
Estimated cost
$349
Buy the +20% buffer on top: ≈17 extra beer, 3 extra wine, 0 extra liquor bottles — most retailers let you return unopened cases; check the policy before buying, and buy beer by the full case for the return window.

≈ $4.10 per drinking guest · standard for this session length

Where the numbers come from

Industry planning standard: each drinking guest consumes one drink per hour of a standard session, tapered to 2 for this session length. With a full bar, drinks split roughly 50% beer / 35% wine / 15% liquor; beer-and-wine-only events shift to 60/40. A standard wine bottle pours five 5-oz glasses; a 750 ml liquor bottle yields ~16 mixed drinks at 1.5 oz pours.

Ice: 1.5 lb per guest covers chilling bottles plus glass service at an indoor event; outdoor summer weddings run 2+ lb. Keg math (1/2 barrel = 165 twelve-oz beers) beats case pricing past ~160 guests if your venue allows it.

Built from user complaints

What people hate about the other tools

We read the reviews of the incumbents before writing this page. Every complaint below maps to a decision in the tool above.

  • Our venue's BYOB calculator assumed every guest drinks 4 drinks and we bought $900 of returnable beer we couldn't return
    r/weddingplanning (Reddit) · one-size-fits-all estimates
    In this toolSession-length profiles (1.5-3 drinks) and a buffer sized to return policies, not fear.

One-line difference: Vendor-standard consumption math (session-length drinks per guest, 50/35/15 splits) plus the return-policy buffer that beverage calculators skip.

How this is paid for

Free forever, Pro when you need the paperwork

Free + wedding affiliate + one-time Pro

Free no signup, no card

  • Drinks, bottles, cases and ice by session and bar style
  • Cost per drinking guest with your actual bottle prices
  • Keg-vs-case breakpoint and returnable +20% buffer guidance

Pro $9 once

  • Printable shopping list with store-ready quantities & substitutions
  • Signature-cocktail batch scaling with ABV-based consumption taper
  • Multi-event series (rehearsal + wedding + brunch) combined buying plan

Pricing benchmarked against what the incumbents charge. See the full monetization map → · Already paid? Restore access

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