Champagne and weddings go together like peanut butter and jelly, however, whereas peanut butter and jam are relatively inexpensive products, weddings and champagne aren’t. This article aims to help you work out how many champagne bottles you will need for your wedding reception toast so that you have just the right amount to help with reducing the cost of your wedding.
Number of Wedding Guests
Generally, a 75cl bottle of champagne will fill between three and four
wedding champagne flutes of about 19cl in size. For smaller champagne flutes, four servings would be a safe estimate. To work out how much champagne you need per guest divide the number of guests who are over 18 and who you believe drink alcohol by 3.5 champagne glasses. For example if you are expecting 100 guests to come to your wedding have 29-32 bottles of champagne available.
Keep in mind that not everyone will drink
You need to bear in mind those guests who are too young to drink, as well as those who don’t drink at all, as well as friends and family who may be driving. Obviously, this can be a difficult task to assess if you're planning a big wedding event and don't know everyone's preference. One way around this is to ask the guests to provide a little note regarding alcohol preference along with their RSVP.
The Time of the Wedding
The time of the wedding will most likely affect the number of champagne flutes that will be emptied, so if your wedding reception is in the morning, the chances are that the guests will take less champagne in their champagne flutes than wedding receptions held with dinner or evening wedding receptions.
Never Under-Estimate
If you are unsure about the number of champagne bottles you will need, over-estimate. If your wedding guests are coming to share your day it is always better to have a few
champagne bottles left over than it is to run out of them mid-serving. It might be worth asking the champagne seller about their returns policy for unopened bottles of champagne. Alternatively, if you don’t have that many bottles of champagne left at the end you could keep the leftovers for yourself or give them as
thank you gifts to members of the wedding party.
Tips for Budgets
Champagne is often reserved for toasts at wedding receptions, a way to minimise the number of champagne bottles you need to buy, organise a nominal number of formal toasts, this will also ensure the wedding guests do not get bored as well as reduce the amount of bubbly you will need to provide each wedding guest. You could also consider reducing the length of the wedding reception, or only having the champagne out for a restricted amount of time. If you think about it, many people will just sip the champagne because it is in front of them, or because it is being served by waiters. Don’t hand out pre-filled champagne flutes to your wedding guests, as this is a key factor in wastage. Instead, allow servers to pour a certain amount by asking each guest individually. Another option is to offer sparkling water, orange juice and champagne so that guests have more options.
Date posted: 22/04/2010
