Wedding drinks

A wedding has five moments, and each one calls for something different. For the welcome drink, prepare it in advance in a pitcher, because everyone is standing in front of you at once. For the toast, serve bubbles and bubbles only, so no second line forms. The couple's signature cocktail only works as a batch: one large pitcher that you can pour in a single step. With dinner, it is about wine and water, and you calculate by the bottle rather than by the glass. In the evening, the bar opens and it is time for highballs: tall glasses, lots of ice, and few steps. Anything that has to be shaken or muddled per glass is impractical at a wedding; recipes that can handle this are listed under cocktails for a group.

More than you think. Allow for two to three glasses per guest over the course of the day, not because people drink that much, but because glasses go missing: they are left on a windowsill, taken outside, or set down half-full and never picked up again. With a hundred guests, that adds up to two hundred to three hundred glasses, spread across flutes, wine glasses, water glasses, and highball glasses. Put a tray on each table where empty glasses can be placed, so they keep circulating and you need fewer in practice. Also allow for breakage: one to two percent is normal at an all-day celebration.

A 75 cl bottle yields six 12.5 cl glasses, or nine 8 cl glasses if the bubbles are used in a cocktail. For one toast glass per guest, you need about nine bottles for fifty guests, but in practice, allow for twelve because people will have refills and some will be spilled. If the entire reception is serving bubbles, plan on two to three glasses per guest in the first hour and one per hour thereafter. It is better to buy one box too many than too few: an unopened bottle will keep well and you can drink it later. Arrange the ice separately, allowing about one kilogram per guest if you also need to chill bottles.

Mixing each glass takes a minute per guest, which adds up to almost two hours of work for a hundred guests. A dispenser or punch bowl solves that: make the base once, place it on the bar with a tap, and guests can serve themselves. Keep the bubbles out, though, and add them per glass; otherwise the whole pitcher will be flat after half an hour. Keep the ice separate in a bucket instead of putting it in the dispenser, because melting ice dilutes the entire batch. Place a card next to each dispenser stating what it contains and whether it contains alcohol; that saves you from answering the same question a hundred times.

There is always a group that does not drink: drivers, children, pregnant people, and people who simply do not want to. Put something out for them that has received just as much attention as the rest, in the same glass, with the same garnish. An alcohol-free version of the signature cocktail works better for this than a bottle of cola, and costs you nothing extra if you make the base without alcohol and add the drink per glass. Recipes can be found under mocktails, alcohol-free gin and tonic, and Virgin Mojito. NIX18: no one under 18, no alcohol.

Renting is convenient if you only need them once and the venue handles washing them; you pay per glass, and breakage is often your responsibility. Buying becomes worthwhile once you host several parties or have sets left over that you use at home, and then you know for sure that all the glasses are the same model. A middle ground that often works: rent large quantities of water and wine glasses and buy the flutes, because they appear in the photos and you can continue using them afterwards. Mixed sets are listed among the glass sets, and individual models among the water glasses.