Champagne, Champagne and More Champagne!

I attended a bridal shower a week or so ago and as always there are lessons to be learned from planning any event.  As I attend parties and various types of events, I like to keep my eyes open to what worked well, what worked sort of well, and well….what didn’t go so well.  What do I need to be aware of, the next time I plan a similar party or event so that I either replicate the great or don’t replicate a mistake.

In this case, the party was organized, the table was beautifully decorated and laid out, the food was delicious, the weather was perfekt, the bride-to-be stunning, and the home – spacious and inviting.   Where there was a little ooops was in the calculation of drinks.  This particular shower offered champagne, various juices and water.  The thought was that everyone was going to make their champagne a mimosa and therefore less champagne is needed.  Also I would like to point out that when you are trying to figure out how much champagne is needed for a toast, it is quite different than calculating how much is needed when that is what you are offering as the drink of the event.

There were about 25 women at the shower with a few of them pregnant.  The shower started around 11 and lasted until around 2ish with the party continuing with a much much smaller group.  Now that I have provided some of the background – how many bottles of champagne would you have on hand?  3? 4? 6? 10? 12? 20? When purchasinng the champagne, one of the hostesses was advised that 4 bottles would be enough.  Within the first 30 minutes it was very quickly realized that 4 wasn’t even close to being enough.  I must mention too, that no one there was a big drinker. But outside and a warm day – cool bubbly goes fast!

A drink calculator says that 1 750 ml bottle of champagne fills 6 champagne glasses.  So if we do our math and say that there are 20 people at the shower who will drink champagne, 4 bottles are needed for 20 guest to each have 1 glass of champagne.  Now the party spanned 3+ hours, so it is not unreasonable to plan that some guests may have 2 glasses and other may have 3 glasses.  How I would determine how much champagne to buy is – 20 guests have 2 glasses and 10 guests have a 3^rd glass. That makes 50 glasses of champagne.  There is some wiggle room if mimosas are made, but I like to error on the side of having too much.  So for 50 glasses of champagne you would need about 9 bottles on hand.  And that is almost exactly what was consumed at the shower!  One of the hostesses ran to the store very quickly after it was realized we were short and purchased 10 additional bottles to supplement the original 4.  There were about 5 bottles left over!

The other factor to consider when deciding how much champagne to buy is the size of the glass.  One would think that all champagne flutes are the same.  Oh no my friend, in my picture – the plastic flute holds 4.75 ounces, the red rimmed flute holds 3.75 and the clear silver rimmed flute holds 6.75 ounces!

Per my little calculator, 750ml is equal to 25.36 ounces.  Aaaaand (stay with me all of you who are not math nuts like me) 25.36 ounces divided by 6 glasses (glasses/bottle) equals 4.22 oz per glass. (25.36/6=4.22).  What that means if you are using the inexpensive plastic champagne flutes you should be ok, but you might be almost a serving short over a couple of bottles.  Upon researching glass stemware that you can rent, specifically champagne flutes, the majority of them were 7 oz flutes, but they ranged from 4 oz to 7 oz. In that case – you would be incredibly short on your calculation of how much champagne is needed, because the pours would be bigger for 7 oz flutes.

Really all that is to say, know what type/size of flutes you will use and plan accordingly with the number of guests you will be inviting.  Or – plan to offer other types of beverages along with the champagne!

Happy Planning. What’s your next party?

Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right!  Mark Twain

Champagne Punch

1 sm can – frozen orange juice concentrate
1 sm can – frozen limade concentrate
1 sm can – frozen lemonade concentrate
1 bottle Ginger Ale
1  bottle Champagne

Mix the concentrates, add Ginger Ale and stir.
Add Champagne (do not stir)

Garnish with orange, lemon and/or lime slices

Makes about 20 servings