We Handle Your Shopping List, So You Do Not Overbuy

Search "how much alcohol for a wedding" and you will find dozens of calculators that all say the same thing: one drink per guest per hour, buy 20 percent extra, here is a generic chart. The trouble is, those calculators do not know your cocktail menu. They do not know your crowd leans toward wine. They do not know your three signature cocktails all use the same bourbon. So they just tell you to buy more of everything.

The result is that you spend a few hundred dollars you did not need to, haul home cases of beer nobody touched, and make a return trip to the liquor store with a trunk full of unopened bottles. We built our shopping guide so that never happens to you.

Why Generic Calculators Get It Wrong

Online calculators assume a wide-open bar with no real menu behind it. They do not account for:

• Your actual cocktail menu: If two of your three signature cocktails use vodka and the third uses bourbon, a calculator has no idea. It just splits evenly across every spirit.
• How a focused menu changes drinking: When your guests choose from a tight menu (three or four cocktails plus beer and wine), what they drink is predictable. A sprawling 15-option open bar is chaos, and the calculators are built for chaos.
• Your specific event: A 2pm outdoor summer reception drinks very differently from a 7pm indoor winter gala. Time, weather, and venue all change the math.
• Welcome Sips: If your Bar-Key package includes pre-poured Welcome Sips at arrival, that first-hour rush is already handled. A calculator does not know that.

What Our Shopping Guide Does for You

When you book Bar-Key or Boomtown, you never have to Google "how much tequila for 100 guests." We hand you a shopping list built around your event:

• Your guest count and event length
• Your specific cocktail menu (the recipes we designed together)
• The split between cocktails, beer, wine, and non-alcoholic
• Oklahoma store recommendations with the best selection and prices
• Exact quantities, not ranges, not "buy extra just in case"

The guide knows your Lavender Lemon Drop and your French 75 share the same simple syrup. It knows three handles of vodka cover your menu, not the five a generic calculator would push. It knows your crowd, because we built your menu around your preferences in the first place.

Where We Send You to Shop

Oklahoma has excellent options for event alcohol:

• For liquor: Byron's, Oklahoma City's gold standard, along with Total Wine, George's, and Liquor Barn. Total Wine even offers free wedding consultations and a return policy on unopened bottles, which makes a slight over-purchase painless.
• For beer and wine: Walmart, Sam's Club, or Costco, where the pricing on cases is hard to beat.

Our guide tells you which store, which bottles, and which quantities. You walk in with a list and walk out with exactly what you need.

What You Actually Save

Traditional full-service caterers are known to mark up alcohol 200 to 500 percent. Bar-Key and Boomtown never sell or mark up your alcohol, so there is no hidden markup to worry about. You buy it yourself, which means you keep that margin. The quieter savings matters just as much: our guide keeps you from overbuying. For around 100 guests at a typical four hour event, our shopping guide usually lands the alcohol near $500 to $600 total, about $5 to $6 a guest, while a generic calculator would push you to buy hundreds of dollars more of bottles nobody opens. That difference stays in your pocket, and it is because our guide knows your menu, not just your headcount.

From the Founder

"We make shopping for your own alcohol so easy that there is no reason to let a caterer bring it and mark it up," says Bar-Key founder Patrick Wilson. "From the shopping guide to helping you place the order, we make the whole thing simpler from start to finish."

Your shopping guide is not a generic PDF we email out. It is built from your event details, your cocktail menu, and the recipes we designed together. It is one of the reasons buying your own alcohol with Bar-Key is genuinely easier than people expect, because we took the hardest part and made it simple.

"Dry-hire gives you real control over what is served, because you are the one buying the alcohol," Patrick explains. "It is about control and quality, not just cost."