How To Choose The Perfect Champagne For Your Wedding

This is your big day, a day which will forever seal the love between you and your partner, the one day in your life that you want more than anything to be perfect, your fairy tale moment, so let’s make sure that the Champagne you choose is fit for your forever moment.

When choosing the perfect Champagne for your wedding, it’s important to take note of your personal tastes, your partner’s personal taste and take a look at the overall palate-pleasing Champagnes that most of your guests will enjoy, not forgetting if you want your Champagne to pair perfectly with your meals or cake.

One thing that we’d like not to think about, but inevitably will, (unless money is no object to you) is the budget, buying Champagne in bulk can be cheaper than buying one bottle at a time, but buying enough Champagne to fill the glasses of 100, 200 or 500 guests is going to be very costly.

How Many Glasses Will One Bottle of Champagne Fill?

One standard bottle of Champagne at 750mls can fill about 6 glasses of Champagne. If aiming for 6 glasses, each glass will contain 125mls or for 5 glasses it’ll contain 150mls.

So let’s say you’re going to have 100 guests, including yourselves, at your wedding reception and each bottle will give you 6 glasses, that means you would need 17 bottles of Champagne for 102 glasses

If you’re going for 200 guests then you’ll need 34 bottles for 204 glasses, but if you had 500 guests, then you’ll need 84 bottles of Champagne which will fill 504 glasses

But of course, your guests will most likely want more than one glass at your wedding reception, so should you double the number of bottles or add half again, it really depends on how much your guests are likely to drink, what other alcoholic drinks are on offer and your budget.

What Champagne Do You Want?

As it’s your day, let’s start with you, what’s your favourite Champagne, do you have a bottle or two in mind?

You should think about this, even if you’re favourite Champagne is worth £100 per bottle, you should at least buy one to enjoy either before the wedding with your bridesmaids/groomsmen or after the wedding with your new husband or wife.

It’s worth popping open something of a great quality, perhaps a vintage of the year you both met, to further solidify the moments together on your wedding day.

Quality or Quantity For Your Guests?

Not many people will be married in front of a load of Champagne experts, but your guests could have a keen palate for a good Champagne, so let’s explore whether you should go for your quality or quantity.

As mentioned above you should at least buy one bottle of something you both really like or an old vintage, but as for the rest of your guests and what they’ll end up toasting you with, the price allocated for drinks will heavily impact that decision of quality or quantity, if money is no object then you can spend a couple of weeks in Champagne going round to different Champagne houses taste testing the Champagnes they have to offer.

If like most weddings, a budget is placed on each aspect of the day, Champagnes like Moët & Chandon, G.H. Mumm, or Taittinger come to mind for most of us, they are Champagnes that have been enjoyed by the majority of Champagne drinkers, a go-to Champagne for many, so choosing a big name reduces the possibility of people not enjoying it and also helps with keeping the cost down.

Going for a smaller Grower Champagne like Champagne Roger Brun or Champagne Roger Constant Lemire for example will provide many a new tasting experience but will likely cost more per bottle, as what you’re getting is often considered a finer quality.

I can’t decide for you, your situation will impact your decision and so will your taste buds and your wedding planner, all I can say is to make sure that you enjoy the Champagne that is served, not everyone can pick out the different characteristics from Champagne, most Champagne drinkers don’t have a lot of experience drinking many different types of Champagne, so your guests will likely be pleased with whichever Champagne you choose.

When To Serve Your Champagne

The most popular time to serve your Champagne would be before the speeches so that all can toast the bride and groom, you may also want to serve your Champagne during the main course of your meal or just before the cutting of the cake.

It’s up to you whether you want to find the perfect Champagne to pair with your main course, for this, speak with your caterer, wedding planner, sommelier or chef at the venue to try and discover what Champagnes they recommend with which courses, you can explore Glass of Bubbly for some helpful pairing tips, but to be honest, nothing beats trying the pairings for yourself, take a quick look at What Food To Pair With Champagne? This article will give you an easy-to-read and understand guide on what foods pair with each different type of Champagne.

Most Extra Brut or Brut Champagnes will pair with white meats or fish, Rosé Champagne will usually accompany dark meats, but each Champagne is made by a different winemaker, so the style will vary, combine that with the various different herbs, seasoning and spices that could be used to enhance your meals by the chefs, then that makes each pairing unique, sometimes a perfect combo is found that enhances both the Champagne and dish, sometimes a pairing will enhance one over the other and sometimes the Champagne will just cleanse the palate ready for the next bite.

If you want your Champagne to pair with a slice of your wedding cake, then may I suggest an Extra-Dry, Dry or Demi-sec Champagne, either a classic white or a Rosé.

Your wedding planning probably feels far from done – if you’re still searching for that perfect dress we recommend browsing Sherri Hill’s collection – but I hope this article has helped you make a few decisions or at least given you some ideas on what Champagne you want for your perfect day and when to serve it, I wish you all the best for your wedding and beyond!

Fancy a beach Honeymoon, check out The World’s Best Beaches To Enjoy A Glass of Bubbly