A wedding cigar order is a quantity problem before it is a taste problem. Decide what share of the guest list will actually take one — at a wedding that includes people who never buy cigars — and the count falls out of the arithmetic. At a 35% take rate, 120 guests is 42 cigars: 120 × 0.35 = 42.
Then price it. The 12 cigars ranked below run from $5.00 to $8.00 for a single. Forty-two at the bottom of that range is $210.00 (42 × $5.00). Forty-two at the top is $336.00 (42 × $8.00). That is a $126.00 spread produced by one decision, made once, months before anyone lights anything.
The range is capped at $8.00 and at mild-to-medium strength on purpose. The cigar that matters at a wedding is the one a guest who smokes twice a year can finish, not the one a collector would pick. 334 cigars in our catalog are priced at $8.00 or under at mild, mild-medium or medium strength. These are the 12 highest-rated of them.
Total cigar spend by guest count, at three price tiers
At one cigar per guest the tier choice compounds. The cheapest of the 12 picks is $5.00 a cigar; the dearest is $8.00. At 50 guests that is $250 against $400 — a $150 difference. At 250 guests it is $1,250 against $2,000, a $750 difference.
The 12 Best Wedding Cigars, Ranked
Ranked by catalog rating. One cigar sits at 4.8, three at 4.7, and the remaining eight all tie at 4.65 — inside that tie the order is alphabetical, not a verdict, so choose on price, size and strength instead. Every price is for a single cigar.
1. My Father Flor de las Antillas Belicoso
- Rating: 4.8
- Price: $7.50
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 6 x 52 Torpedo, Nicaraguan sun grown wrapper
The Flor de las Antillas Belicoso is rated 4.8 at $7.50. Nothing else in the $8.00-and-under mild-to-medium pool scores higher. The tapered head takes an ordinary guillotine cut, so it does not need special handling at the station, but at six inches it is an hour of someone's evening.
Buy it for the wedding party and the guests who asked whether there would be cigars — not for the open table.
2. La Aroma de Cuba Edicion Especial No. 1
- Rating: 4.7
- Price: $7.50
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 5.63 x 46 Toro, Ecuador wrapper
The Edicion Especial No. 1 is rated 4.7 at $7.50. A 46 ring gauge is narrow for a toro, which is the point here: a thinner cigar burns down faster and asks less of a guest who has never held one.
Buy it for a station where you expect people to try one rather than settle in.
3. La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor Magnifico
- Rating: 4.7
- Price: $7.50
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 6 x 52 Toro, Mexican wrapper
The Mi Amor Magnifico is rated 4.7 at $7.50. It is the same money and the same rating as its sibling above, in a fatter and longer format under a dark Mexican wrapper. That wrapper is the one thing on this list that reads as a special-occasion cigar in a photograph.
Buy it for the head table, or as the one cigar you hand people individually.
4. Partagás Corona Junior (Tubo)
- Rating: 4.7
- Price: $5.46
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 4.63 x 40 Petit Corona, Cuban
The Corona Junior is rated 4.7 at $5.46, the cheapest cigar here rated above 4.65. It is also the smallest — a 40 ring gauge petit corona is the shortest commitment here, which is exactly what a guest who is unsure needs. It ships in a tube, so it survives a jacket pocket and a warm night better than anything else on the list.
Buy it for guests who will take one and walk off with it. Note it is the only Cuban cigar here, so where you can buy it depends on where you are.
5. Alec Bradley Sanctum Toro
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $7.75
- Strength: Mild-Medium
- Size: 6 x 52 Toro, Honduran wrapper
The Sanctum Toro is rated 4.65 at $7.75. It is one of only two cigars in this ranking that are mild-medium rather than medium, which makes it the safest thing here to put in the hand of someone who does not smoke.
Buy it for the guest who says yes out of politeness. They will finish it.
6. Carlos Torano Exodus 1959 50 Years Box Press
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $6.95
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 5 x 55 Robusto Extra, Brazilian wrapper
The Exodus 1959 50 Years Box Press is rated 4.65 at $6.95. It is box-pressed, which sounds cosmetic and is not: a square cigar does not roll off the edge of an ashtray or a cocktail table, and at an outdoor station in wind that matters.
Buy it for a station with small tables and no supervision.
7. Charter Oak CT Shade Rothschild
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $5.00
- Strength: Mild-Medium
- Size: 4.5 x 50 Robusto, U.S.A. Connecticut shade wrapper
The Charter Oak CT Shade Rothschild is rated 4.65 at $5.00. Cheapest on the list, mild-medium, and at 4.5 inches one of the two shortest — it is the only cigar here that is simultaneously the budget answer and the beginner answer. Buying 42 of these is the $210.00 end of the arithmetic in the opening.
Buy it for the open station, in volume.
8. Curivari Buenaventura Cremas C100
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $6.00
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 5.63 x 46 Toro, Ecuador wrapper
The Buenaventura Cremas C100 is rated 4.65 at $6.00. It sits in the middle of the list on price and on size — a narrow 46 ring in a toro length. If handing out the cheapest cigar on the page feels wrong, this is the smallest step up that changes anything.
Buy it for a station where you want one cigar and no explaining.
9. El Baton Belicoso
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $5.95
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 5 x 56 Belicoso, Nicaraguan
The El Baton Belicoso is rated 4.65 at $5.95. It carries the widest ring gauge in this ranking at 56 while staying five inches long, so it looks substantial in a photograph without turning into an hour-long sit.
Buy it for groomsmen photos, where the cigar has to read from ten feet away.
10. Gran Habano La Conquista Gran Robusto
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $8.00
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 6 x 54 Toro, Nicaraguan wrapper
The La Conquista Gran Robusto is rated 4.65 at $8.00. It is the top of the price cap and one of the biggest cigars here at 6 x 54, and it scores the same as the $5.00 cigar three entries up. Inside this band, paying more buys size, not rating.
Buy it for the people who will sit down with it. Do not buy 42 of them.
11. Guardian of the Farm Apollo Seleccion de Warped
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $8.00
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 6 x 44 Lonsdale, Nicaraguan
The Apollo Seleccion de Warped is rated 4.65 at $8.00. It is the only lonsdale in the twelve: six inches on a 44 ring. Long and thin means a smaller mouthful of smoke than the 54-ring toro one entry up, at the same length and the same $8.00.
Buy it for the one guest who actually knows what a lonsdale is.
12. Punch Gran Puro Santa Rita
- Rating: 4.65
- Price: $5.29
- Strength: Medium
- Size: 4.5 x 52 Robusto, Honduran
The Gran Puro Santa Rita is rated 4.65 at $5.29. Second cheapest here and tied for shortest at 4.5 inches, on a fatter 52 ring than the Charter Oak.
Buy it for the second round, late, when people want another but not another hour.
How Many to Buy
Buy against a take rate, not against the number of smokers you can name. Guests who never buy cigars take one at a wedding; regular smokers sometimes skip it because they are dancing. Pick a percentage of the guest list and buy to it.
| Guests | Light (25%) | Middle (35%) | Heavy (50%) | Middle at $5.00 | Middle at $8.00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 | 15 | 21 | 30 | $105.00 | $168.00 |
| 80 | 20 | 28 | 40 | $140.00 | $224.00 |
| 100 | 25 | 35 | 50 | $175.00 | $280.00 |
| 120 | 30 | 42 | 60 | $210.00 | $336.00 |
| 150 | 38 | 53 | 75 | $265.00 | $424.00 |
| 200 | 50 | 70 | 100 | $350.00 | $560.00 |
| 250 | 63 | 88 | 125 | $440.00 | $704.00 |
Fractions are rounded up. The two cost columns are the count multiplied by the cheapest and dearest cigars on this page — nothing else is folded in.
Three adjustments that actually move the number:
- Count the wedding party separately. Groomsmen, fathers, the friend who brought a cutter — those are heads, not a percentage. Add them on top.
- Go heavy if the reception is outdoors and long. A covered terrace and a late end time raise the take rate; a two-hour lunch reception lowers it.
- Buy one size, or buy two. One size keeps the count simple. Two sizes — one short, one full-length — means a guest who does not want an hour still gets to take part.
Interactive
How many cigars does your wedding need?
Set your guest count, decide how many of them will actually take a cigar, and pick a price tier. The tier prices are the cheapest, middle and dearest of the 12 cigars ranked above.
This one is your call, not a measured number. We have no data on how many of your guests smoke. 35% is where the slider starts — move it.
42 cigars
120 guests x 35% = 42 cigars, rounded up.
42 x $6.95 = $291.90 at the middle tier.
3 boxes of 20, or 2 boxes of 25. Box counts only — we price single sticks, so we do not quote a box price.
At $6.95 or less, the highest-rated pick is Partagás Corona Junior (Tubo) — 4.7, Medium, Petit Corona, 4.63" x 40, at $5.46 each. Buy that one and 42 cigars cost 42 x $5.46 = $229.32.
The 12 picks come from 334 catalog cigars under $8 at mild-to-medium strength.
Set the Station Up So It Runs Itself
Nobody is going to staff this. It has to work with no one behind it.
- Clear it with the venue before you order anything. Indoor smoking rules belong to the venue, not to you, and finding out in the last week is how cigars end up in a car park.
- Put it away from the dance floor and the dinner tables. Non-smoking guests should be able to ignore the whole thing.
- Cutters and lighters, more than you think. Guests will not bring their own. Three or four guillotine cutters and two or three torch lighters stop a queue forming. Long cedar matches are slower and photograph better; have both.
- Heavy ashtrays. One for every two or three people in the area, weighted enough not to move outdoors.
- A card per cigar naming its strength. "Mild-medium, good if you have never smoked one" answers the question guests are too polite to ask. This is why the strength column above matters more than the ratings do.
- A weather plan decided in advance. A covered corner or a tent, chosen at the walkthrough, not at 9pm.
When to Open It
After dinner and the cake, as the dancing starts. The room divides itself at that point — dancers to the floor, everyone else outside — and the station catches the half that was going to drift outside anyway.
Cocktail hour is the other workable slot, if the venue allows it and you are away taking photographs. Before dinner is the one to avoid: smoke in the room ahead of a meal is a complaint you will hear about afterwards.
Drinks
| Drink | Pour it with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Champagne | The two mild-medium picks, the Alec Bradley Sanctum Toro and the Charter Oak CT Shade Rothschild | They are already the lightest things on the list, and the toast is already poured. |
| Bourbon or whiskey | The medium ones, which is ten of the twelve | If there is a whiskey bar, this pairing needs no card explaining it. Our pairing guides go deeper. |
| Port, if you have it | Any medium cigar | Sweet enough to stand next to one, and it is the drink nobody at the bar has asked for yet. |
Skip flavored cigars unless you know the crowd wants them. The smell carries to people who did not opt in.
Storing Them Until the Day
Cigars ordered a month out need somewhere to sit. A humidor works; so does a sealed plastic container with 69% Boveda packs, which is what most couples end up using because it holds a wedding-sized count. Our humidor guide covers the setup properly.
Dried-out cigars crack when they are cut and burn hot when they are lit, which is the one failure mode a guest will actually notice. Transport them in the sealed container and set the station up before guests reach the area, not while they are watching.
New to this entirely? Start with best cigars for beginners or take the cigar finder quiz.
More occasion guides: Bachelor party cigars · Celebration cigars · Cigar gift guide · Cigar price index
How many cigars do I need for a wedding?
Multiply the guest list by a take rate rather than counting the smokers you know. At 35%, 100 guests is 35 cigars, 150 guests is 53, and 250 guests is 88. Add the wedding party on top as individual heads. Use 25% for a short daytime reception and 50% for a long outdoor one.
How much should I spend per cigar at a wedding?
Between $5.00 and $8.00 buys every cigar on this page, and inside that band price does not track rating. The best-rated cigar here is $7.50, while two of the lowest-rated are $8.00, and the $5.00 cigar scores the same as those two. Spending more inside the band buys size and shape, not a better score.
Should I buy a box or singles for a wedding?
Whichever gets you to your count. Every price on this page is for a single cigar from our own catalog — we do not publish box retail prices, so any box figure here is a single price multiplied by a count and is written that way: 42 × $5.00 = $210.00. Box counts vary by cigar and almost never land on your number, so most weddings end up buying boxes and topping up with singles.
What cigar suits guests who do not smoke?
The mildest thing that ends quickly. Two of the twelve are mild-medium rather than medium: the Charter Oak CT Shade Rothschild at $5.00 and the Alec Bradley Sanctum Toro at $7.75. Of those two the Charter Oak is much the shorter cigar, 4.5 x 50 against 6 x 52. Put it on the sign that nobody has to finish one — a guest who puts down a half-smoked cigar has still had the experience you paid for.