After party vs extended reception

Maybe it comes down to cost? If you extend at reception, then you’ll be paying more for venue, dj, and other vendors you’d want to stay longer.

I think the appeal might just be the setting itself? for instance if an afterparty was at a bar, it could be even more of a wild party vibe.

View Quoted Comment Most venues without a curfew don't charge extra for later hours. Do you need a pro photographer that late? Even if the caterer leaves early, there are lots of takeout/delivery places cheaper than a standard bar would charge. Negotiate with vendors and see what they're willing to do.

Our venue has a cut off time of midnight. But, even if that wasn’t in place, we had planned to do an after party. Mainly for the change of pace/setting. You have already been with the exact same people in the same place for most of your day; and I don’t know about you, but I will lose enthusiasm and that party vibe being in the same place with the same people in the same atmosphere for that long. We thought we would definitely be ready for a change by that time!

Out of the 20 or so wedding afterparties I've attended, all of them were at a different venue. Most were at bars or pubs close to or inside of the couple's hotel block. All of the venues I looked at had midnight cutoff times anyway, so having our afterparty at a bar down the street from our hotel block seemed like a logical conclusion. Only the young people attended the afterparty, definitely nobody from our parents' generation. Even if our venue did allow us to stay longer, the cost would have been exorbitant. Adding an extra couple of hours to the open bar package and serving more late night bites from our caterer (no outside food allowed in our venue) would easily have cost us an extra $****. Having our afterparty at a bar cost us less than $100. We paid for nachos for our guests and they bought their own drinks.

View Quoted Comment We did an after party at a local bar for the same reason. I knew I would want a change of scenery at some point and since the venue had a hard stop at 11:00 we moved the party across the street.

We did an after party at the restaurant/lounge on the hotel property most of our guests were staying at. Our venue had a strict cutoff time (animals need their quiet sleeping time lol).


Even if the venue allowed us to continue the afterparty there, it would have meant having to pay extra per hour for the open bar (ours was already over $50/pp for 5 hours so another 4 hours worth would be pretty pricey), $500 per additional hour, we paid for our guests’ transportation anyway so that would have been a wash, plus the selection on late night food wasn’t as appealing as where we had our afterparty. It honestly probably would have cost us close to $10k extra to extend at the venue if they allowed it since our after party was almost as long as our wedding.

The change of venue for the afterparty was great because it was actually much more relaxed. The food was more greasy late night snacks. Some people went back to their hotel rooms to change into more comfy clothes. People got to sit down and chat with each other. It was also perfect because most people were able to walk straight to their room right after it ended. A private afterparty with food, open top shelf bar (we paid per drink), and an ice cream truck cost us a little over $5k so it was definitely better for our pocketbooks.

This is 100% what I am used to (I am from Germany) and I was shocked when I found out how short American weddings are. Then I learned about the afterparty and I am totally with you to me it doesn't make sense and I would much rather continue to celebrate at our venue until late into the night. But it's not possible at our venue (and because of budget and some other factors we can't celebrate anything else), so we'll have an afterparty.

I think in planning I would also take into account what your guests are used to and communicate well beforehand what the plan is. Otherwise there might be disappointments just because of different expectations and it seems that most brides here prefer to have an afterparty at a different place.

Weddings in Germany usually have the ceremony around 2pm followed by champagne, cake and coffee outside the church. Then everyone gets to the reception venue and the reception is from around 5 or 6pm until 2am, 3am, 4am, ... . Guests leave when they (or their kids) are tired but usually not before midnight (traditionally that's when the wedding cake is served) and bride and groom are ususally among the last who leave. It's so much fun and I have never experienced it getting boring. So, if your venue allows that and there's not much extra cost, I would say go for it. :-)

View Quoted Comment I've been a guest at weddings for Hispanic couples (in the US) where the party lasts into the next day with no venue change at all and no one is bored. It depends on the crowd.

Between those 2 options, I would always pick an extended reception. If you stop the reception and plan to move elsewhere, many guests may decide it isn't worth the hassle of driving elsewhere and just go home.

View Quoted Comment I agree. Especially if guests have been drinking at the reception already, no one should be driving anywhere