NYE Wedding Pros/Cons

Well it's a really cool date, and it will be a really nice party atmosphere.

But sometimes venues charge extra on holidays, or some vendors may already be booked up, even for NYE 2019, so start booking early.

OOT people may have other plans already.

I think if you really want it, be sure to give people plenty of advance notice. I would also book a hotel ballroom so people don't have to drive anywhere and they can stay the night.

Pros: you already have a theme and its a great time to party, especially a formal party!

cons: it is going to be EXPENSIVE and likely hard to book. Another WW user (I forgot the name) is having a NYE wedding this year and her venue is charging her a ton for alcohol since they would normally have a party then. Guests will expect a very formal, very classy (read- very expensive) event, lots of glamor, definitely champagne, and a full blown black tie affair would be best, but at least close to it. Also, some people already have commitments that they do on NYE so you could have a high decline rate. Depending on your area, snow sotrms/unseasonable weather can be an issue, unlikely to be able to do much outside, and guests may not be as generous since christmas time wipes out a lot of peoples free spending.

Could be pro or con: depending on you, and FS income, you get married the last day of the year, but pay taxes for the whole year as if you were married the whole year. For me, that is a huge tax increase to now be married (marriage tax penalty sucks), for others it may be a tax reduction. Basically depends on how close in income you and your FS are. If you are close, you will likely pay more taxes, if you are very different incomes, likely less taxes collectively.

I plan my NYE months and months in advance honestly. I'd need a lot of notice if I was being invited to a wedding. And you'd likely have to have the venue open for most of the night, as people will likely want to stay after midnight. If you were planning on wrapping the reception up early, that night would not be the night to do it

I think the only way this would be fun is if the reception ended after midnight.

cuz now you just ruined a holiday and any plans I could have made.

It is going to be 5 times more expensive. High decline rate.

For a NYE's wedding where I work the F&B for that night goes up to $175 before any taxes or grat. Depending on your location you will easily pay over $300 per guest (with taxes and grat) Venue fee will probably be higher as well. The last couple of NYE's weddings that I have worked have ended at 12:30am and 1:00am. The guests had a ton of fun. I would go to one in a heartbeat. You would for sure want to get room blocks for your guests too.

Okay also you're going to need to make sure to invite everyone's SO and maybe give out plus ones or people may not attend. My FH was invited to weddings without me before we got engaged which was fine, but he blew off the NYE one (along with about half of our friend group) because they didn't invite all SOs. Remember lots of people want to celebrate that night with their loved ones.

We do them every year. Not an appreciable decline rate, but I think that depends on your guests. If they don't want to go formal or go out? They say no. If they consider your invite "ruining their plans", they say no. This has not been my experience.

More expensive; all staff gets paid more.

And Rusty brings up a good point; tax liability, as unromantic as that is. You want to figure that out beforehand. I actually had a couple that was going to get married on NYE and moved the actual legal ceremony until just after midnight. And yes, while I don't charge more for NYE in general (most ceremonies are at 7 ish) I charged them more, lol....

I want to go!

Yes, don't forget how expensive hotel rooms will likely be for guests and hotels may not be as willing to block out rooms for you since that is a busy night for them! Book hotel rooms early!

Still, I'd want to go to one if hosted well.

@Kate, honestly I think it depends on where you're from. It didn't bother me or my girlfriends at all.

ETA: I also think it depends on the wedding. These were all SUPER small weddings (around 75 people most of whom was their family). If it was a big wedding and SOs weren't invited, yeah I'm be annoyed.

I would have really high expectations for a NYE wedding. It's one of my favorite things to celebrate, and my group of friends always goes out to a fancy dinner, before going to one of our houses for a giant party.

I'd imagine it can be more expensive across the board for everyone- vendors, venue, travel fees, hotels, transportation. I definitely wouldn't want to have anyone relying on public transportation like taxis/Uber/Lyft to get home from the venue because wait times could be insane.

It's going to be expensive. As everyone else said, Nye wedding comes with higher expectations. You're not going to get away with doing a beer/wine bar only. It needs to be full open bar all night. You also need to give everyone a plus one. None of this, we don't want people we don't know there. It's Nye and that means everyone gets a date, whether you know them or not.

Thanks for the good pointers and suggestions . The venue we have been looking at only charges $1750.00 for a holiday rental for 6PM - 4AM . They are also 100% DIY so it would save money by being able to outsource vendors. We also want to keep the guest list small 50-75 guest total since we both have small families . It's also just a hand full of out of town guest so I don't think that would be a huge issue either.

I'm having one this year and everyone is SO excited! Our venue is not charging us more BUT yes a lot of venues do. Ours is $54/pp. everything is indoor so we don't chance weather.

We chose 12/31 cause it's our favorite time of the year, we get a fresh start every year as husband and Wife, we can do so many fun things on our anniversary, and 13 is our lucky number. Just backwards.

I thought people would think it's a lame day to get married but literally everyone is excited to have something to do on nye! Except for those with kids cause of sitter issues but they've had two years so not our problem. And anyone who did think it's lame doesn't have to come. I'm totally fine with that. It's one night that's not about anyone else but us so if you're there then awesome. If not then I'm not mad about it, lol.

" ETA: I also think it depends on the wedding. These were all SUPER small weddings (around 75 people most of whom was their family). If it was a big wedding and SOs weren't invited, yeah I'm be annoyed."

On what planet is 75 people considered a "super small wedding"? Your social circle is rude.

To be fair, in our area, you would have to book the venue a long way out and pay huge (our pp charges are big to begin with). The plus in our area is that everything is open later and the last call is an hour later. Con: you would have to book transportation in advance because getting a cab on NYE is nay impossible.

My sis got married NYE 2004. It was great. She has a 6:30pm ceremony and late dinner. At midnight our town has fireworks and everyone went outside to watch. Party was awesome, til 2am. It helped that the venue was a hotel.

Just make sure you're inviting every guest with a plus one. Nobody wants to come celebrate at a Nye wedding without a date.

My cousin did this, we had a blast! Cons I heard from him was that every vendor charged more to work during new years.