Post-Wedding Brunch Alternative?

dis1010

Hi all,

We're planning a destination wedding in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for October 2014.  Probably around 50-60 guests.

We know we'll be having a welcome reception/dinner the night before the wedding and figured we would have a post-wedding breakfast/brunch the day after the wedding.  But now we're not sure if it makes sense for two reasons:

1) Virtually every hotel people will probably be staying at already includes breakfast;

2) We would have to hold the post-wedding breakfast/brunch at a location no one will be staying (the hotels where we have blocks cannot accommodate a private event).  So, now we'd be asking people to travel to another place for breakfast/brunch, when they can just eat in our hotel.

With this background, here are our two questions:

1) Does a post-wedding breakfast/brunch make sense in this situation?

2) If NOT, any suggestions on alternative day after events to thank our guests for coming and spend some extra time with them without the wedding stress?

Thanks all!

David

winniethepooh368

It is extremely generous of you to want to offer your guest both a welcome reception and a post wedding brunch. In your scenario, I would probably skip the post wedding brunch if it seems like it is going to be too much hassle for guests to make it especially if they have to drive there and then to the airport later to catch flights. If you really want to spend time with guests, you could let them know by word of mouth that you will be having breakfast at your hotel at X time the following morning if they want to join you. Our wedding this past year was an all inclusive resort so breakfast was included with the package.  We just let people know we would be in the dining room at X time if they were around and wanted to join us. Most people caught flights that morning so we ended up spending time in the lobby saying goodbye to people before and after we ate breakfast. 

dis1010

Thanks so much for the response.  Just to complicate things a bit, we aren't actually staying at a hotel - we're renting a vacation rental.  It's within walking distance to the hotels we are getting special rates/room blocks.  We're not doing this to be anti-social.  Our thought is that by renting a house, we can provide a gathering place for people and have a space available for informal entertaining.

We're also getting blocks at a couple of hotels because the hotels in the area are relatively small and at wildly different price points.

That being said, we can just figure out the two hotels that most people are staying at and let people know we will stop by both for an hour or so?  (I'm sure the hotels won't have a problem with that, even though we aren't staying).  Just a thought...

Thanks again!