Bar Question

starrynight84

If you were a guest, would you mind the bar closing an hour early? 

My reception will be five and a half hours long. The first four and a half hours will be an open, premium bar along with a champagne toast and wine service with dinner. I am considering closing the bar for the final hour and offering a coffee and cordials bar instead. No cash bars or anything of the sort will be considered. Thoughts?

snuff9861

I don't drink so really this would not bother me at all. But I think it's lovely that you'd switch to coffee and I'm going to assume soda will still be available? I know a lot of reception venues close the bar before the reception is over in order to give people time to sober up a little before heading out, so I don't think it's that big of a deal.

monkeysip

I wouldn't mind, and I don't think guests in general would mind.

However, it might signal to guests that the reception is ending.  People will probably start wrapping things up around that time and not stay the whole hour.

tpender13

Ditto PP I think it's fine as long as you let people know. Perhaps a sign at the bar saying that alcohol will be available until x time, and have the DJ announce last call.

chelseamb11

Whatever you are hosting, you should host all night.  Not everyone pays attention to the signs or even the DJ for that matter.  I'd be super annoyed if I somehow missed that announcement and went back up to get a specific beverage and found out it wasn't available anymore. Is there a huge cost difference for that last hour? I feel like it shouldn't make that much of a difference to keep it open all night.

Blueyed228

Chels- around here you can only serve alcohol for X amount of hours.

acaponi87

In my area this is common...my wedding reception is 6 hours I think and we get 5 hours of bar service. Is it possible to close a bit for dinner? We are doing a plated dinner and are closing for half an hour when the actual main course is served (will be open for the salad course, pasta course) and then for the last half hour of the reception.

SKP82

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_bar-question?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:ff892572-ce25-4097-8f87-33085c8047aePost:0670e81e-9d0c-42d3-a507-3b3c434354af">Bar Question</a>:
[QUOTE]If you were a guest, would you mind the bar closing an hour early?  My reception will be five and a half hours long. The first four and a half hours will be an open, premium bar along with a champagne toast and wine service with dinner<strong>. I am considering closing the bar for the final hour and offering a coffee and cordials bar instead. </strong>No cash bars or anything of the sort will be considered. Thoughts?
Posted by starrynight84[/QUOTE]

Since you stated the bolded part, I'm assuming that it's not an issue of you only being able to serve for a certain number of hours. 

If it's a budget thing, I would X the champagne toast and wine service with dinner.  My wedding coordinator told us that those two things are a total waste because people will take the champagne and/or wine, but not drink it.  Let them toast with the drink they have and choose what they want to drink with their dinner.

We had an outdoor reception of 5.5 hours.  Almost everyone drank liquor and beer the entire night!  We ended up taking back all the red wine and 1/2 the white we bought.  I was the only one who drank the Prosecco.

ETA: Answer your question - yes, I would be totally annoyed that the bar closed an hour early.

LP11509

I thought it was fairly standard to have last call 30-60 minutes before the end of the reception? Actually I thought it was required in some cases if your reception is over a certain amount of time since like Blue said, you can only serve alcohol for X hours in some places. 

I'm pretty sure our bar stopped serving alcohol 30 minutes before the reception ended, but people could still get pop, water, coffee etc. But I honestly don't remember for sure.  Which tells me that it wasn't a big deal if it did. 

LP11509

And SKP - your sig pic is gorgeous, but it's huge.  Can you resize it a bit?

SKP82

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_bar-question?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:ff892572-ce25-4097-8f87-33085c8047aePost:029d2af6-d261-4b23-b593-fe03f7a7f772">Re: Bar Question</a>:
[QUOTE]And SKP - your sig pic is gorgeous, but it's huge.  Can you resize it a bit?
Posted by LP11509[/QUOTE]

Thanks.  I'm working on it.  :)

starrynight84

Thank you for the input. 

It's not a budget thing. 

I wanted guests to still have an option for alcohol, so that's why I suggested cordials.

ETA: The bar is required to close for the last thirty minutes. I am just asking about closing it for thirty additional minutes prior to that.  And edited to remove extraneous information.

Ashleigh828

Starrynight - if the bar is required to close 30 minutes before the actual end time, then I would just leave the open bar the same throughout the evening. Most people won't want cordials. I would have coffee offered and that way people that want it can order it themselves.