after- party?

chica368

For those of you having an after-party; are you having it at the hotel or at the reception hall and what are you doing for it? I'm not sure if my place offers an after-party but I wanted to get thoughts on them.
Thanks!

cindy91788

The hotel we are using has a bar, but last call is at 1:30 (because it is a law in NJ).. so its not possible to pay them to keep it open longer...our reception will be over at midnight, and the hotel is 20 minutes away, so we most likely won't get to use their bar. Instead, we will be inviting people to our suite to hang out and party.. we will have a separate bedroom in our suite, so its not like people will be hanging out on our bed..

felicia220

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_new-jersey_after-party-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:90Discussion:7935fea0-50d1-4fb3-ba0c-62013037f99ePost:bcca8c87-659d-4473-b3d5-11292ecdfdae">Re: after- party?</a>:
[QUOTE]The hotel we are using has a bar, but last call is at 1:30 (because it is a law in NJ).. so its not possible to pay them to keep it open longer.
Posted by cindy91788[/QUOTE]

<div>Unless they changed the law in the past few years, this is not true.  Bars can stay open until 3am in NJ and even 4am in certain towns (such as Seaside)  The reason why most bars don't stay open is because the insurance companies charge a larger premium to stay open past 2am.  With that being said, some Hotels will keep the bar open if there is enough people to warrant it.  The insurance is different on a Hotel Bar than a regular bar, so it is possible.  </div><div>
</div><div>We had our a reception at a resort, kinda, so we had the after party there.  I would try to do the after party at the hotel, so this way people are already there and when they are tired they can just go up to their room.  Unless you plan on having it at the reception site and then have 3-4 hours of shuttle service, which I would assume would be very expensive.  I think the hotel is your best bet.  </div>

USER876

Some hotels require you to pay the bartender overtime to stay...

We hung out at our hotel bar.....30-45 minutes was enough to see everyone, wind down,etc, and have 1-2 last drinks.  We didn't have any interest in staying out till 3am, we enjoyed our time alone in our honeymoon suite, and opened our gifts..... and didin't want to deal with having 20 people in there with us.

MissButters

We actually reserved a second suite for this reason.  With our wedding being on a Sunday, the hptel ar closes at like 10:30.  So, we'll use the second suite for the after party, and that way we can elave when we want and people can still stay and hang out.

cindy91788

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_new-jersey_after-party-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:90Discussion:7935fea0-50d1-4fb3-ba0c-62013037f99ePost:972cb750-b4aa-464b-a895-03cd7367b813">Re: after- party?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: after- party? : Unless they changed the law in the past few years, this is not true.  Bars can stay open until 3am in NJ and even 4am in certain towns (such as Seaside)  The reason why most bars don't stay open is because the insurance companies charge a larger premium to stay open past 2am.  With that being said, some Hotels will keep the bar open if there is enough people to warrant it.  The insurance is different on a Hotel Bar than a regular bar, so it is possible.   We had our a reception at a resort, kinda, so we had the after party there.  I would try to do the after party at the hotel, so this way people are already there and when they are tired they can just go up to their room.  Unless you plan on having it at the reception site and then have 3-4 hours of shuttle service, which I would assume would be very expensive.  I think the hotel is your best bet. 

I just googled it, and you are right. the law in NJ is 3am.. never knew that because I've never been at a bar in NJ that stayed open until 3am. It also says that bars "down the shore" can stay open later because they are considered in a "resort town" or something like that..

but.. when I was looking at hotels in North Jersey, they all told me they could not stay open past 2am.. they said it was not an option to stay open longer.. guess because they don't pay to be allowed to do that..

kwilkinson14

I am actually having my after party at the reception location. The hotel we have our hotel block in doesn't have a bar. The after party is in a different room and does have food and drink included in the price. Other weddings I have been to have had it at the hotel in the hotel's lounge/bar area.