after party location?

andreapnyc

hi girlies!

im contemplating an afterparty... but im not sure where i would have it.  Option #1: at our venue (pleasantdale) which would be fun bc more people would stick around rather than going home or to the hotel.
# 2 is at the hotel.  i have rooms blocked there, so we coudl do it there bc the hotel has a bar (wilshire) and it would be a change of scenery.  but then some of the older people may not come bc they may go home or just take the shuttle back and not go to the bar. 

just curious if anyone has any ideas or if anyone has been to an after party at the pleasantdale or the wilshire.   also, FI and I have a free room at the pleasatdale, so if we did the after party at the wilshire, we'd have to get the shuttle to take us there afterwards, which may be annoying, or end up paying for a room at the wilshire and give up the free room.

thanks!!

Heather822

Maybe you should ask around and get a feel for your guests who would be interested in extending the celebration, then make your plans based on that.
What time does your reception end? Are a lot of people staying over? Do a lot of people have a far drive home?
I was MOH for a wedding 2 summers ago, and my poor best friend... booked an after party at the venue and ordered food for it, and myabe 3 people came. (I was not even one of them! LOL I had a far drive home and the reception ended at 11:30pm).

mbcdefg

I'd rather hang out at the hotel, if I were your guest. People can change into street clothes or PJs if they want, plus it's easier to head off to bed once they've had enough.

We invited some of our friends back to our hotel room once we all got back to the hotel, and we'd brought a cooler there and stocked it with drinks (plus the hotel provided us with a snack bag, along with the OOT bags that MH and I provided for our guests). People left as they got tired and headed straight to their rooms.

As for the older guests, I heard that my aunt and uncle apparently brought their own cooler and some of the older adults were doing the same thing in THEIR room, lol.

Just Jen

I vote hotel, too.

uppereastgirl

Background:  there were 10 guest rooms at our reception venue, and most of our out of town guests stayed at a hotel about 20 minutes away.  Our reception was near my hometown, which is MiddleofNowhere, NJ, so pretty much no-one -- particularly anyone young -- was traveling less than a half an hour to get to our wedding.  Most of the "local" people were from at least an hour away.

Anyway, we had an afterparty at our reception venue and not many people stuck around for it.  I think a lot were depending on the shuttle to take them back to their hotels (even though we had arranged for a later shuttle to take afterparty people home), and I think a lot of people didn't stick around because they had a lot of driving to do to get home.  (Our reception was also six hours, so they had had lots of time to have fun.)  Our in-laws treated everyone who went to the bar at the out of town hotel to drinks until the bar closed at like 12 (actually I think a little earlier because one of our drunk friends was acting up a bit -- tried to pour herself drinks).

So at any rate, I think it depends on your crowd and where they're coming from, what day of the week the wedding is and when it leaves.  I'd guess if we had any local guests they would have stuck around.  And if there were hotels closer nearby, maybe more out of town guests would have stayed.  We certainly didn't want to deal with going over to the OOT hotel for the afterparty because of the distance and difficulty with getting cabs in that area.

That said, all of the people who stayed at our reception venue were at the afterparty, and they were some of my closest friends.  Our venue was an old estate with guest rooms and there were no other events that weekend, so they set up a bar for us so we could self-serve, and we were able to stay up as late as we wanted being as loud as we wanted (no neighbors), so we kept the afterparty going until like 3.  So it was one of my favorite parts of the wedding, but was not what a majority of our guests did.

Gabriella26

 I agree with mbcdefg. The hotel is a more comfortable atmosphere for everyone