After Party Etiquette-food provided as part of a package upgrade, what about alcohol?

Re: After Party Etiquette-food provided as part of a package upgrade, what about alcohol?

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  syoun1nj member

  

  January 2015

  Personally, I expect to pay for myself at any type of after-party. I have attended one similar to this and the hosts bought food for everyone but we all bought our own drinks. I didn't see it as a "part" of the wedding and expect to be hosted, but more of a nice gesture that they paid for some food.

  
  

  Of course, anytime alcohol is hosted, it is appreciated, but IMO, the event is over so you don't need to pay for alcohol anymore.

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  marie2785 member

  

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  I dont think you have to pay for anything at an afterparty. I've always paid for my own drinks and food.
  I do find your hotel "upgrade" to be a bit suspicious though. I think it may just be a way for them go get even more money and keep you from doing after parties elsewhere else or in the hotel rooms with food and alcohol you brought in from elsewhere. By proving you with maybe $100 worth of food, they're ensuring a couple hundred $ in drink orders and additional food purchases. Smart move on their part...

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  JellyBean52513 member

  

  January 2015

  marie2785 said:

  I dont think you have to pay for anything at an afterparty. I've always paid for my own drinks and food.
  I do find your hotel "upgrade" to be a bit suspicious though. I think it may just be a way for them go get even more money and keep you from doing after parties elsewhere else or in the hotel rooms with food and alcohol you brought in from elsewhere. By proving you with maybe $100 worth of food, they're ensuring a couple hundred $ in drink orders and additional food purchases. Smart move on their part...

  I agree with this; in fact, it's the first thing that sprung to mind as I read. They know very well you have more than 30 guests, and yet that's all the after-party food they're providing "for free" (not really free, since its cost is surely built into your package somewhere!). They know you will want to take advantage of the offer, and in doing so it's going to cost you more money to make sure there's actually enough food. It's like when retail stories give you $20 off your next purchase of $40. You see that and think "Hey, that's half off!" when really, you might not have spent that $40 without the incentive to do so.
  
  I don't think you need to host alcoholic beverages for this. Since there IS food, I think pop, juice, and water would be just fine, and the bar should be willing to provide that complimentary. At that point, I also wouldn't stress about guests wanting to purchase their own beer or whatever from the hotel's bar. Your official event is over at this point.

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  huskypuppy14 member

  

  January 2015

  AuroraRose41 said:

  I want to preface this by saying that I did some lurking, and couldn't find an exact answer to the question that I have. 

  
  

  Our venue added "after party snacks" in the hotel's bar for 30 people as a complementary upgrade to our package. This will consist of sliders, pizza, and wings, and go from 11:30 pm to 2 am (our reception ends at 11:30 pm). Since we are inviting 140 people, I believe that we will have to pay for more food. We plan to spread this information by word of mouth only ("come join us for more food!"), but the bar is located directly outside of the ballroom, so guests might see it set up when they are leaving and decide to stay. 

  
  

  My question is, are we also obligated to host alcohol? Our reception will have a full open bar for the duration of the event in addition to a scotch tasting during cocktail hour but I also want to make sure I am properly hosting guests with regards to this after party situation. Thanks! 

  
  

  ETF: typo and phrasing to clarify a few details

  I pretty much did the exact same thing you are thinking of doing, and I didn't host alcohol at the after party. We had a 5 hour full open bar for the wedding which ended at 11 pm. Our after party started at 11 and ended at 1am.

  
  

  The after party was a completely different building ,though the same venue (hotel part).  We were also required to provide food if we had an after party there. We had chicken fingers and nachos, people loved it. I've been to plenty of after parties where the B&G don't even provide food never mind alcohol.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  AuroraRose41 member

  

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  JellyBean52513 said:

  marie2785 said:

  I dont think you have to pay for anything at an afterparty. I've always paid for my own drinks and food.
  I do find your hotel "upgrade" to be a bit suspicious though. I think it may just be a way for them go get even more money and keep you from doing after parties elsewhere else or in the hotel rooms with food and alcohol you brought in from elsewhere. By proving you with maybe $100 worth of food, they're ensuring a couple hundred $ in drink orders and additional food purchases. Smart move on their part...

  I agree with this; in fact, it's the first thing that sprung to mind as I read. They know very well you have more than 30 guests, and yet that's all the after-party food they're providing "for free" (not really free, since its cost is surely built into your package somewhere!). They know you will want to take advantage of the offer, and in doing so it's going to cost you more money to make sure there's actually enough food. It's like when retail stories give you $20 off your next purchase of $40. You see that and think "Hey, that's half off!" when really, you might not have spent that $40 without the incentive to do so.
  
  I don't think you need to host alcoholic beverages for this. Since there IS food, I think pop, juice, and water would be just fine, and the bar should be willing to provide that complimentary. At that point, I also wouldn't stress about guests wanting to purchase their own beer or whatever from the hotel's bar. Your official event is over at this point.

  I thought the same thing too, but FI and his friends normally party later anyways, so we saw it as getting a discount on something that we probably would have done anyways rather than "for free" so to speak. We had already been talking about providing some sort of late night snack for when people were drunk before we even talked with our venue, and had discussed the possibility of going to a bar and telling people where we would be if they wanted to join us. 

  
  

  And thank you all for the advice! I would much rather upgrade the bar from house to more premium brands at the actual event and wanted to know where the extra money should go first. Obviously any extra would first go towards making sure that I was being a proper host if need be, but I wasn't sure whether or not this would require that. 

  
  

  ETA: more info

  
  

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  short+sassy member

  

  January 2015

  AuroraRose41 said:

  JellyBean52513 said:

  marie2785 said:

  I dont think you have to pay for anything at an afterparty. I've always paid for my own drinks and food.
  I do find your hotel "upgrade" to be a bit suspicious though. I think it may just be a way for them go get even more money and keep you from doing after parties elsewhere else or in the hotel rooms with food and alcohol you brought in from elsewhere. By proving you with maybe $100 worth of food, they're ensuring a couple hundred $ in drink orders and additional food purchases. Smart move on their part...

  I agree with this; in fact, it's the first thing that sprung to mind as I read. They know very well you have more than 30 guests, and yet that's all the after-party food they're providing "for free" (not really free, since its cost is surely built into your package somewhere!). They know you will want to take advantage of the offer, and in doing so it's going to cost you more money to make sure there's actually enough food. It's like when retail stories give you $20 off your next purchase of $40. You see that and think "Hey, that's half off!" when really, you might not have spent that $40 without the incentive to do so.
  
  I don't think you need to host alcoholic beverages for this. Since there IS food, I think pop, juice, and water would be just fine, and the bar should be willing to provide that complimentary. At that point, I also wouldn't stress about guests wanting to purchase their own beer or whatever from the hotel's bar. Your official event is over at this point.

  I thought the same thing too, but FI and his friends normally party later anyways, so we saw it as getting a discount on something that we probably would have done anyways rather than "for free" so to speak. We had already been talking about providing some sort of late night snack for when people were drunk before we even talked with our venue, and had discussed the possibility of going to a bar and telling people where we would be if they wanted to join us. 

  
  

  And thank you all for the advice! I would much rather upgrade the bar from house to more premium brands at the actual event and wanted to know where the extra money should go first. Obviously any extra would first go towards making sure that I was being a proper host if need be, but I wasn't sure whether or not this would require that. 

  
  

  ETA: more info

  Hee hee...you are kind and generous .  If my venue had basically said, "We know you have 140 guests, but are only feeding 30 for the after party upgrade," I would have told them to just pack up the extra food because I am not going to have an after party where I potentially need to cough up more money to accommodate my guests.

  But since you were planning to provide food for an after party anyway, it is a nice perk and a nice way to look at it.  I also concur with the other PPs that you are not expected to host any beverages for the after party, nor would I expect it as a guest.
  

  

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  AuroraRose41 member

  

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  @short+sassy thanks! . And I totally would have done the same thing if it wasn't something that FI and I had already discussed and didn't plan to pay for anyways (we did cut out a few things from our package that we felt were unnecessary such as an ice sculpture). And about half of our guest list are middle aged or older relatives who probably won't want to stay out that late, so I imagine that we will have 50-60 max at this after party and not the total 140. 

  
  

  And our venue is also providing warm cookies in goodie bags as a farewell at the end of the reception (we are using those as our favors), so every guest that wants it will get food at the end of the night whether or not they stay for the pizza, sliders, and wings. 

  
  

  So here's another question: how do we let people know about this? Would it be okay to have the DJ announce right before our exit something along the lines of "Please join the bride and groom in the bar for some late night snacks?". I want to extend the invite to everyone who is there until the end, and worry that "word of mouth" would make some feel excluded if they never heard about it, if that makes sense?

  
  

  ETF: typo

  
  

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  [Deleted User] member

  

  January 2015

  AuroraRose41 said:

  @short+sassy thanks! . And I totally would have done the same thing if it wasn't something that FI and I had already discussed and didn't plan to pay for anyways (we did cut out a few things from our package that we felt were unnecessary such as an ice sculpture). And about half of our guest list are middle aged or older relatives who probably won't want to stay out that late, so I imagine that we will have 50-60 max at this after party and not the total 140. 

  
  

  And our venue is also providing warm cookies in goodie bags as a farewell at the end of the reception (we are using those as our favors), so every guest that wants it will get food at the end of the night whether or not they stay for the pizza, sliders, and wings. 

  
  

  So here's another question: how do we let people know about this? Would it be okay to have the DJ announce right before our exit something along the lines of "Please join the bride and groom in the bar for some late night snacks?". I want to extend the invite to everyone who is there until the end, and worry that "word of mouth" would make some feel excluded if they never heard about it, if that makes sense?

  
  

  ETF: typo

  The DJ making an announcement, I think makes it too official.  I think Word of Mouth HAS to be the only way to do it.  Tell people as you're doing table visits.  Tell the loud-mouth partiers and leaders of the groups (i.e. your bossy cousin, cheerleader friend, and best man) to spread the word too.  And as people are saying goodbye to you towards the end of the night, say, "oh, so you won't be staying to join us in the hotel bar for snacks later?  Ok then, have a great night, glad you could come."

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  lovegood90 member

  

  January 2015

  AuroraRose41 said:

  @short+sassy thanks! . And I totally would have done the same thing if it wasn't something that FI and I had already discussed and didn't plan to pay for anyways (we did cut out a few things from our package that we felt were unnecessary such as an ice sculpture). And about half of our guest list are middle aged or older relatives who probably won't want to stay out that late, so I imagine that we will have 50-60 max at this after party and not the total 140. 

  
  

  And our venue is also providing warm cookies in goodie bags as a farewell at the end of the reception (we are using those as our favors), so every guest that wants it will get food at the end of the night whether or not they stay for the pizza, sliders, and wings. 

  
  

  So here's another question: how do we let people know about this? Would it be okay to have the DJ announce right before our exit something along the lines of "Please join the bride and groom in the bar for some late night snacks?". I want to extend the invite to everyone who is there until the end, and worry that "word of mouth" would make some feel excluded if they never heard about it, if that makes sense?

  
  

  ETF: typo

  IMO having the DJ officially announce it makes it seem like it's still an extension of the event you are hosting, and would expect food/drinks to still be hosted. By doing it word of mouth ("we're hanging out at this bar after, feel free to join") implies that it is informal and no longer hosted.
  

  Formerly martha1818

  

  
  

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  AuroraRose41 member

  

  January 2015

  Alright, word of mouth it is then. Thanks ladies for all of the input! 

  
  

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