Curfew. It’s a word we’ve all never really associated with good things.

It probably stems from teendom – curfews hung over your head, signalling the impending end to fun times, as well as cranky parents if they were abused.

Then, for a glorious period, curfews disappeared. You became a grown-ass person and you got to call the shots on when the night wound down.

But if you’re planning a wedding, we’re very sorry to say, but the original c-word is back. Almost every venue will have a curfew, and we feel it’s about time we addressed this fact with honesty and a bit of logic.

Curfews suck. We get it. We didn’t want them for our weddings either. Our friends and family were at our weddings to celebrate our love – not to cause riots and destroy property. So why the need to potentially close the curtains on the celebration early?

But then we managed a wedding venue. And we finally understood why curfews are (and we’re sorry to say this) 100% necessary.

Why do wedding venues have a curfew?

We’ll break down some of the reasons below.

Council restrictions

Most wedding venues don’t have a choice – they are required by council to wind the party down at a certain hour. If they don’t, they are subject to fines or to having their event licence to host weddings revoked. Not ideal as you can imagine.

Neighbourly considerations

Can you imagine if almost every weekend of the year your neighbour held a bender that went until the wee hours of the morning? Reckon it might strain the relationship? Our venue owners are part of their local community and it’s in their best interests to keep the peace. Plus, no couple wants the police turning up at their wedding to crash the party and turn the music off.

Guest safety

We’re just going to say it: a lot of your guests are going to get drunk. Free alcohol and intoxication go hand-in-hand. Not to mention the fact that if you have any wait staff providing a drinks service it quickly becomes difficult to keep track of how much you’ve consumed.

With inebriation comes a loss of inhibitions. The later the night, the higher the chances of accidents happening. Many venues have open waterholes, barbed wire fences, surrounding bush or busy roads nearby. We know, we know – your mates are probably responsible legends and the chances that they might go AWOL and get into trouble are probably slim… BUT there’s still a significantly higher chance of something going awry after 1am and two bottles of champers.

It’s important to venue owners that you make it home in one, safe and happy piece, which is another reason curfews are important.

Next day pack up

It’s a lot harder to pack up a wedding when there are guests crashed out across the venue. Which is liable to happen when there’s no curfew and the party continues into the early hours (no judgement here – we’d be there until the end too).

Licensed servers leave (and the bar closes)

You might not know this but if you’re having your wedding at a venue that doesn’t have an alcohol licence, you’re still *technically* required to arrange your own liquor licence.

Don’t worry, we didn’t know this either – and the good thing is if you’re working with a catering company (which most people do), they have the licenses, RSA and insurances to make sure you’re sorted in case anything goes wrong.

But the catering team inevitably needs to clock off at some point in the night, which means the (official) drinks service will stop. So you might as well either wrap the party up or move on elsewhere (more on this option below).

So, how can we get around the fact that there’s a curfew?

Click here to read full article by Wedshed ……

Get the full story about why private party noise curfews exists and how you can make them work in your favor. We all want the party to last forever