The morning after: pack down, returns and the bond you will not get back

Almost every plan ends at the last dance. The event does not. There is a pack down, there are returns, there is a bond, and there is somebody doing all of it while everyone else is asleep.

What happens between midnight and 1am

Guests leave. The venue wants the room cleared. Hire items must be counted and stacked. Gifts, cards and personal items have to go somewhere secure. Left food and cake need collecting. Floral installations come down.

Most of this is contractual — the venue's licence obliges them to clear the room — and most couples have made no plan for any of it.

The three questions to answer in advance

Who takes the valuables? Cards and gifts, often containing significant cash, need one named person and a car. This is the most common theft at events, and it happens in the confusion of pack down.

Who stacks the hire? Hire companies charge if items are not collected in a state they specified. Glassware counted, linen bagged, furniture stacked in one place. If your stylist has left, somebody is doing it.

Who returns what, and when? Hire returns are frequently Sunday or Monday morning with late fees after a cutoff. Somebody must be awake, sober, and have a vehicle.

The bond

Most venues hold a bond and most deductions are avoidable:

• Confetti or petals where they were not permitted
• Candle wax on linen or floors
• Damage from pinned or taped decorations
• Running past the contracted finish
• The room not cleared of your items by the stated time

Read the bond conditions when you sign, not the week after. Every one of these is preventable with a sentence to the right supplier.

Pay somebody

The cheapest fix in all of event planning is paying two people for two hours at the end of the night. It costs a few hundred dollars and it protects the bond, the gifts and the goodwill of whoever would otherwise be doing it.

Family will volunteer. They have also just had a long day, and asking your parents to stack chairs at midnight is a way to end a celebration badly.

Write the last hour into the run sheet

Same as any other part of the night: times, names, tasks. Last drinks, farewell, guests out, hire stacked, valuables collected, final walk-through, keys returned. Ten lines. It is the difference between finishing an event and merely stopping.