Hourly or All Day: Working Out How Many Hours Your Event Actually Needs

The most common planning mistake with any rented event space isn't the guest list or the decor, it's the clock. Book too few hours and you're rushing setup or watching guests get hustled out mid-conversation. Book too many and you've paid for empty rented time. Here's how the actual rate structure at Brick + Laurel breaks down, and a practical way to work out which side of it fits your event.

The two ways to book the space

Hourly rental runs $149 an hour with a 4 hour minimum, available in a daytime slot from 8am to 4pm or an evening slot from 5pm to midnight. All Day Access covers 8am to midnight for $2,200 flat, and it includes 4 dining tables plus 45 chairs as part of the price, which is worth factoring in since renting those separately elsewhere would add to an hourly booking's cost. There's also a discounted weekday rate for events booked Monday through Thursday, worth asking about directly when you call, since it can change which option makes more sense for your specific event.

Breaking your event into three blocks

Whatever you're hosting, the real time need breaks into three parts: setup, the event itself, and teardown. Most hosts only budget for the middle one, then get surprised when vendors are still arranging things as the first guests walk in, or when the room needs to be cleared faster than anyone planned for at the end. A useful habit is to write out all three separately before booking, rather than starting from how long the party itself will run and assuming the rest will fit around it.

For setup, think about who's arriving and what they're bringing in. A shower with a caterer, a florist and a balloon arch needs meaningfully more setup time than a smaller gathering with store-bought decor and a grazing table. If you're renting the tables and chairs as an add-on rather than doing a full day booking, factor in the time to get them arranged before anything else goes up. For teardown, be honest about how much you're personally willing to do at the end of a long day versus how much help you'll actually have standing around by that point, since a room full of tired guests rarely turns into a room full of eager helpers.

When hourly makes more sense

A smaller shower, a sprinkle, a shorter workshop, or the Private Coffee Experience's fixed 4 hour format all tend to fit comfortably inside a booked hourly window without much left over. If your event realistically runs 3 to 5 hours including a reasonable setup and teardown buffer, hourly at the 4 hour minimum, or one hour past it, is usually the more efficient choice, and you can add tables, chairs, a balloon arch or cold brew individually rather than paying for a package you don't need in full.

A la carte extras worth factoring into the math

• Dining Tables (4) and Chairs (45): $150, if you're booking hourly rather than All Day Access
• 3 Color Balloon Arch: $250
• Common Good Coffee Cold Brew (2.5 gallon): $59

When All Day Access makes more sense

A full baby or bridal shower with an outside caterer, a larger birthday with a longer guest window, or any event where you want to get in early and take your time without watching the clock tends to fit All Day Access better. Because it already includes 4 dining tables and 45 chairs, it's worth comparing the flat $2,200 against what an hourly booking would cost once you add the same tables and chairs as an extra, plus enough hours to cover a relaxed setup and a full evening. For a lot of full-day events, the math ends up closer than people expect, especially once the table and chair rental gets added to an hourly booking on top of the hours themselves.

If you're still not sure which one fits what you're planning, call (619) 467-8401 or email hello@brickandlaurel.com with your rough headcount and timeline, and ask about the weekday rate while you're at it. The pricing page lays out every option and add-on in one place, hourly rates, All Day Access, and every extra listed above, if you'd rather look it over on your own first.