How to Choose the Perfect Venue
Congratulations on your engagement! Now is when the fun of planning starts. There will be a few things you will need to figure out before you start searching the internet for the venue you envision. The prep work will make your life a ton easier once you know the answers to the questions venues will start to ask when you start your adventure of touring.
First thing you will need to figure out is how many people you intend on having come to your wedding day. It’s helpful to start to create a list of everyone you know, your fiancé, as well as if you want either of the parents to create a list of any people they’d like to invite. You’d be surprised how many people are on the list once you get a count. Don’t be afraid to take some people off if you haven’t spoken to them in years or have cousins twice removed. Remember this is your day to celebrate with your closest family and friends. By getting all of these names on a list also try to get addresses and phone numbers so you won’t have to worry about that later on in the planning process. When you get the final count, look back and count the people you believe will come to your wedding. Twenty percent is usually the amount of people that will not be able to make it and to make sure you don’t get a venue larger than you need it’s best to account for several less people. This number is important for venue size, guests for catering, and beverage minimums.
Second, Budget. Budgeting for a wedding can be difficult, but you also don’t want to spend something that’s going to take you 20 years to pay off. When thinking about what you want have an ideal number in mind and have a hard no pass number. You may come to find planning will have you pick certain things that are more important than others when it comes to the wedding day. Average cost of weddings for 2023 is $25,000-$35,000. This does not mean it can’t go below or well above that number.
Third, Date. When choosing your wedding date you may want to be open minded. Choosing a specific season may be a better option than a specific date. This will allow more availability with venues and other vendors. If you do choose a specific date try not to get discouraged if a vendor is not available. Most will recommend other photographers, florists, DJ’s, catering, that may be available for your date and within your budget, date, and guest count.
Now that you’ve done all the prep work it’s time to start planning tours based off the criteria. Start with selecting venues that are striking your wedding dreams. You’ll want to visit your favorites first and make sure they are exactly what you thought they were. Social media has been a great tool for many to check out venue pages to see how different weddings are setup. At the venue some details to take into consideration are if they offer all decor, catering, and setup/teardown. If they do not, there are more vendors you will have to find instead of it being a one stop shop. Most couples enjoy being able to choose whomever they want for vendors because it allows personality to shine through. There is neither a right or wrong way of deciding how you want your wedding to be. Another question is if the venue offers a ceremony space, wedding and reception can take place indoors/outdoor, or if there is a bridal party/groomsman get ready space? These are all questions to consider while shopping for the venue space and what you envision for the wedding day.
When you do find that perfect venue it will just click and feel like its exactly the place you see yourself getting married, as well as looking back at pictures dreaming about how great that day was. Once the decision has been made book it without hesitation. Dates go by incredibly fast and I’d hate to see you miss something that felt so right. Happy Venue Shopping!