Hint & Tips
Wedding venues
Visiting wedding venues in search of the perfect location for your big day can be a tiring experience if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. Before you begin your search, make a list of your ‘must haves’ and your ‘nice to haves’ when it comes to wedding venues, and be ruthless in ruling out locations that don’t meet your criteria.
Here are a few areas to consider when you are visiting wedding venues:
1. Size of venue
Before you start your search for wedding venues, you will need to put together your guest list and have a firm idea of how many guests you will be inviting. Most wedding venues are very specific about the number of guests they can accommodate, but the number is usually larger for a cocktail party than a sit down dinner, so consider this option for wedding venues that initially seem too small.
2. Location of venue
If the majority of your guests are coming from your home town, and you aren’t planning a destination wedding, you really need to look at wedding venues close to home. Decide on a maximum distance that would be acceptable for your guests to travel and only look at wedding venues within that radius.
You may have fixed ideas about whether you want to get married in a town, by the sea, or in a rural country setting. Making this decision before you start to visit potential wedding venues can rule out a lot of possibilities.
3. Accommodation at wedding venue
To make your wedding day more relaxing for yourselves and your guests you might want to look for wedding venues such as hotels that have enough overnight accommodation for your whole wedding party. This will allow your guests to have a drink without worrying about driving home, and will allow you to extend the wedding into breakfast the following morning. If you are visiting wedding venues that don’t have accommodation, you may want to ask about local hotels for yourselves and any guests that want to stay.
4. Ceremony possibilities at venue
Do you want a church wedding or will you be looking for wedding venues that can accommodate a civil ceremony as well as a reception? When you are visiting wedding venues make sure you look at the room where the ceremony will take place as well as the reception area. You may fall in love with the venue as a whole, but the ceremony room needs to feel really special for the perfect wedding day.
5. Catering at venue
Before you get too excited about wedding venues you have fallen in love with, make sure you ask about catering possibilities. Does the venue have its own caterers or can you hire your own? Can you provide your own wine and how much corkage will the venue charge you? Is the menu flexible to suit your personal tastes? Can they provide a sit down dinner in the day and a buffet for the evening? Most wedding venues should be willing to arrange a menu tasting for the bride and groom to make sure they are happy with the catering so ask about this if you are interested in the venue.
One essential element to your wedding catering will be drinks, so be sure to check out the beverage packages that wedding venues offer. Most wedding venues will offer standard packages where you pay a certain amount per guest for a fixed number of hours of service. These packages should include a couple of types of beer, red, white and sparkling wine, and soft drinks and juices. If guests want something else they must pay for it themselves. Other wedding venues may prefer to offer a fixed amount of drink, for example half a bottle of wine for each guest, a glass of champagne for the toast, and all soft drinks or juices.
Of course most wedding venues will allow you to have an open bar, where guests can order what they like and you pay for it at the end. However, this can get very pricey for the couple, and is hard to control, so unless you have an unlimited drinks budget, you will probably want to opt for a beverage package.
6. Wedding planners at venue
Many wedding venues now have dedicated wedding planners or co-ordinators, and this should be the person that shows you around when you visit. It is important that you have a good rapport with this person as they will play a large part in the build up to your wedding and will be present on the day itself. Ask the wedding venue’s co-ordinator lots of questions about previous weddings held at the venue; they should come up with lots of suggestions for ways you can make your day truly special. If you don’t get a good feeling about the wedding venue’s co-ordinator, it’s probably not the right wedding venue for you.
7. Layout of venue
When you begin visiting wedding venues, have a think about the layout that would best suit your wedding. Do you want your tables arranged around the dance floor so people can dance between courses, or do you want the tables cleared away before the dancing starts? Do you want a quiet area where guests can chat away from the music without feeling isolated from the rest of the wedding party?
8. Photo opportunities at venue
Your wedding photos will be a key memento of your day, so when you are visiting wedding venues you should be on the look out for picture perfect photo backdrops. Many wedding venues will mention in their brochures if they have particularly spectacular photo locations, but make sure there are indoor as well as outdoor possibilities in case the weather is unkind.
