First of all CONGRATULATIONS on your engagement! So excited for you and your fiancé but now you wonder “Where do I begin with planning a wedding?”. I would highly recommend booking your wedding venue as the first big step in planning your wedding.
Why book the venue first? A lot of the top venues get booked at least a year in advance especially on a Saturday during the prime months.
There was so many wedding venues…so how do you pick one? You should definitely answer these questions before you start your research to help narrow down your search:
- What is your budget?
- What is your wedding date and are you flexible with the date?
- Where do you want your wedding to take place? Near where you live, near the city, etc.
- How many people are you expecting to attend the wedding?
- What is the style/aesthetic you want your wedding to be?
- Do you want the ceremony and reception to be at the same location?
- Will the ceremony inside or outside?
- Will the reception inside or outside?
- Do you want a bridal suite and groom suite to get ready at on the day of?
Research Wedding Venues
Have answers to all those questions? Great! Now it’s time to start researching venues near you (or whichever location you decided to have your wedding) that fit those parameters. I used google and The Knot (my wedding website) to find venues as well as reviews.
Tip: Look up the venue on instagram and tagged instagram posts to see real life photos.
Once you decided which venues could potentially be the ONE, schedule an appointment with each to tour it in person! My husband and I chose our top 3 picks to tour, since we didn’t want to be overwhelmed, and spread out the tours since the venues weren’t super close to where we lived.
Touring the Venues
On your tour, TAKE A LOT OF PICTURES & VIDEOS! I cannot recommend this enough. Yah, they’ll be pictures on their website and Instagram but nothing beats your own pictures and videos. This will help you go back and review each venue after the tours and allow you to have a better comparison.
Tip: Create separate photo albums of each venue and put your photos and videos for each in their respective folder! That way you won’t be confused on which picture goes with which venue.
Things to consider when visiting the venue:
- Does it match your vision for your wedding?
- Does it have enough space for all your guest to be comfortable? Is it too big for the amount of guests? (You don’t want the venue to be too big for the amount of guest since it could make the space feel too open/bare.)
- Do they provide tables, chairs, and any other decorative items? (My venue provided decorative tables, round guest tables, and chairs but others also provide decorative lanterns, easels, etc.)
- Do they allow any vendors or only ones from their preferred list?
- What is the payment plan?
- Do they have availability on the date you selected for your wedding? <– Might be a deal breaker.
Choosing Which One Is Right For You
Now the hard part, choosing which venue is right for you and your fiancé. Well…budget, date, style, any of these can be the deciding factor but you have to decide which are the most important to you. Once you decide this, then you can go back and review the venues you toured and start crossing off ones that didn’t meet your criteria and narrow it down to the ONE. If there are several that meet your criteria, did one venue speak to more? Did you just have a gut feeling that one of them was perfect? Well if that’s the case, YAY! You know exactly which venue is for you. (I luckily had that feeling with my venue.)
If you want some wedding inspiration or are interesting in what venue I chose, I wrote another post about my wedding venue, The Meekermark.
Here’s a wedding venue checklist I created that you can download to bring with you on your venue tours!
I hope this helps and gives you a starting point in your great adventure of wedding planning! I wish you the best and good luck. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
