Deciding on a Venue for Your Wedding

Picking the venue for your wedding is arguably one of the most important parts of wedding planning as there is a lot to be considered.

Not only is it the capacity of the venue, which is important, it is also the location, transport to the venue, whether it can facilitate all wedding transitions and most significant to you – how the place feels and if it offers what you want on your big day. But before you get ahead of yourself, you need to consider your budget so that you don’t overspend on the venue and have to sacrifice on other aspects.

The hardest part of finding the venue is the research; which unfortunately does take a significant amount of time and effort. It can be frustrating trying to find and compare what venues have to offer and the full pricing, so if online websites aren’t giving you the answers you want don’t hesitate to call the venue about their wedding packages and prices. Once you have narrowed it down to a few favourites, I would strongly recommend visiting the sites if possible to make sure you make the right choice for you.

There would be nothing worse than regretting the venue choice as it does take a large slice of the budget. So to assure you avoid being unsatisfied and/or overspending on the venue here is a simple checklist to follow to confirm the venue fulfils all of your criteria:

• Location
• Name of venue
• Capacity – Make sure it has enough space for all the guests and fits the function type you want
• Availability – Don’t want to have your heart set on a venue only to find out it is already booked out
• Type – Such as hotel, outdoor, restaurant
• Layout – Does it have facilities for all aspects of the wedding (ceremony, reception, etc.)?
• Cost – Make sure you are getting your money’s worth
• Restrictions – Is there a limit to the number of people you can have, how loud it can be, if the venue has a definite ending time requirement or not?
• Parking/ transportation – Is the venue assessable to the guest and yourself?
• Facility extras – Do they supply all the table, chairs, speakers/microphone, etc. or do these come at an additional cost?
• Caterer – Does the venue offer catering or is there any restrictions on who you can have to cater the event if you already have a company in mind?

Check out our wedding wall page for some venue inspirations.