Venue Choice Tips
You know how it goes: no sooner has the proposal been made and accepted and the engagement ring put on the wedding finger, than the burning issue of when and where to get married looms. And the minute you announce your engagement, absolutely everyone will want answers to those questions.
They’ll also want to know the season, formal or casual, destination or … The decisions are so numerous, in every way – from choice of location, time of day, time of year, cost, formality, informality, that the whole matter can be overwhelming.
Here’s help so you can focus your choices and get a better idea of what will be the right venue, in every way, for your dream wedding.
6 Questions to help you decide where to have your wedding
- Is there somewhere that is very meaningful for you – such as where you first met, the place where the proposal took place, a favourite vacation spot, the family flower garden, horse farm or cottage?
- If there is such as place, would it make sense to get married there? How easy is it to get there? How many guests could comfortably fit there, whether it’s indoor or outside. Where would guests stay, how easy would it be to get a celebrant to do the wedding? Also consider the options for catering, photography, and music—can you fulfil your wish list in this location and is it ideal?
- Do you want somewhere formal or informal, traditional or not – a banquet hall, museum, art gallery, country club, restaurant or bar, or your own garden?
- What size wedding do you want—a small intimate one or a larger affair with several hundred guests?
- What do venues for weddings cost? And to answer this, it would be worthwhile to pick a range of places and make some enquiries. A good starting point might be to contact a venue where you attended someone else’s wedding and which you really liked.
You can then plug some of these numbers into your wedding budget as you begin drawing it up. This will help focus on the type of place that will suit your needs best and fit what you have available to spend – e.g. restaurant versus banquet hall, friend’s garden versus country club, local versus out-of-town?
- What’s the most important element of your wedding?
As with just about every aspect of your wedding, from budget to venue to guests to clothes to vows and celebrant, it all comes down to, what is THE most important part of the wedding for you?
Once you have answered that question, everything else will start to fall into place. There is no right or wrong answer. Go with the wedding venue and type of wedding that feels perfect for you.
Catherine Kentridge
