Tips for Finding the Perfect Wedding Venue
Everything starts with the venue. It’s like the trunk of the (very expensive) wedding tree. So finding the perfect wedding venue was the first task on my plate when we started planning.
How important is the venue? Brides.com said it best. “There’s one think you can’t skip: the venue.”
Hell, even Vegas drive thru weddings have a venue: Vegas. So venue questions really are the first questions that you need to ask yourself when beginning the quest for finding the perfect wedding venue.
Where do you want to get married?
City or country, local or destination? This is the first question. A destination wedding doesn’t need to be to a tropical island (although, sure, that’s cool too). Anything more than a few hours drive from your house will add a whole slew of logistical concerns to your already full plate.
“Since our wedding destination was on the other side of the country, we weren’t able to go visit the sites or speak to the venue coordinators in person.” Said Caleb Camacho, an entrepreneur in Los Angeles. “This made the process a bit more difficult than I would have originally hoped.”
For us, we didn’t have to find a venue across the country but we did have our own share of caveats:
- A short(ish) engagement
- A wedding in a small, Southern California mountain town that has about five realistic venue options
Ready to do this? Let’s go…
Now that we knew our city, the fun really began. Five phone calls later, one gas station stop, and one Starbucks drive-thru and we were on the road to the mountains for Tour de Venue.
What do you want in a wedding venue?
(As you might remember from my last post on why I chose to write this blog, I’ve never gotten married and never planned a wedding before so I, like most grooms, am making a lot of it up as I go along).
On our drive up the mountain, my fiance and I broke down what we were each looking for in a venue.
This is an important conversation to have because everyone is different.
“An important part of the venue search — for me, at least — was finding a venue that would allow our dogs to be present for the ceremony,” Said Caleb.
“We decided our dogs are going to be the Best Man and Flower Girl. Finding a location that was dog-friendly put a huge limitation on options, but it was worth it to involve our furry little family members.”
Jacob Whitley, a recently married filmmaker in Los Angeles, said “I only wanted my future wife to be happy and feel beautiful… I also wanted it to be affordable and I wanted a nice bar.”
Let’s give Jacob five points for getting down to priorities.
What are you looking for in a wedding venue?
For us, the requirements for finding the perfect wedding venue were pretty simple:
- Outdoors with some indoor space in case it rains
- Affordable without compromising on TOO many other amenities
- Laid back ownership. Okay, this one might have been mostly my issue, but we wanted a laid back wedding and I didn’t want us to worry about overage charges, late fees, or other limitation.
Well, guess what, we found the perfect spot right almost immediately. It had everything we needed but, since the owner was out, we would have to call back to talk pricing.
Not a problem. How bad could it be?
The next week, my conversation with the owner started (and ended) as follows:
Me — “I don’t understand how this cost is so much higher than the standard room rate. We’re planning on renting all of your rooms so shouldn’t we get the grounds by default?” (Oh, how innocent I was at the time of this conversation).
Owner — “The extra cost covers our value-added services and features.”
Me — “You include electricity as one of those value-adds”
Owner — “Do you want electricity in your rooms.”
Me — “Yes but I don’t understand how electricity and parking increase the price by $7K. Most of the hotels I stay in have those included.”
Owner — “This is not negotiable. Sorry.”
Me — “Thanks for reminding me. Goodbye.”
Another Starbucks run and back up the mountain we go…
Do other people have these issues finding the perfect wedding venue?
“Ultimately each location was ether awful looking and provided nothing or perfect, but way too expensive.” Said Jacob.
“At one point, we considered doing a backyard wedding at my Father-in-law’s and use my Audio Visual resources to set up a venue, but that would have limited our guest count.”
Caleb said, “I had originally picked one venue, but the coordinator was extremely slow to respond and became a bit snippy with each question I asked. When it hit three weeks with no response from that coordinator, I went a different route.”
Through a family friend, Jacob was able to get a good deal at the Glendora Country Club which he said turned out to be the perfect venue and Caleb ended up at a castle in Philly.
Congrats, Gents. You win.
Align your philosophy with your wedding venue
Our second trip up the mountain yielded different results.
The fifth and final venue that we visited was perfect.
The owners were incredibly sweet and gave us the run of the place for the entire weekend. Their philosophy was simple: if you rent out all of our cabins the property is yours for the time you’re here!
(Such a simple philosophy that even I, a groom way in over my wedding planning head, could understand it).
That’s really what finding the perfect wedding venue came down to for us. We wanted a space that aligned with our philosophy. We wanted to have fun and didn’t want to feel that every aspect of the celebration was tied to a self-imposed rule designed to drain our bank accounts and limit our experience.
This wedding venue is so cool, they let us have an open bar set up for the entire weekend. Why yes, we would like that. Please and thank you.
