Tips for venue visits?

missyt180

I am coming to Pittsburgh next week to visit wedding sites (yay!!) and wanted to find out some of the best-practices ideas for what to do/expect.

For example, this may sound silly, but how long does each visit take, approximately?  Do some venues share recent contracts/billing information (with personal data blanked out of course)?  How many different places do you think I can visit before getting overwhelmed/burned out?  Did you just "know" when you found the place?

I found a great questionnarie/checklist on kwynn's blog (thanks!) of what to ask and am planning to fine-tune to my needs, but are there some other tips of what to look for/ask/bring/etc.?

I am arriving Friday night late, and leaving Sunday, so need to be super-tactical and targeted!    Since its not cheap to fly in and out of Pittsburgh from LA, I'm hoping to make our final decision on this trip.  I have contacted all of the venues I am interested in to weed out those that either aren't available timing wise, or out of my projected budget, but will still probably want to squeeze in as many visits as possible

(Also, am so looking forward to it since this will be the first "wedding" thing me and FI are doing since getting engaged over Christmas!)

NJSL

While I haven't yet done this kind of trip myself, some of the girls on here told me to spend about an hour in a place you love.  But if you don't love it, don't waste your time just politely thank them and move on to the next one.  I would try to plan your visits so that you're not criss-crossing the city a lot.  While Pittsburgh isn't very big, get a little bit of snow or traffic from a hockey/basketball game and it can take you a lot longer than planned.

I downloaded the same questions you did and I adjusted it for my personal needs. I already have it printed out with all other pertinent information I got from talking to the venues.  Just want to make sure I have all my notes handy just in case!

slm13

We came in from Philly to do our reception venue visits in one weekend (we didn't want to take much time from work).  We visited 6 places in the course of a Friday, Saturday, and Monday.  Most of our visits were on Friday because many of the places wouldn't allow us in on Saturday since they had weddings that they were setting up for. 

While they didn't show us filled in contracts with info blacked out, we did get copies of the actual contracts we would be using for venues that we liked.  We made sure that we got the vast majority of the pricing info up front before we cme into Pgh.  This helped us to get rid of places that we couldn't afford (like the Omni).  Almost all of the venues were able to give us this info.  The only venue that wouldn't was Springwood and we ended up having other problems with them besides them not being transparant (they were way over priced IMHO). 

We spent about 20 minutes per place except for the Grand Concourse, which is where we eventually booked.  We were there for a good hour discussing everything and looking at all of the archetecture (sp?).  But, we really wanted something that was very us and that didn't need much decor work, so it made it very easy to make a decision.

We did end up criss-crossing the city, but we had the appointments spaced very well so that we didn't do more than 3 in one day.  It also left us time for lunch downtown.

We had a much more difficult time with our cake tastings, which we also did in one weekend and my DH ended up on a sugar high (with some caffeine thrown in for good measure).

HTH.

AP910

I too am planning from OOT so I called several places before booking. I made up my own questionnaire and it was (and still is!) invaluable. I filled out as much as I could pre-visit, and attached all the info I had from the internet.  I can email it to you if you want, but I'm sure Kwynn's is fabulous and comprehensive I am pretty detail-oriented, so I stayed at least 30-60 minutes at each place. I think 3-4 is plenty before you start to get overwhelmed.

MAKE SURE YOU SCHEDULE LUNCH! My MOH and I were literally stuffing food in our mouths as we were running out of the restaurant in order to make it to our next appointment!

 Had Pitt not taken my hold and cancelled it the next day due to an unforeseen conflict,  I would have "known" right away! It was a bit hard to get over that disappointment. Then, it took us forever to make up our minds.! (Could have had something to do with going into places beyond our budget-oops, and having too much input from friends and family!)

HHmm, not sure how helpful this post has been, but I tried!!   GOOD LUCK!

missyt180

Thanks guys!  Its great that my mom and dad will both be going with us - my dad has to plan events pretty often for a club he belongs to, so I'm glad he's helping with the visits! 

Keeping in mind I haven't physically been to any of my venues recently, I have one particular venue that I think will be perfect - the Twentieth Century Club.  However, I haven't ever been there, so I want to see that, plus the Grand Concourse, Grand Hall, Heinz field, and a few other places too.

I can't wait - this is the one part of the wedding that has been so up in the air, and of course, its the most important for planning the other details!  Looking forward to figuring this part out!

LaFemmeRousse

Yay for a Pittsburgh trip!  We picked our venue in one weekend too... and actually, FI wasn't even able to come home, so it was just me and my mom.  We visited four places and spent about an hour at each, slightly longer at the Duquesne Club, where we ended up.  I think doing more than five in a weekend would get a little overwhelming.  I used Kwynn's list of questions as well and found it SO helpful- one venue called me the most prepared bride they'd ever had, but the credit really goes to her

The biggest thing I would recommend is to find out ahead of time what the average wedding cost at each venue is/what the minimums are so you don't end up wasting time at a place you definitely won't use.  I got contract info from all the venues while I was there, but never got someone else's contract with names blanked out as an example.

Have fun!  This is one of the most exciting decisions you'll make for the wedding!

AP910

Do you want pictures of the 20th Century Club?  It is our venue, so we took several pics when we were there. Also, I'm sure you've come across these pictures already, but there was a wedding there themed Midsummer Night's Dream, and Joanna Fassinger was the photographer. If you google her name and Midsummer Night's Dream, you should see several interesting pictures. DJ Eric Schiemer and some other DJs also have slide shows from several venues, including TCC, on their websites/blogs. I found them very helpful to view prior to viewing. HTH!

gmc22

We picked our venue in one weekend as well - we only visited two places though. I did A TON of research online + numerous phone calls/emails to everywhere imaginable, and narrowed it down to two venues to visit on my trip home. My FI, FMIL and myself flew into Pittsburgh late on a Friday night from Philly and on Saturday, we all (FI, FMIL, myself, my mom, and my dad) went to see the 2 venues and 2 churches we narrowed it down to. I didn't have any sort of check list (I wasn't posting on the knot at that time) but I did have a ton of questions in my head to ask. Plus I relied on my mom, dad, and FMIL to ask anything I may have forgotten about. We were very successful and everyone knew immediately when we saw the Carnegie that it had to be there. We spent about an 1-1/2 hr at each place. HTH a bit!

I hope you have a great weekend in Pittsburgh!! It is SO much fun to hunt for your venue. It goes by really quick so try not to stress and ENJOY the process!! GL!!

kwynn

You girls are sweet about the list I made up!

I only visited one place, was by myself, and booked on the spot. It probably took an hour. I visited on a Friday as well because events were being held on a Saturday.

My best advice is to bring your checkbook. If you want a place, I would book it right then, because it gets complicated if you want a place, you wait, someone else takes the date, then you have to go back to the drawing board, get a new date or choose a new place, etc.

I pretty much knew when going to my venue that I was choosing that one and just went to make sure nothing was a red flag. But I had been there a few times before for events.

HTH