Everything at one venue

nhultberg461

I'm planning on looking at The Terrance in Henderson as well as Sunset Gardens also in Henderson. But do you believe that in general having your ceremony and reception at the same location saves costs?

Also how would you handle to amount of money you would need to set aside for alcohol? And would you limit the amount of drinks or by the amount of dollars you could afford?

ktbabe530

I think it depends on what you are trying to do.  We did everything at Mirage and it ended up being more expensive than doing a ceremony at a chapel and a reception at let's say Maggianos.

Will this be a destination wedding for you and yours guests?  If so, you'll probably want to consider transportation cost to either of those venues.  

I personally wouldn't limit the amount of drinks, but rather the type.  If the alcohol budget is tight, look at just providing beer and wine and maybe a signature drink.  The venues should have bar pricing by person that might help with your budgeting.  

Good luck and happy planning!   

nhultberg461

Majority of our guest will be from out of town. So The Terrance is behind Sunset Station and could do a block of rooms for us. And I think I would just have to provide transportation to the place and then back to the hotel.

 

hmgiffor

I would look into transportation cost and size of your party. We were going to have it at separate places but factoring in transportation and the nightmare it'd be to wrangle 60 people..I said pass. I also really like that I am getting some things in my all-inclusive package that I may not have gotten before such as videographer, centerpieces, DJ and variety of food. 

nhultberg461

Would you think that maybe pricing might be cheaper if you did your ceremony and reception at say Green Valley Ranch or Sunset, then at a place that you would have to try to transport to and from the venue.

tcnoble

@nhultberg461 I see you are also a local! Hello and welcome! 

How big is your guest list? That was a big factor for us. We have invited 200 people... trying to arrange transportation to different locations for that many people would've been a nightmare. So we are doing everything at one location. If you have a smaller guest list, the logistics might be a lot easier to figure out.

Are you trying to stay off-strip??

nhultberg461

We live in Henderson, I'm trying to get the number down to 100, right now we are about 140-150 without kids.

tcnoble

There is nothing cheap about weddings at GVR/Red Rock, for reference lol

I would definitely think it would be cheaper, because you aren't arranging transportation, which can get pricey. It's also just convenient.

FWIW, we are doing our ceremony and reception at The Silverton. We have room blocks set up there for guests as well.

nhultberg461

I looked at the pictures for the Silverton, honestly I didn't like the way they looked in pictures. I know I don't want to do something on the strip, that would be costly.

Sunset might be cheaper, I know I don't want the Fiesta but I do like how close our house is to the Fiesta in Henderson.

tcnoble

What didn't you like? We really weren't sure about it because the Veil Pavillion looks so WHITE in the photos, but we fell in love when we saw the space.

Cost wasn't our biggest issue with the strip, it was that most of their ceremony spaces are meant for smaller groups. We couldn't find a space big enough to accommodate our guest list.

Don't rule out Sunset or Fiesta until you're able to look at them.

I've also heard nice things about Sunset Gardens.

nhultberg461

It looked very white and plain in the pictures that's what threw me.

I'm not a big strip fan, I like being off the strip, not real big on crowds, which is funny, since it seems to be that I'll have a crowd at our wedding.

I saw the pictures for Sunset Gardens and The Terrace and they look pretty.

I haven't yet ruled out both Fiesta or Sunset, but think that GVR might be out, we went inside one time to try to eat, and I felt very claustrophobic just walking in.

tcnoble

GVR was outrageously expensive (for us). The property was beautiful but just not realistic for our budget.

We were thrown by the white too, but when we saw the space we saw a lot of options for decor, and it fit our semi "rustic" vibe.

Just consider... if you have OOT guests that might prefer to stay on/near the strip, transportation to a venue like Sunset Gardens can be difficult. Most of ours are staying at Silverton, but if they choose to stay on the strip a quick cab ride will have them there. If you know your crowd and most people will stay at the location, it might not be a big concern. But if a lot of your guests will want to "do Vegas", they'll end up with some hefty cab fare getting to an off-strip location. Just some food for thought!

When are you planning to get married? Hopefully you have plenty of time and can visit all these venues you are considering

nhultberg461

Well if things go good then it won't be until 2016 but if we don't have him back to work by this June, we will have to push it to this year. So it's a toss up right now.

nhultberg461

Thankfully I think some of our guests have done the "vegas" trip numerous times before that I think they will be ok with staying off the strip, plus it does save money too. And there are good places to eat in Henderson as well, as you don't have to do the "where do we park", "should we just valet", conversation with everyone.

I wish my house was bigger but it barely fits our family.

tcnoble

That's how our crowd is too - I think we have 3 parties staying on the strip.

Certain areas of Henderson have tons to do - definitely the Sunset Station area.

vegasgroom

Whether or not it's cheaper depends on what kind of venue it is.  For us, doing everything in one location, was a lot cheaper, but that's because we rented out a restaurant for our reception on Saturday night, so they didn't care if we wanted to also use it for our ceremony, and the lounge for our cocktail hour, because that all occurred before their normal operating hours regardless, and then we had it rented for our party the rest of the night.

Regarding booze, I personally recommend doing a more limited selection of booze that is unlimited to guests rather than you can have anything but we're going to cut you off at some random point when we hit the dollar figure.  So if that means open bar for beer and wine, but no liquor, that's better than basically encouraging the liquor drinkers to binge drink because they won't know when they're going to get cut off.

nhultberg461

I would like to keep the drinking down, that will help with the drama that we don't want. And then you also won't here "someone come hold my hair"

ericandmarie

@nhultberg461‌ have you made appointments to look at The Terrace and Sunset Gardens? As I'm sure you know seeing things in person are vastly different than pictures. I got my dress at Bowties by Sunset Gardens and their service is great, but might be difficult to get guests to since there's no hotel super close like The Terrace. Have you checked out Aliante Hotel? Also you could try going to the bridal expo next weekend!

nhultberg461

I have a girls weekend coming up in August for the next bridal spectral here. Everything may change in March and I'll have to change all plans. If my fiancé is t able to get back to work by June of this year then we will have to move everything up.

annathy03

Like @tcnoble I found GVR was outrageous.  We weren't against the strip but the only place big enough for our group without paying to do up another area as a ceremony space was Caesar's and we didn't love the chapel or the cost.  H and I were married at the Las Vegas Country Club and it was a great mix of all in one- our ceremony and reception were both there and it was close enough to the strip for people that wanted to "do Vegas".  They also allowed outside vendors but if you used their recommended ones they billed through them so we only paid our photographer separate, LVCC contracted the photo booth, DJ, and officiant on our behalf.

We also looked at Emerald at Queensridge and they handled absolutely everything down to centerpieces, and the bridal suite was frickin' awesome.  Ultimately we decided to stay closer to the strip because so many of our guests would want to stay there, but it was very nice and reasonable.

tcnoble

annathy03 said:

Like @tcnoble I found GVR was outrageous.  We weren't against the strip but the only place big enough for our group without paying to do up another area as a ceremony space was Caesar's and we didn't love the chapel or the cost.  H and I were married at the Las Vegas Country Club and it was a great mix of all in one- our ceremony and reception were both there and it was close enough to the strip for people that wanted to "do Vegas".  They also allowed outside vendors but if you used their recommended ones they billed through them so we only paid our photographer separate, LVCC contracted the photo booth, DJ, and officiant on our behalf.

We also looked at Emerald at Queensridge and they handled absolutely everything down to centerpieces, and the bridal suite was frickin' awesome.  Ultimately we decided to stay closer to the strip because so many of our guests would want to stay there, but it was very nice and reasonable.

You said your venue contracted your officiant - ours is doing this too. Did you end up paying your officiant any kind of donation or tip or anything??

annathy03

@tcnoble we didn't, but them contracting the vendors meant they were collecting the same 20% (which they spelled out was a 5% service fee + 15% gratuity) for those contracts that they were collecting for their waitstaff and 15% seemed sufficient to me.  I'd check how your venue pays them, but if they're collecting a mandatory gratuity for their staff (not a service charge that isn't a gratuity) they may already be tipping them in their contract with the venue.

wrigleyville

nhultberg461 said:

I would like to keep the drinking down, that will help with the drama that we don't want. And then you also won't here "someone come hold my hair"

There's really nothing you can do to keep the drinking down, other than having a dry wedding.

You could offer beer and wine only, which would prevent shots and mixing liquor with beer, but people can still get drunk off of beer and wine.

Cutting the bar off at a certain time of night is rather off-putting. Limiting drinks is fairly rude as well.

You should also be able to rely on your bartender. A good bartender knows when to cut off a guest. If there are a couple of guests who are known to be problems, you can always (subtly) point them out to the bartender and have the bartender keep a special eye on them. You could also look into hiring a bouncer if the venue doesn't have one.

Granted, if Uncle Tim gets cut off, there's nothing stopping Aunt Sue from bringing him a drink, but it's still better than Uncle Tim camping at the bar all night.