Planning a Wedding in a Raw Space

Knottie68741381

I found this beautiful raw space to have our wedding (ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception) in, but I am so unsure as to what it entails.  We would just be renting the raw space, what else would we need to be getting and how much would that cost us?  I was thinking we could make a lot of our own stuff, but then who would be setting up and taking it down?  We are both so new to this process; not many of our friends/families have had weddings for us to use as examples.  Any advice would be great!

We are looking into The Foundry LIC in July 2016.  We would like to have between 100 - 120 people attending. 

Thank you!!!!

[Deleted User]

My fiancé and I considered having our wedding at a friend's farm after they offered the space, but decided against it after seriously considering what it entailed logistically… That being said, it could have been a really fun experience to go through such a detailed planning process. Here's some of what we had thought about that would be relevant for you and your fiancé.

You would need:

- Tables

- Chairs

- Linens

- Dinnerware, glassware, silverware

- Centrepieces and decorations

- Sound system

- Restrooms for guests

- Kitchen for caterer

- Room dividers (if the distinction between the ceremony/cocktail/reception spaces aren,t clear in the layout)

You have to think about

- Setting up before the wedding: you may only have access to venue the day of the wedding itself - will you have enough time? are you ok with coordinating multiple vendors (i.e. delivery of all of the above plus flowers etc…)? is it in your budget to hire someone to take care of the set up? if friends offer to assist (and this is a really big no-no on the knot), then how will you communicate to them what everything is supposed to look like (i.e. you'll need pictures and room plans etc…)?

- Taking down: generally you have to take down the night of the wedding or the day after. will you have the time? will you be disappointed to have that much work to do right after your wedding? you'll again have to coordinate with all the vendors for pick-up

- Since there's probably no staff used to doing weddings at the venue itself, you'll have to think about all of the planning details yourself. At our venue, for example, we didn't have to think about how to be layout the spaces - they had done so many weddings that they suggested a few good options based on our desires and number of guests and we chose. 

- Depending on the look of the venue, it can take a lot of effort to make an empty space look beautiful. Make sure you really think about what your decoration needs will be and whether you can afford it.

- DIY really isn't always cheaper (I did our wedding invitations and in the end we only saved about $30 and it took me waaaaaaay too many hours because I wanted to get the design just right and then it took a while to find a good printing business that would do such a "small" order, etc…). Also, unless the person doing it is very talented, it often doesn't look as nice.

- Doing this type of wedding is a lot of work. Think about your other obligations and whether you and your fiance have the time and energy to do it. Also, make sure that either (a) you'll work together or (b) one of you will do most of the work and the other one is fine with it (the last thing you want is resentment about wedding planning).

I hope this helped!

[Deleted User]

Me again - I just looked up the venue and it's BEAUTIFUL!!!!! I don't think it would require that much in terms of decoration because it is so beautiful on its own… 

Our wedding venue had a very similar style. Since we had an evening wedding, we decided to only decorate with candles. We bought beautiful large wrought iron candle holders and it looked stunning. We ended up saving quite a bit of money by not having flower arrangements… Just a suggestion… It seems like that venue could look very beautiful with that style of decoration.

melhock8452

I've also been looking into venues that don't have much included (we call it byocaterer) bc FI wants to brew his own beer for the reception.

I have pretty much convinced myself that I will at least need a wedding coordinator for the day of. That way they can take care of setting up the ceremony and centerpieces and paying the vendors for us. The day of coordinators I've been seeing have been around $500-$600 and my sanity is at least with that lol!

penguin44

I had to bring everything in for my wedding as well. Hiring a day of coordinator was the best money spent on the wedding. $500 for my sanity that day. 

mad_sam

I am having my wedding in a raw space as well. My fiancés dad has a cabin in the woods with 60 acres and a large field. We have spent a lot of money preparing the area, but in the end it is money we put in and get to keep so to speak. We looked at a lot of places and everything was so expensive it was cheaper for us to rent the tent and chair etc....and do it ourselves then rent out a place. I am propably going to have a mutual friend run things, we are doing things pretty non traditional but I still need someone to keep things in order since I cant. A wedding coordinator just isn't in our budget.

good luck! it will be great!