Checking out wedding venues!!!!

psychbabe314

Okay! I'm so excited! FI and I are going to look at wedding venues in a few weeks. We've narrowed it down to 16 choices. 12 are in the state so we will be going to see those ones. My question is, how long should I expect each viewing to last so that I can plan out the days?

phira

That's a lotta venues!

I think we maybe spent 30 minutes at each venue, but 1) we only visited 3 venues, and 2) two were owned by the same people so we viewed them back to back.

psychbabe314

Good to know! I realize it is a lot of venues but friends and family kept making recommendations and I saw so many gorgeous pictures!!! Originally I had put aside about 35 possibilities :-) so we narrowed down a lot!

climbingsingle

Holy crap. 16 places. 

I'd prepare to spend at least 30 minutes at each venue. We spent an hour at ours - there was a lot to see. 

JennyColada

I just can't see what can be so wildly different about all 16 that you can't tell from a description.

What is important to you in a venue? Parking? Accessibility? Catering? Visual appeal? Deciding that will probably help you narrow it down, otherwise you'll go home still considering 14 places.

SapphireCounselor

We actually only saw one venue...we were pretty set before we walked in that this was the space for us. That said, we still spent 30 minutes that day going over details.

pinkshorts27

Yea, I would send some questions ahead of time and narrow down based on answers. Eliminate venues that don't fit budget or guest list. Then determine what else is important to you and eliminate based on that. 

Emmy1493

That is awesome that you are at that part of planning! I loved looking at venues, but I agree also with PP's. I would narrow it down quite a bit more. Id say less then 10. Unless you are making notes at each one, you might get confused on which offers what, etc. Plan for 30-45 minutes of looking at venue. That should also cover any questions/briefing. Best of luck to you. Hope you find your dream venue!

doeydo

Wow that's a lot of venues.  I think I spent 30-60 minutes at the ones we looked at.  It was basically a tour and them explaining the basics.  Also, I brought a printed out list of questions to ask to each venue coordinator and wrote down the answers under each question.

psychbabe314

We did narrow it down based on the number of guests and price. These all fit into our range. I have sent information out to each venue and received back informational packets for each one. I might take another glance through with my FI to see if we can narrow it down more!

I think that having a notebook for each venue should suffice, I will come up with questions ahead of time to ask :-)

Thanks!

singinchick13

Wow! That's a lot, good luck! Have you checked out pictures of the space(s) you would be using? Maybe you can narrow them down a bit that way. We only looked at two venues in person, and the second one was the winner by far, both by ambience and from a price/customer service standpoint. The way we're treated at first contact and first meeting has a huge impact on me.

slothiegal

Whew...I think we did about six, and that was MORE than enough for me.  Seriously consider parring it down.

We spent about 30-45 minutes at each, and then maybe another 10 minutes afterwards on our own, discussing the place and our first impressions on it, once we were away from whoever showed us around (before the details all blurred together with everywhere else after we had returned home).  

Have fun!  

phira

I can also recommend--if you are visiting a venue and you can tell right away that it is NOT going to work for you (either because it actually doesn't fit your needs, or because you just get a vibe that it's not a good venue for you), don't worry too much about hurting the venue staff's feelings. Not that I'm recommending any sort of, "UGH this place sucks we're leaving." But if you know within 5 minutes that it's not going to work, and you and your significant other are exchanging knowing glances, try to find ways and reasons to cut the visit short. If you have this many venue visits, you can't afford to spend 30-45 minutes on a dud.

psychbabe314

Ya, I figured if it just is not working for us, or we drive by and kind of look at each other and go "eh" we could call ahead and cancel :-)

lyndausvi

16 is a little much no?

Can't you narrow it down even more?  Then if those don't work out expand your search?

Venue visits last between 30-60 minutes.  I can think of better things to do with 8-16 hours than look at venues.  It's just such a waste of time for everyone.

psychbabe314

lyndausvi said:

16 is a little much no?

Can't you narrow it down even more?  Then if those don't work out expand your search?

Venue visits last between 30-60 minutes.  I can think of better things to do with 8-16 hours than look at venues.  It's just such a waste of time for everyone.

I don't personally think it is a waste of time, FI and I are working on cutting out some more but this is one of the few things we will be able to plan together since he leaves for Japan at the end of July for a full year. We wanted to get this part out of the way and I think doing a bit of traveling around the state for a few days will be exciting for both of us and distract us from the fact that he leaves soon :-)

Inkdancer

psychbabe314 said:

16 is a little much no?

Can't you narrow it down even more?  Then if those don't work out expand your search?

Venue visits last between 30-60 minutes.  I can think of better things to do with 8-16 hours than look at venues.  It's just such a waste of time for everyone.

I don't personally think it is a waste of time, FI and I are working on cutting out some more but this is one of the few things we will be able to plan together since he leaves for Japan at the end of July for a full year. We wanted to get this part out of the way and I think doing a bit of traveling around the state for a few days will be exciting for both of us and distract us from the fact that he leaves soon :-)

Okay, the idea of making a mini-vacation out of it actually sounds super fun. I would not be down for cramming 16 visits into a single day.

lyndausvi

Glad you are going to have fun traveling around.  But 16 venues visits right off the bat is still a lot.  That is 8-16 hours of just tours.  That does not included the travel time between venues.   

Have fun.

psychbabe314

Inkdancer said:

psychbabe314 said:

16 is a little much no?

Can't you narrow it down even more?  Then if those don't work out expand your search?

Venue visits last between 30-60 minutes.  I can think of better things to do with 8-16 hours than look at venues.  It's just such a waste of time for everyone.

I don't personally think it is a waste of time, FI and I are working on cutting out some more but this is one of the few things we will be able to plan together since he leaves for Japan at the end of July for a full year. We wanted to get this part out of the way and I think doing a bit of traveling around the state for a few days will be exciting for both of us and distract us from the fact that he leaves soon :-)

Okay, the idea of making a mini-vacation out of it actually sounds super fun. I would not be down for cramming 16 visits into a single day.

Well, we are only seeing 12 because they are in state. The other four are out of state and if we can't find anything we don't like in state. Although, I knocked two off of the list because I double checked how long it would take guests to get out from the airport too them :-) Down to 10!

And 1 is a place I personally am not interested in, but my FMIL has been very passionate about me taking a quick tour so I added it in there so that I could tell her that I really did consider it :-)