Renting a house for a backyard wedding?

nj001

Hi!

My fiance and I have been talking about where we are going to have our Sept 2012 wedding and our favorite idea so far is renting a big house for a week, and having the wedding there.

I've seen some postings on VBRO where the owners list that they have had people have weddings there, and this is sounding ideal to us.

Has anyone done this in the area?  If so, any suggestions?

We think there will be 75-100 guests, so not a huge wedding, but we love the idea that we can put our immediate family up in the house and have the rehearsal dinner/bbq at the same location. I'd appreciate and recommendations for houses, as well as any overall suggestions!!

Jennygurl

A friend of mine actually did her wedding outside at a house she rented on the beach in Old Saybrook.  It was actually very nice, low key, and informal.  The house was a small Cape, they had a tent with some rented tables, a band, and dancing in the sand with BBQ type food.  The only issue that she had mentioned were that many places were not willing to rent to her after she told them it was for a wedding.....not sure if you would come across this or not. 
Best of luck!

nj001

Thanks, we're thinking of something nice and low key, along the lines you described.  A lot of house rental posts actually say that they won't allow weddings so I'll keep that in mind.

calindi

This is a cute idea, but it won't save you any money in the long run.  Tents are expensive, flooring for the tent is expensive, and you'd have to rent porta-pottys, which is a huge expense, especially if you want decent looking ones and not the blue plastic kind.

Just thought I'd give you the heads up - if it's what you truly want, and isn't just a way to save money, then you can certainly make it beautiful!

We thought about doing this in Costa Rica - there's a beautiful house in Manuel Antonio National Park that rents for $12,000 for the week and is plenty big enough for a wedding with the 40 or so people who would have made the trip, bathrooms and all, plus we would have had a whole week's vacation with our immediate families included in the wedding budget, which overall would have been $10,000 less than up in CT!

Unfortunately, timing didn't work out, and important family members wouldn't be able to make it, so that idea got tossed.  But we're happy with our plans now!