Luxury Home or Mansion rental for wedding

janjan550

I have been starting to consider the option of renting a luxury home, or possibly a mansion (not sure how you distinguish between the two exactly), for our wedding ceremony and reception.  I heard someone on here say they were doing that in Tucson and renting it for the whole week, so some of the friends/family could stay there and hang out before the big day, and thought that sounded like a great idea.  Especially since you can rent a house for a whole week for the same price as some wedding venues for just one night.  Any suggestions of good places in or around Phoenix that do that?  I have found two houses with potential online, but not much else.

Also, I am concerned that it may be too much to coordinate, since we really would be doing it all ourselves in that kind of scenario.  I like planning and researching things, so I think I am up for the challenge, but my mom, FH, and friends think I might be getting myself in over my head with this idea.  Is it really going to be THAT overwhelming? 

P.S. We want to get married in October 2010, and just got engaged a couple weeks ago, so we've got like 7 1/2 months to plan.

lcarp203

You may also want to look at Bed and Breakfasts.  We looked into this and it was pretty reasonable.  You can just google bed and breakfast and there are tons that come up.  We ended up not going this route because you are dealing with people and not a business, so the details were a little undefined.  But, some of the people we met were great.  Many have had weddings at their B&B's. 

As for coordination, I would suggest a day of coordinator. 

FutureMrsL.R.Allen

The Sanctuary on Camelback has numerous homes you can rent.  Because they are owned by the resort they can do everything for you if you want so you do not have to coordinate it all on your own. 

nfavazzo

I have been contemplating and researching this for a couple of months now and so far, here’s what I have found.Advantages: Having the “venue” for a handful of days which allows you to have a day to prep and set up, a day for the event, and a day of clean-up and cool-down. All the while you have a place for your out-of-towners to stay! Another plus is having free range when picking and choosing your vendors. Also, some of these places are so extravagantly decorated and beautiful on their own that you might be able to cut back on the wedding decorations. On top of all of that … it’s just cool! Your guests will get to say “our friends got married in a mansion this weekend!” Disadvantages: The extra work and organization is the biggest downside to me. You can either pay the money to hire a coordinator, or, you can be SUPER organized and divvy up the responsibilities between certain people (Aunt Milda and Cousin Jenny will be in charge of helping everyone to their seats for the ceremony. The boys will move the chairs from the ceremony area the reception tables. So on and so on.) I think that this is definitely do-able.  A couple of weeks ago there was one group of luxury homes listed under The Knot’s Local Vendor list: Scottsdale Vacation Homes- www.privatevillasinscottsdale.com/wedding.htm">http://www.privatevillasinscottsdale.com/wedding.htm. I’ve checked these ones out and they are by far the most beautiful (in my opinion) but their wedding packages were a little out of our price range. They emailed me back within a few days.  The other sites I have been using are VRBO.com and HomeAway.com. On those ones, you can select the number of bedrooms, bathroom, etc to ensure you’re looking at the vacation homes that would most likely fit your guests. Keep in mind, with these types of websites, they are posting vacation homes, not necessarily wedding venues. This means that you aren’t booking them for a wedding, you are renting their home “with their permission to have your wedding there”. Most likely, the owners of these homes are going to want to charge you more than their average nightly rate for insurance purposes.   I would definitely encourage you to search around and find some places that you like. All of the homeowners that I have contacted have been very nice and helpful. Best of luck! Feel free to post me a message if you have more questions!

NillaWafer10

Also check out vrbo.com

janjan550

Thanks for the tips and the website. 

I also found this one www.vrbo.com/285321" target="_blank">http://www.vrbo.com/285321, which I like, but may have more of a family vacation vibe than a wedding vibe.  There's even a built in trampoline...I can see the wedding pics already jumping on the trampoline in my wedding dress!  I e-mailed the owner and he said they are having a wedding there this weekend, and he will try to share some of the pics with me if possible.

I totally agree with all of your pros and cons nfavazzo. I am starting to think though that if I get one of these really nice houses it may only be for one night or so due to the cost.  When I originally thought of it I wanted to rent it for a few nights or a week, but I guess I will need to scale back my taste.  The Scottsdale homes are beautiful but all seem to require 4-7 night stays minimum, which makes them out of my price range probably.

lhypse

Can I ask where you ended up getting married?
I am also wanting to get married at a luxury home but im having trouble finding any...

janjan550

Ended up getting married at a resort in Sedona But I had a friend who rented a house in the Catalina Foothills area of Tucson. It was a smaller wedding, like 30 people, but it was still a lot of work on the wedding day for her. Very pretty though.

lhypse

Thanks for getting back to me! What resort in Sedona? Did you have a smaller wedding? And was it pricey?

janjan550

Poco Diablo, we had 75 people. They have a lot of different packages now, so it's different than when I got married. They were pretty flexible. I think the food and beverage minimum was $5k or so for a Saturday night which was much lower than places we looked in Phoenix/Scottsdale.