Vacation rental reception?

joyw1088

Hi ladies!

I was wondering if anyone knows about having a reception at a vacation home. I am getting married at Gannon's, but am now debating on having the reception at a vacation home, catering and DJ there? Has anyone done this? I figure we would have the reception there and have the wedding party stay the night in the house. I'm not sure how much catering would cost because all the websites I looked at didn't give prices. I am hoping to find a nice vacation rental that is $2,000 a night or less and has a big back yard that could accomodate a DJ, catering and 20 people. I figure this will be much cheaper than the Olowalu Plantation house and could also accomodate people over night. 

Please let me know if you have any suggestions or advice

Hope you are all having a great night!

Tanq&Tonic

I would be sure to confirm that your venue allows for a large event such as a reception to be held.  Many have limits on max capacity and would not welcome an event like a reception due to the potential damage to the property.  I looked into Sugarman, and they do rent the house on the property -- I believe it was about $3k per night, but use of the lawn for the reception was an additional $1k.  Totally not worth it in our book.

Also, not to be a downer on your plans, but do you REALLY want to share a house with a ton of drunk people the night of your wedding?  I thought there was something awesomely intimate & private about DH & I just having our hotel suite to ourselves, and waking up the next day to get ready for brunch together as newlyweds.  Just my $0.02.

tiggy5555

I looked into this route in the very begining of my planning and the costs add up really fast! Most of the homes did not allow for receptions even for a group of under 20. The ones that did allow  the reception averaged $1500-$4000 per night with a 7 night minimum. Add on the mandatory cleaning fees around $500, the booking fee of 4%, the event fee of $2000, and the cost of trip insurance because all deposits were non refundable. On top of that, some of the homes required that you use one of their preferred coordinators to arrange everything and they charged a 20% coordination fee for all items booked.

The costs for us eneded up being way too high plus we wouldn't have as much private time as we would want. I know it sounds horrible and I'm not trying to dicourage you but the first 2 months of my planning were dedicated to looking at this route before all others. Hope this helps! Good luck

alohagurl13

Yea, we were looking at that too, but many vacation homes wouldn't allow weddings and if they did they were ridicuously expensive!  On top of that you would have to share the house with others, and we didn't want a house full of family the day after.  So we chose to do a condo for a few days and hubby to be wanted to stay at the Sheraton because of the infinity "adult" pool.  We are having a beach ceremony with a luau to follow.  Much more budget friendly!

joyw1088

The more I think about it, you guys are so right about how nice it would be to not share a house with the whole wedding party!

Every VRBO rental I have emailed has said that they do not allow this even for day use. Bummer! Thanks for the input ladies!! I really appreciate it