WR: Venues

500days

So, married ladies of NEY, how many venues did you go look at before you booked your date? I'm asking this because I have been slow moving and have only looked at one venue. I really want to go look at more, but I'm totally overwhelmed. I started a new position this year, and it feels like my first year teaching all over again. I fear that I may have to wait until summer 2015 to get married. I don't want it to be like house hunters- choose between 3 places and that's it. I guess another reason why I feel overwhelmed is that there are so many venues to look at and I feel like I don't have enough energy to look at them all. Any advice to lend?

phira

So, we contacted several, but we only visited two (well, 3--two of them were owned by the same group). We nearly visited a third, but it was difficult for us to find time to see it, the reviews were WAY less than stellar, and the package they were offering was more expensive than either of the other two venues we had looked at and liked better.

Are you looking in MA? What date are you looking to book? Budget (ish)? Other preferences?

lauracutter

I looked at 5. Fell in love with #1, hated #2 and #3, liked #4 and knew it was #5 as soon as I walked in.  I would recommend not looking before you know your budget. Do online research of venues in your area that you think might fit in your budget.  Then email the venues and ask them to send you a quote.  To do this you need to have an approximate date. This way, if a venue you like is way out of your budget you won't go there and fall in love.  I would also recommend considering a day besides Saturday because Friday/ Sunday packages are typically a lot cheaper.  At our venue, the price difference between Saturday and Friday was $18,000 (they provide catering, rentals and beverages .. It's a hotel).  When looking, consider where your out of town guests would stay.  Because his entire family is in Texas and most of my family is out of town, we decided on a hotel for both the ceremony and reception and we got a room block for our guests to stay.  This means we don't have to worry about guest transportation (this is the reason we decided against the first venue). You can make a lot of appointments, but when you find *the one*, stop. If you really like a venue, but aren't 100% sure, they will usually let you save a date for a week or two for free.  Summer dates go fast, even Fridays.  When were looking at venues in August, almost every Friday and Saturday date was taken for June and July at most.  Looking at venues was my first engaged activity and I had a blast. Enjoy the process!!

Fran1985

I think you can do a LOT of the legwork online now. I looked at a ton online, but came up with a list of about 4 to visit, only ended up visiting 2. I started with the one I thought I would love most but actually didn't like it. The second one I feel in love with and they only had one Saturday left in October so that was it. Where in MA are you looking? Come over to the Boston boards too, we can help! Its really fun once you pick your venue, because then you have a date and can start looking at other stuff! 

cu97tiger

I agree with the ladies that say you can do a lot before you even visit a place. We cut out a LOT of venues just based on price.

We ended up looking at two, but DH was set on one from the beginning (it was a place we had golfed at many times before, and attended many holiday brunches there). I actually wish we had gone to look at more.

lennonkdc

Ditto the PP who say do the 'leg work' online. FI and I had an approx budget, and had narrowed it down to a month and then I emailed every place that we thought was even a 'maybe', which was maybe 10 places. All but three of them got cut due to budget/date restrictions. We then went to look at those three.  I feel like between my research and the shear amount of local weddings we've been to I had seen enough of 'whats out there' and I'm really happy with our choice in venue. 

[Deleted User]

I agree with everyone else - you don't need to visit everywhere. H and I looked at a total of 3 before selecting our venue. We were very picky about a venue fitting our needs before we even considered visiting in person. Here's what we looked at BEFORE visiting:

1. Was it the right size for our guest list?

2. Was it in our budget?

3. Did it have an outdoor ceremony location?

I figured if it didn't meet those requirements I didn't need to see it. We were really flexible on the date, but if that was important to you it should be added to the above list. Why look as a place that isn't even available? Honestly, looking at venues gets old pretty fast, so narrowing the list down in advance saves a lot of time and energy.

doubleSS07

Definitely agree with the others.  You can do alot of leg work online and on the phone without running all over the place.  We looked at 4 venues and ended up ruling 2 out based on price because there were hidden differences when we got there that wern't made clear on their online pricing sheets.  We knew we wanted outdoors and within a certain budget so that eliminated quite a few places right off the bat.  We also took out the ones that took over a week to respond to our request to visit because quite frankly we were on a time crunch moving 2,000 miles away the month we booked the venue and I didn't have time to waste.  In the end I am thrilled with our choice and would definitely choose it again.  Good luck!

CrazyCatLady3

I narrowed down venues from about 10 (I researched online, and emailed to get info as to pricing and packages), to visiting 3.  It was really easy to narrow down based on what was being offered for the amount they were charging.  Out of the 3 I visited, one was too small, so then I just had to choose between 2.

[Deleted User]

We started with a list with about 6 or so different locations then narrowed down based on location, price, handicap accessibility, and size. We narrowed it down to 4 local venues that could fit our budget and size. We just had to visit to make sure that our guests that are wheelchair bound could access it easily. This is what brought us to our venue of choice : )

suzie211

We looked at 2, and chose the first location.  I did, however, contact close to 10 and narrowed it down to the two we looked at.   Based on pricing, location, and the size of the venue it made it very easy to make that list manageable.

minskat30

Like many of the other ladies, I did a lot of leg work on venues.  I had a list of about 10-15 I did research on/got quotes on and we only visited 4 I felt comfortable with.  I knew as soon as I got my list down to 4, however, which venue we would pick because I knew H would love it the most so the other visits were a bit of a waste of time honestly. 

lizandmark2014

I eliminated venues because of price we had 10,000 saved before he popped the question. I also eliminated because of bad parking. ( cash lots down town or not enough spaces. )

500days

Thanks for all of the responses, ladies! I feel like the problem I am facing when researching venues is that there are plenty of "bring in your own caterer" places that are around the same price point in my area. I would love to bring in my vendors to keep costs down. If I chose any of these 5-7 venues the caterer would be the same cost. I guess I'm just trying to prevent myself from having any regrets. 

@phira I'm looking in the RI area, but the first venue I visited was in Westport, MA. It's actually the only venue I have on my list that is all-inclusive. 

My FI wants to visit a handful of places, but I'm starting to see that time is of the essence even if we want early 2015.

 As a side question, did the ladies that only looked at 2 or 3 places not have many venue options in their area? I feel like there are 100s of venues within 50 miles of me. It's crazy.

phira

@500days I feel like I'm drowning in venues in our area (especially in Boston) ... that are all either out of our price range, too small for our guest list, or both. There are a lot of place that seem inexpensive, but don't include anything except tables and chairs (usually not enough for our party) and we have to rent everything else and bring in a caterer. Which is great, except we're on a very small Boston budget, and $3k for the venue + $60-70pp catering + linens + alcohol ...

500days

Yes, actually I have encountered a couple venues that only have a minimum amount of outdoor chairs (if you were to have a ceremony on-site). I would have to rent 60-70 chairs, since they only provide 50. @phira Thankfully the caterer we want to use (no problems deciding there lol) provides all of the linens, tableware and bar service. We can buy all of the alcohol and bring that, they will bring everything else. 

Hopefully next weekend I can manage to go...I also have to make sure to make appointments. This is another reason why it's been hard to go because I don't allow enough time to call and make an appointment. 

phira

You might find that some venues allow you to make your visit on short(ish) notice. We scheduled our first venue visit for a week after we got the quote from the venue, and it was only because that was the first night we were both available to visit the venue. The first visit we made came the morning after we got a call from the venue staff, who wanted to follow up with us about an inquiry, and they got us a quote within an hour after the phone call.

[Deleted User]

@500days - I'm one of the gals who only visited 2-3 venues. I had PLENTY of options here, so it wasn't because there weren't enough choices. I live just south of Denver, CO and we actually decided on a venue in Durango, CO...over 300 miles from where we live. We were very picky about what we wanted, so that may have helped narrow down the list. I figured that the pictures on a website were what the venue thought were the most beautiful vantage points - so if it didn't look great online it wasn't worth my time. I also felt customer service was very important. If a venue wasn't going to contact me back in a timely manner or answer my questions before a visit, they were dropped. I figured they should communicate at their best while trying to make the sale...so it would only get worse and I wasn't going to deal with that.

We were really shooting for a feeling. Once we found it, I didn't feel the need to "see everything" before making a decision. We knew when we arrived that we'd found the right place and I didn't look at anything after that.

I think if you overdo the venue visits, you may risk getting a little overwhelmed and then everything may feel like you're settling. There is no "perfect" venue. Everyone is looking for different things and every guest will have their own feelings no matter how awesome your wedding is. H and I just wanted it to feel perfect FOR US...so that's how we approached it. When we found that, we stopped. 

CrazyCatLady3

500days said:

Thanks for all of the responses, ladies! I feel like the problem I am facing when researching venues is that there are plenty of "bring in your own caterer" places that are around the same price point in my area. I would love to bring in my vendors to keep costs down. If I chose any of these 5-7 venues the caterer would be the same cost. I guess I'm just trying to prevent myself from having any regrets. 

@phira I'm looking in the RI area, but the first venue I visited was in Westport, MA. It's actually the only venue I have on my list that is all-inclusive. 

My FI wants to visit a handful of places, but I'm starting to see that time is of the essence even if we want early 2015.

 As a side question, did the ladies that only looked at 2 or 3 places not have many venue options in their area? I feel like there are 100s of venues within 50 miles of me. It's crazy.

I live in NYC and am getting married here, so I had no shortage of venues.  But every place I looked included catering in the venue, so it was easy to compare what I would get at each venue.  I also knew I didn't want a typical catering hall, hotel ballroom, or country club, so that narrowed it down a lot too.

leia1979

I probably contacted 10 over email. Maybe more. Many of them were too expensive or didn't have the dates/hours/type of space we wanted. I think we only visited three in person. One ended up having hidden fees making it out of budget (and not even that nice). It came down to two, one of which was just nicer-looking and better-suited to what we wanted.

Bring questions and a notebook. You can find lists of questions online.

lennonkdc

We have tons of venues in our area, but we only visited a few b/c we'd crossed many them off the list due to price; distance from Downtown and hotels; lack of prompt response from contact person; not large enough or bad reviews. 

Plus we didn't want to get too overwhelmed with all of our options, so once we had a smaller list, I'll admit that I then stalked the blogs of some local photographer I liked to see if they had done any weddings there. It was nice to see the venues set up by actual B&G's and not just 'staged' by the venue. 

Peaseblossom55

I contacted about 30 venues, put them in a spreadsheet and then we compared the venues to each other and what we were looking for.  We wanted to stay under a $200 a person so we elimated based on that too.  We went to see around 5 venues or so.

katieg520

I looked at a few online, but when I visited the one I chose, I knew I wanted it. So ... I think I'm in the minority, but I only visited one, lol. I live in a small town, so I didn't have many options if I wanted to stay local.