How many venues did you look at until you found 'the one'?

Priya490 · January 2011

I'm so anxious to find a venue and finally set the date! My fiance and I got engaged in November and got a slow start to wedding planning (due to holidays, new job, etc.). We live in NY and are heading down to Florida in 2 weeks to look at venues. We've booked a bunch of appointments for the whole weekend. Everything looks so nice on the Internet but in-person they might be different. I really hope we find a place that we absolutely love. How many venues did you look at until you found 'the one'?

waterroxy17 · January 2011

i feel that you should look at as many as you can until you find the perfect one that fits you and your budget. I think i looked at about 10 venues until i found one that matched both. It's like the perfect dress.
If you have any questions a lot of the grils have been to many venues and have recs.
HTH

cramo003 · January 2011

We have visited about 20 different venues ... if you were to count the ones I have inquired about the list would be much longer. I'm pretty sure we found 'the one' after our original venue fell through the cracks. It's been very time consuming and tiring at times but I feel very confident about who we are gonna go with. I think it just depends on your preference, some people like to compare shop and some can't stand it. The more you visit though, the better idea you get of different options/packages and the easier it is to negotiate. HTH and good luck

Krysta6 · January 2011

I toured at least 12. My venue wasn't even in the first round of places that we looked at, we had to go back for a second round of places. There wasn't much contest in my head once we saw the place I picked. We just wanted to go back there. If you have any questions let me know

djoann958 · January 2011

My daughter and her fiance researched lots of places online. They did not want a hotel or hotel ballroom so that really narrowed everything down. They wanted an outdoor reception and I insisted on a backup plan for rain, so that narrowed it down even further. After all that, they only needed to look at 3 places and they chose the one that offered them the most flexibility (allowing outside catering) and the best price.
I would suggest making a list of things you and your fiance want most in terms of venue and keep copious notes on all the places you see and take lots of pictures.
Good luck on your search!

mrsmustard12 · January 2011

I only toured 3 since a few of ther other considerations we were already familiar with. I agree that pictures are very different from seeing it in person!

anaroo87 · January 2011

I researched TONS! online through emailing the sites and finding reviews etc. I got so fed up with not finding what I liked that one weekend we actually drove up and down A1A from Boynton Beach down to South Beach just driving by places and if they looked interesting, I'd write it down and then did more research once we got home. Eventually, we found a couple venues to go see - I fell in love with the third one and decided to stop the searching at that point.

RU3234 · January 2011

I made 3 appointments before I headed to Fort Lauderdale.....we knew the first one was it, the second appointment, we didnt even go to because we didnt like the way it looked outside, and the third wasnt for us so we went the the first one and it was the best decision we made.

lgrn22 · January 2011

I looked at 4, wanted the second one we saw but it didnt come through which in the end I was happy with because I started doubting it after. So then we looked at one other place and said it was good. Only thing I wanted was an outside ceremony, and not a typical hotel/ballroom.

andamu · January 2011

I visited four, and looked at what must have been 3/4 of the venues in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties in between.

Since you're short on time, maybe we can help you ... what venues are you looking at?

cmp1986 · January 2011

We looked at 2. The first one was old and not at all as pretty as it looked in the pics. Then we went to the 2nd one and fell in love. It had just been remodeled and everyone we told about it said that they have very great food.

michimich810 · January 2011

We must of visited about 10. When we saw ours and it had everything we wanted, we knew. The first person we met was incredible. The ballroom was much much bigger than we wanted. It's just like one of things where you JUST KNEW.

PhiSigFly · January 2011

I also live in NYC and am planning a FL wedding. From my experience, you need to research, research, research before you come. You just won't have the time to go to every single place, unless you're going down for a week and venue hunting for every second of it. I researched a bunch while I was in NY, probably 15ish. Then, one night, my fiance and I sat down and looked at each website, read reviews, and compared packages. We narrowed it down to 6 and those are the only 6 we looked at when we came down to FL. I don't know how much time you have, but we looked at 4 in one day and 2 the next. For ME, 4 in one day was just too much, we were burnt out and exhausted by the end of the day. I'm glad that we looked at as many places we did, HOWEVER, I think we both would have been driven crazy if we looked at much more than that. We ended up going with the 2nd place that we looked at and I am happy with that decision 95% of the time. Sometimes there's a place that I'll hear about that I'll regret not looking at or be upset that I don't live in FL and have the time to scout out 100 places, but I'm really confident with the venue that we chose and I know it will be beautiful

Sorry for the ramble, but I can't stress enough how exhausting it was to meet with so many venues in such a short period of time. When you're on limited time, the internet is your best resource!

We met with 5 photographers also, and just like with the venue, were burnt out and exhausted by the end of the weekend. We decided that from here on out, we will not meet with more than 3 of any given vendor... Hope that helps!

Priya490 · January 2011

Thanks ladies, you've made me feel better! You're going to think I'm INSANE but we've researched about 70 venues, narrowed it down to venues in the Miami area, made appointments with 16, and have a 3-day weekend to look at all of them and make a decision! Ahh, hope we find the one that we like that fits our budget!

The wedding will be a sort-of destination wedding for us and most of our guests will be from out of town. We're having an Indian wedding so we'll definitely need a place that allows outside catering (or in-house chef makes Indian food). And we're looking to do the ceremony and reception all in one venue. My fiance grew up in Ft. Lauderdale so that helps a bit but he hasn't lived there in over 10 years.

Here are the places we're looking at, if you have any reviews or other suggestions of places to look into, please let me know! Thanks so much!

Intercontinetal, Hilton Miami Downtown, Hyatt Regency, Biltmore, JW Marriot, Doral Golf Resort, Eden Roc, Vizcaya, Trump Intl, Deering Estate, Alfred Dupont, Spanish Monestary, Westin Collonade, Douglas Entrance, and Bridge House.

PhiSigFly - I live in NYC too! I think you're right, I think looking at over 4 in one day is going to be exhausting for us! Yesterday, we looked at 3 in NJ just to see what places around here offer, and needed a nap after the 3rd one!

I think this week, we're going to re-look at our list of 16, compare packages, look online for pictures/reviews, so that we can narrow our list even further and remove some to go in the "no" pile. Meeting with no more than 3 vendors for a particular part of the planning sounds like a smart way to go, thinking of how many vendors we'll have to contract with down the road!

Krysta6 · January 2011

You are looking at some gorgeous places! I was tired at the end of the day when we looked at 4-5 places but it was definitely do-able. I knew almost right away what would and wouldn't work based on my feelings, some places we only stayed for like 20 min tops. That was the gift of having my planner, she could see on my face that I wasn't interested and end the appointment early.

The only place on your list that I looked at was the eden roc. It had a gorgeous ballroom and great cocktail hour options!

Good Luck on your search! Let us know how it goes!

Rainbow17 · January 2011

Priya, you made appointments at good places. I know you are having an Indian wedidng just like I am and those are the same venues I looked at, as well. A few others you may be interested in is Fountainbleau (which I loved, but wasn't getting the date I wanted). Also Four Seasons doesn't allow an outside caterer, but they have an Indian chef and the coordinator there was extremely nice. If you are having a raelly big wedding you might also want to consider the Loews. Good Luck and let us know what you end up picking.

Rainbow17 · January 2011

BTW - I got engaged on August 3, I didn't sign a contract for a venue until 1/11/11. So it was a very long process for us, but at the same time, I feel like its a bit harder for Indian weddings usually because Indian weddings require outside catering.

Priya490 · January 2011

Thanks ladies! I can't wait to finally see these places! I actually forgot to count Fountainbleau, that is another appt we have! Four Seasons we had to remove from our list because it was out of our budget. I'll have to take a look at Loews though, thanks for the suggestion!

andamu · January 2011

Priya, I am pretty sure the Alexander advertises heavily for Indian weddings, and I think they're in the same category as the Eden Roc, etc. You might want to check them out too.

Priya490 · February 2011

Thanks! I've actually been calling the Alexander and leave messages but no one ever calls me back? Weird, I'll try them again though. thanks for the recommendaiton!

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