Booking Venues

lavenderfields13 · January 2014

To the married and engaged ladies,

How long did you wait to book your venue after you got engaged? I just got engaged on Christmas and we're hoping to get married next Spring. We're on a tight budget and I really want a reception either in a barn or something very similar and rustic and to have the ceremony outside. Not too many options in my area with our budget and I know venues book up fast so I'm emailing places already. We're in New England so it's kind of disappointing that if we tour places soon I can't see what the outside areas will look like IN PERSON during spring months. Just curious to see if other people wanted to book ASAP as well.

phira · January 2014

I got engaged at the end of August, and we booked our venue at the end of September for a November 2014 wedding.

We're in New England, too! We're getting married at the Saphire Estate in Sharon, MA. (Not inexpensive, and not very barn-like.)

lavenderfields13 · January 2014

Oh I did look at that venue (and 5 thousand others ), very beautiful but yeah, not the feel I'm going for. Ugh I really want to get married in September 2014 but everything is booked already! And we could definitely use those extra months to save.

buddysmom80 · January 2014

We booked our venue after two weeks I or so after our engagement and even then they only had a few dates available. Good luck!

kittypolishnbags · January 2014

I got engaged day after Thanksgiving and my wedding is in April (a little over a month!) so I'm booking in the next week or so hopefully! I chose April so it's not too hot or too cold where I am and it's not one of the busier season (avoiding graduation month).

Swazzle · January 2014

We got engaged at the end of August 2011 and booked our venue less than 2 months later for May 2013.

Peaseblossom55 · January 2014

We got engaged in March 2013 got a date from the church in mid April. We booked the venue in mid May I believe after looking around a bit for venues under an hour away from the church. We found 45% of the venues we inquired about were already booked for June 2014.

Dignity100 · January 2014

I'm going a little different route with a destination wedding.

Engaged early Nov; decided what we wanted to do Mid-Nov; told our families to make sure they were onboard with the whole destination thing. The place we are booking at has 3 different package/price categories. Tier 1 can book 12 months in advanced (pencil in @ 14 months); Tier 2 can book 8 months in advance (pencil in @ 9 months) ; Tier 3 can book 4 months in advance (pencil in @ 5 months). I have been penciled in - but it's not a guarantee I'll get my day; another bride in the upper tier can request it and will trump me or another bride in the same tier as me could request the same date/time/venue and we'll enter a lottery against each other - it's not the smoothest process but it's the wedding FI & I want.

minskat30 · January 2014

We booked our venue pretty quickly (within a month/month and a half) after we got engaged but we were only going to have a 7 month engagement so I had to pick it up.

[Deleted User] · January 2014

We got engaged in early May of 2012 and didn't book our venue until late July of 2012. The only saturday evening they had left for the summer the following year was June 22, 2013...so we took it! If you are flexible about the date, I'd say 8 months to a year out should be fine. If you have a specific date you're looking for though, that's a whole differen't thing.

[Deleted User] · January 2014

We got engaged Feb 2013 and booked our venue by the end of February I believe for a Nov 2013 wedding. We didn't have the top choices of dates to choose from but we wanted to get married before the end of 2013 so that's what we had to work with.

ShallowSeas · January 2014

I got engaged on 12/1 and we booked our venue a week later. When we called to check on the date we originally wanted, it was already booked so we moved fast.

tuarceatha · January 2014

We got engaged in August and booked our venue 3 months later.

It all seems to really depend on your venue. Like how popular it is in that region, season, etc. Now is the time to look and find out that sorta stuff. Yay engagement! I dunno that I've said congrats to you yet. So @leese19 CONGRATS! You're getting married!

labro · January 2014

We were engaged mid-December and took about 2 weeks to find and book our venue. I wanted to get married in October 2014 ideally and most places we looked at had very limited (if any) availability 10 months out. The venue I booked only had 5 Saturdays total remaining for the year and my date was one of them!

Honestly, when we looked at the place everything was dead and empty. But it's easy to envision what it will look like just by knowing about the plants and trees growing around the house and in our ceremony space area. It's also beneficial to look at pictures from your venue's website...or try looking them up Pinterest for other not necessarily hand picked photos. I don't think you're doing anything wrong by looking now. You'll just have to have a little bit of knowledge for what's going to be green and growing in your area in spring and also some imagination.

ETA: Not to threadjack...but is anyone else missing their custom avatars? I'm seeing the standard TK one's for everyone right now and it's really throwing me off.

tuarceatha · January 2014

Oh and my search history for the venue I chose in November for an August wedding is long and frequented. As in once we fell for a place I googled the life out of it to find examples of other weddings held there for ideas. If it is a popular venue you'll find endless blogs of photographers and other vendors who have worked there.

[Deleted User] · January 2014

@Imhollister - i'm only seeing toasting champagne glasses for everyone right now.

tuarceatha · January 2014

I see everyone's avatars. Is the TK not liking your browsers? I'm in Firefox.

labro · January 2014

@tuarceatha Maybe? There's actually a thread going now on the IT issues board or whatever it's called... So it must be affecting people who use one type of browser...like IE or Chrome.

KeptInStitches · January 2014

I'm using Chrome and see no avatars, for what it's worth. @knotporscha, good point here - might be worth considering.

[Deleted User] · January 2014

@Imhollister @keptinstitches Thanks for the info! It looks like its affecting all browsers right now across all of our communities. Hoping to get an update soon from our developers!

lennonkdc · January 2014

we're the odd balls, we got engaged in June '12 and didn't book anything until July '13, but we were stuck in short sale hell trying to buy our house for most of that time... when we did book we originally were looking at June '14 and most things were nearly full, we pushed back to Sept '14 and had much more success. I do know that most of our vendors are 100% booked from May-October '14...

MrsMac613 · January 2014

We got engaged Oct 2011 and booked our venue Feb 2012 for a June 2013 wedding

lavenderfields13 · January 2014

Dignity100 said:

I'm going a little different route with a destination wedding.

Engaged early Nov; decided what we wanted to do Mid-Nov; told our families to make sure they were onboard with the whole destination thing. The place we are booking at has 3 different package/price categories. Tier 1 can book 12 months in advanced (pencil in @ 14 months); Tier 2 can book 8 months in advance (pencil in @ 9 months) ; Tier 3 can book 4 months in advance (pencil in @ 5 months). I have been penciled in - but it's not a guarantee I'll get my day; another bride in the upper tier can request it and will trump me or another bride in the same tier as me could request the same date/time/venue and we'll enter a lottery against each other - it's not the smoothest process but it's the wedding FI & I want.

I'd be so anxious about this! I hope you get the date you want!

lavenderfields13 · January 2014

tuarceatha said:

We got engaged in August and booked our venue 3 months later.

It all seems to really depend on your venue. Like how popular it is in that region, season, etc. Now is the time to look and find out that sorta stuff. Yay engagement! I dunno that I've said congrats to you yet. So @leese19 CONGRATS! You're getting married!

Thanks Jen

lavenderfields13 · January 2014

Thanks everyone! Just wanted to make sure I'm not jumping the gun here but I don't want to miss out on a place I love. Seeing as I don't even want to wait till 2015 as it is!

Riss2893 · January 2014

I'm a little late to this party but we got engaged early September 2013 and booked the venue November 1st (the first day they allowed for 2015) for June 2015. It books REALLY fast so I made sure I was on the ball with booking. When I called at 8 am on 1st, I was on hold for 25 minutes then had to get called back, and by the time I talked to someone my original desired time slot was already taken.

cowgirl8238 · January 2014

We were engaged just late Decemeber 2012 and booked the venue by mid March 2013...but our wedding isn't until Aug 2014. Most of the venues here had a pretty open schedule but once we found the one, there was no way I was loosing it!

00kim00 · January 2014

We're getting married in May, but we're not officially engaged yet (no proposal, no ring, yet). All my family, his family, and most of my friends are out of state though, so they need to plan and we found a great venue that includes lodging for guests. We booked our venue last week even though we're not officially engaged. Yeah, weird,i know.

minskat30 · January 2014

leese19 said:

Thanks everyone! Just wanted to make sure I'm not jumping the gun here but I don't want to miss out on a place I love. Seeing as I don't even want to wait till 2015 as it is!

The nice thing about booking early (so long as you trust the venue not to go bankrupt or anything) is you can lock in a rate likely that is discounted from the rate you might have in 2015.

labro · January 2014

00kim00 said:

We're getting married in May, but we're not officially engaged yet (no proposal, no ring, yet). All my family, his family, and most of my friends are out of state though, so they need to plan and we found a great venue that includes lodging for guests. We booked our venue last week even though we're not officially engaged. Yeah, weird,i know.

Sorry but yes, you're officially engaged. If you're activitely planning your wedding then, ring or no ring, you're engaged. You don't need a ring to be engaged...just the intent and desire to marry each other.

Good luck with your May wedding! Less than 5 full months to go!

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