If you rang in the New Year with getting engaged, congratulations! Apparently, the question of ‘Will you marry me?’ is asked most popularly in the month of December, according to an online survey conducted by an independent national research firm.
Now, whether the date of your wedding is a few months away or a year away, it always helps to plan early. There are so many fine details involved to planning a wedding, but one of the biggest components is picking out the perfect wedding venue.
We offer tips to help you through that aspect of wedding planning.
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Budget and Size.
Before you pull together wedding venue options know how much you want to spend on a venue. It also helps to know how many guests you plan to invite and the makeup of the guests. This will give you a better idea on whether to go with venue options that are more accommodating for an intimate setting or something more spacious. Also look at whether most of the family and friends you plan to invite are in different parts of the world and need to travel in or if the majority of them are local to you. It helps to have a wedding venue location that is easily accessible to a majority of your guests, even if flying is required.
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Religion.
Is religion an important factor to you and your partner in terms of the type of wedding ceremony you want to hold? Focus on the place of worship first so you know to keep venue options that are within reasonable distance to the ceremony location.
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Venue Service.
Like any party, you have to decide if you want to be hands-on or leave the work to the professionals. Depending on the venue location you choose, you may be the one left to do the work of setting up tables, chairs, supervising the catering and service staff and handling cleanup afterwards vs. a venue that will take care of all of it.
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Restrictions.
Each venue will have its own set of ground rules, so make sure you are clear on what those are before signing any contract. You want to find out things like its closing time, so if you are planning to have a party that runs past midnight that it’s a venue that will accommodate that. Also look at restrictions to decorations, bringing in catering, an outside cake, outside technical equipment, etc. All these factor can either help you save if the package includes it or cost you more.
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Visit and Experience.
Once you’ve narrowed the selection down to 2-3 finalist, it makes sense to go in a for a full-experience visit. You want to see and understand what your guests will experience from the time of entering the property, finding parking (make sure it can accommodate all your guests) to entering the venue. Then there’s also the need to dine there and test the quality of food and service if it’s a restaurant venue.
No one ever said planning a wedding is easy and stress-free, but with these tips to selecting the perfect wedding venue it will help streamline the process.
Photo by Rob Owen-Wahl, via Free Images.