5 Steps You Should Take before Booking Your Wedding Venue
Congratulations on your engagement! Booking your venue is the first big vendor that you will be booking for your wedding. Before you nail down your venue though, there are some big pieces of your wedding day that you have to consider to be able to make a good decision on your wedding venue. Here are some of the things that you need to think about and decide on before booking your venue for your wedding day.
Figure out your Priorities
The first step is one of the most important things you will do for all of your wedding planning. It is crucial to know exactly what is important to you when booking your vendors to help you determine the budget of each vendor, know what you are willing to budge on, and know where you will stand firm with your choices. You should sit down with your future spouse and write a list of the things that are most important to you for how your wedding day will look. You should write things like “open bar, time alone together, having guests have a good time, amazing photos, beautiful design, etc.” and see what matches with each other. Knowing what is most important to you and your soon-to-be spouse will help you know where to put your focus.
2. Figure Out your Budget
After figuring out what is most important to both of you, you should start to come up with an ideal budget that you will be spending on the whole day. You definitely get what you pay for, so if you have a lot of priorities that include the vendors you’ll likely need to spend more to get amazing, experienced vendors. I recommend coming up with an ideal number and then after doing some research on the average cost of weddings in your area for the time of season you will have your wedding, you can adjust that number to make sure you get everything you want with a maximum budget. Once you have this number, you can find out about how much people generally spend on each vendor with your budget to see approximately how much you’ll be spending on your wedding day categories - which includes your venue.
3. Figure Out your Guest Count
After laying out your priorities and figuring out about how much you can spend on each category for your wedding day, you should start writing down a list of every person you would ideally have at your wedding. This includes family, friends, coworkers, and yourselves. This list will likely change as time goes on, but you’ll definitely need to know your maximum guest count when reaching out to venues. This will likely be one of the first things they confirm with you, because if their space is too small, they won’t be able to work with you.
4. Figure Out Wedding Dates that You Would Like
When looking for vendors, there likely will be many that tell you that they are booked through most of the year. It’s important to know ahead of time the ideal season you’d like to get married in. You may need to have some flexibility for booking the venue of your dreams, so it’s always a good idea to have 3-5 wedding dates that you would be happy to get married on. If you want to have more date options available, consider looking at having a Friday or Saturday wedding.
5. List Out Pros and Cons
After you have tours with your venues and see the spaces, make sure to write out a pros and cons list to each of them. Make sure that the venues you are interested in have the things that you are looking for or hoping for by asking questions on the tours. If you’re torn between multiple spaces, you can use these pros and cons lists to help you see which would actually be a better fit for you.
Now that you’ve done all of the work to ensure you’re getting yourself a good venue with ease, you can go ahead and get contracts and proposals to look through! I recommend acting moderately quickly to reserve your wedding and put down your deposits so that you don’t lose your date with the venues, as they are booking up pretty quickly. Make sure to talk them over with your future spouse to know what is going to be the best wedding venue for you, and you’re ready to take on the next big steps of wedding planning!
If you would like more help to plan your wedding and know what to do next, you can reach out to me at my website.
