The groom has been down on one knee and the ring is on the finger. Now it’s time to think about choosing your wedding venue!
The news has been broken to family and friends and planning has started in haste! Now it’s time to find the perfect wedding venue. With the array of choices out there, and your own unique requirements for the day to consider, choosing your wedding venue is not always easy.
Here are our top four things to consider when searching for the perfect venue.
Location
The variety of locations at which you can now get married and hold the reception is huge.
These range from castles to beaches, golf clubs to marquees, theatres to manor houses and many more beyond. With the wedding industry seen as a lucrative option for all sorts of venues and locations, many are cashing in and opening up sites that may have previously turned their noses up at the thought of hosting a rowdy wedding.
Weddings can be a great way for a venue to diversify its income in a challenging marketplace.
Alongside traditional venues such as hotels and stately homes, a fresh crop of alternative and unusual choices continue to enter the market. These include renovated barns, heritage buildings and botanical gardens to name a few.
The great news for you when choosing your wedding venue is that you can tailor the setting more to your tastes, and a more competitive market can only be more beneficial to the end user, as venues have to up their game. You may choose to get married on a sun drenched beach or venue local to the region you live. In either case you will need to consider these points to minimise fuss on and around the day.
Is the location near to where you are getting married (if the ceremony is taking place separately?) Is it easy to travel to if your ceremony and reception are in different locations? For example a 20-30 minutes trip from the ceremony should be easy enough for guests, but over an hour may become tedious.
Is it far away from where most of your guests will be travelling – if so, does it have enough accommodation nearby or on site? Will you be offering transport for your guests either to the venue or at the end of the day, if so have you factored this into your costs?
What sort of wedding do you want? Different venues such as hotels will allow guests to stay overnight and make a weekend of the event whereas other venues may have a curfew in place of 12/1am after which guests will go their separate ways.
If your venue is in the middle of nowhere you will need to consider the availability of transport to transport your guests home if required, this could range from supplying guests with a list of local taxi firms to laying on a coach for guests at the end of the evening.
There are some fantastic wedding venues around if you are prepared to go off the beaten track. But if you don’t want any drunken stragglers knocking at your door when you have other things in mind, you may need to prepare an exit strategy.
Price
This may seem like an obvious one, but the more you spend on the venue, the less you may have to spend elsewhere.
When mapping out your wedding budget and choosing your wedding venue, you need to consider the venue alongside other major costs such as catering, photographer, dresses/menswear, evening entertainment etc.
Depending on the venue you may have to pay a hire fee, with catering fee on top (considering cost per head). If you have a smaller venue such as a village hall, costs will be significantly lower than a higher end venue. You will also need to bring in your own caterers (allowing greater freedom of choice – read our alternative catering ideas here).
In this instance, hire costs would be brought down considerably against for example, a boutique hotel with exclusive use where you have to use their own (or recommended) catering.
Weighing these two examples against each other, it may be more difficult to achieve the ‘fairy-tale wedding’ in a village hall. However venue dressing can do miraculous things to transform venues. Bear in mind, certain locations will be restricted by the numbers of guests, type of wedding you want and budget available.
For higher end venues, the cost of the venue and ‘traditional’ catering can easily start to climb up to £10,000-15,000. Going through the process of identifying venues in your price bracket alongside the other costs in your budget will soon weed out the venues available to you.
Bear in mind you may be able to scoop lower prices for venue hire during weekdays, Fridays/Sundays or during off season periods. Read our guide to saving money on your day here.
Type of venue
The availability of different venues to hold your special day or reception continues to grow, with a whole host of venues ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ of the lucrative wedding market.
These vary widely in amenities available, but truly allow you to customise your special day to anything you want it to be.
Having worked as suppliers in the wedding industry for over 10 years we have been to hundreds of venues ranging from marquees to golf clubs, castles to barns, stately homes, ball rooms, re-purposed mills, village halls and everything in between.
The type of venue will influence the feel and theme of the wedding day. As such it is well worth having a look around a few different types of venue that fit your budget.
For a classic traditional wedding, an upmarket hotel, stately home or castle may be ideal. These are often ready made venues which will require little decoration by you to look the part, and should offer a number of fantastic photo opportunities.
For a fun outdoor wedding – a barn or marquee may be perfect.
Just be aware that in some of these locations if the weather is poor, you may be stuck inside and unable to take advantage of any of the surrounding countryside and views. If so, is the marquee or barn nice enough indoors to keep you occupied throughout?
Consider the time of year (and chances of poor weather) of your wedding date and weigh these factors up.
Wedding on a budget? Some golf clubs are very competitive and offer a well-oiled wedding service.
Alternatively, village and community halls can be transformed dramatically by professionals with drapes and lighting if you still want an impressive looking interior. This may not matter to you, as depending on your priorities, the venue only needs to play a small part.
As long as your nearest and dearest are there, you and your other half are happy and they have a well stocked bar – who cares?
Some well known venues may fall into a category we would call a ‘wedding factory’. These are often hotels which host a large number of weddings a year and can host multiples over a single weekend.
There is of course nothing wrong with this and these venues are likely to offer a smooth, competitive and professional service. However on the flip side – this may mean you have a narrow window to prepare the venue before and after the wedding, with the next arrivals often arriving shortly after you.
This may have the potential of feeling a little impersonal and regimented at times.
As such, don’t forget to ask about set up/break down times and what time you have to leave by (or when accommodation should be vacated if staying on site.) Check whether you can continue to use the facilities for the rest of the day/weekend and advise your guests accordingly.
Personalisation
The type of venue you use will also dictate what you will be able to do with the venue.
If you are looking to personalise the venue with decorations, banners and photo’s for example, this may be ideal for some venues. This may be encouraged to personalise to your tastes, or where you have a blank canvas to fill as you please.
In these types of venues you may see this as essential to spruce the place up and build it up to being the majestic wedding venue that you desire for the big day.
On the other hand, if you don’t want to get your hands dirty, venues that offer an ‘out of the box’ solution could be ideal. In the case of grand hotels, castles and the likes, the surroundings are already likely to be well presented and the management team will be far less keen on you attaching things with Sellotape and putting pins in the wall.
Other considerations to bear in mind if you choose a hotel, golf club or other venue with their own on-site catering team will be that you may be expected to use their caterers throughout the day – or at least for the wedding breakfast or reception dinner.
If you’re happy with what they have to offer and the price per head this isn’t an issue.
Some venues can be particularly nit picky however and you may not be able to give out your own free drinks as part of the day (or you’ll have to pay a corkage fee), and you may not be allowed to have certain suppliers in attendance which conflict with what they already offer in house.
We have previously had experience with venues that insist on couples using their own hog roast or ice cream service for catering which are priced considerably higher than if you were to shop around locally.
Certain venues may not allow other suppliers to attend if they are not on the venues recommended suppliers list, and there is also the underhand practice of some venues charging suppliers a commission to attend. This may narrow your choice of suppliers further or increase costs as these are passed on to you.
This of course may not be an issue, but are just some points worth bearing in mind if you both have your heart set on that fresh wood fired pizza business that you met at the festival last year catering for your evening guests.
On the other hand, some venues may give you complete carte blanche to bring your own wine, organise all your own suppliers and catering, and to dress the venue entirely as you see fit.
Perfect for festival type weddings for example, this may just be another headache you don’t fancy, so it will be down to you to decide what sort of day you would like and how hands on you want to be as you get a feel for your local venues. For a few ideas read our alternative ideas for catering on your wedding day.
So there you have it, our top four things to consider when choosing a venue. Let us know if you have any feedback in the comments section below and check out 11 of our favourite wedding venues in the UK.
Most of all, make sure you embrace and enjoy the process of finding the venue for your special day as it takes you to some gorgeous and unusual places!
