It's engagement season! Now that he's put a ring on it, the next big decision is where to get married! As a wedding planner, the hardest part of the whole wedding process is finding the perfect location. One venue will have a gorgeous ceremony site, but won't offer outside catering. Another venue will only allow music until 10 pm. Another venue will already be booked on your wedding day.
Before you even start looking at venues, here's a few tips:
1. Make a wedding budget. There's no point of taking site tours and falling in love with a venue if their site fee is $20,000 and your entire wedding budget is $30,000. A site fee and catering should be half of your wedding budget.
2. Do you want a venue that provides catering and alcohol or do you want to bring in your own? Some brides require kosher catering, or want a specific type of food that certain venues don't make.
3. Figure an approximate guest count. You'll be able to rule out a lot of venues if you're having a 450 person wedding.
A great reference website to use is www.herecomestheguide.com Once you find your venue, everything else will fall in to place. Happy hunting! And if you have any questions about venues, please comment below. We're here to help.
The next few blog posts will be about venues located in southern California.
