A friend called me up not too long ago asking me about a wedding venue in Karen. She informed me that a friend of hers was looking to get married and didn’t want to break the bank because they were on a tight budget and did not want to spend a lot of money. So I shared with her what I knew about the place she inquired however I was also quick to offer her some advice which I think many people tend to overlook when they start out looking for venues.
While cost is a huge factor, price should not be the only thing motivating a couple to choose a venue. My husband and I had a fantastic wedding venue but I remember the number of sleepless nights I had trying to imagine how the wedding would turn out. Initially when we started to look for venues, I just wanted somewhere with a lot of space where people could dance and enjoy because that is what I had in mind however at the time I did not put much thought in anything but that. And so quite excited about all the space we had, we quickly put in our deposit and then the work which I had actually thought was done by choosing the venue, had just begun.
While it turned out fantastic I would like to spare a few moments to share what I could have done different.
The space was lovely. Huge and accommodating with all the amenities we needed to include ample parking and social amenities (loos). The challenge that I later came to have was the layout. Because the space was so huge, we ended up in a situation where we needed to carefully ensure we utilized all the space effectively so that the wedding would not end up looking disorganized and lacking structure. And so the work began. I scoured the internet trying to find pictures of weddings that had taken place there just to get an idea but unfortunately for me I did not find any. I had to think of where to walk in from, where should the food tent face, where do we put the high table, where should the entrances be, exits, where should we set up the church area? And how about the reception? And how do we ensure that the activities happening during the setup of the reception do not affect the church session (suppliers walking in and out as the service was going on), how does the background look for the photos (there was one area in in the venue that gave me sleepless nights, I did not want it appearing in my photos (bridezilla much??) And the list went on and on. In a nutshell, how do we prevent the wedding from looking tacky? Luckily for me I had an amazing décor person (Georgina) who was very patient with me and her confidence in pulling off my vision gave me the confidence that it was going to be ok. That and my husband being very artistic and having design competencies was able to design the layout with my décor person and put it all together according to our vision.
So my advice:
- Before choosing and settling on a wedding venue, do your homework first. Try and get different pictures of the venue to see how weddings there actually turn out. If you are unfortunate enough to not see any like we were, then do what we did. We requested from the grounds to let us know when weddings were scheduled for that venue and we visited each of those weddings just to get a feel of what we didn’t want(and boy did we see a lot of that) and what we did
- Price is a factor but not the only one. Like I told my cousin, her friend might end up spending so little on a venue but the amount of work that will be required to go into making the space look stellar can end up in the long run costing so much. With this I have décor and tents in mind. Because of how large our space was, we had to spend a bit more in ensuring the place did not looks so bare. Besides the décor & tents however, other factors such as toilets, extra parking, photo session etc. can all be prices that are additional based on the venue you pick. Certainly I got the dance space I wanted J but we had to spend some more on décor to match up my design. The worst part is once you start the planning, you are on a roll, you just have to keep going and my friend, there is nothing like when you have no choice and you have to just add those few(though they never feel few at the time) extra coins.
- The last part is if you can, get a wedding planner. Let them be the ones to deal with all those small and not so small issues. They are trained to figure out the layout and they can also get you good deals on the décor and the tents so that you do not have to worry about adding extra because you did not thoroughly think through all the nitty gritties when you fell in love with your venue in the first place and quickly secured it. And if you can’t get one, be sure to ask your tents and décor providers if they have had weddings there and how they turned out. Many will have a design layout that they copy from place to place but it is always good to customize it to what you want so do not leave it to chance. Get pictures if you like, visit the place and see other weddings there but most importantly have a vision and let that guide your decision as well.
So in a nutshell, you would rather spend a bit more on a venue that has it all the way together in terms of the environment and its surroundings than spend less and have to spend a fortune trying to compensate for the lack of beauty (or not enough) and serenity in the environment.