I recently received an influx of inquires regarding selecting the wedding venue that Scott and I got married at this past March so I wanted to start off by sharing the thought process of finding and booking the right venue for us. And from my own experience, I say to try to book a location that is as all-inclusive as possible - it really will save a lot of headache and coordination with having to bring in services to the venue - unless you are hiring a separate wedding planner that will do all of that for you. But I also gravitated towards a location that allowed us to customize the space as we would like and have the option to choose our own vendors - some venues I found had a laundry list of required vendors (but sometimes that really works for others when it takes the guesswork out of acquiring vendors - although you will have to be ready to afford their rates).

MAIN POINTS TO CONSIDER FOR VENUE

Budget & Availability
BUDGET A big factor is, does the venue even fit your budget? Upon asking the venue for their wedding packages/rates, you can pretty much see whether or not you can afford the venue. But be sure to factor in any surcharges, taxes and additional fees; as well as higher costs for weekend dates or popular times of year to get married (it will always be much more expensive for a Friday or Saturday wedding).
Prior to booking a tour for the venue, really work out if the fees to have your wedding there are viable - if not, seriously do NOT even consider touring the place. You will just end up getting torn up in the end if you fall in love with the space and cannot book it because it is exceeds your budget. I’m all for the “if you dream/want it mentality then nothing can stop you”, but there’s a definitive line between what is realistic/practical and downright outrageous. There were some absolute “dream” venues but from just doing basic research, I KNEW it would be completely out of my budget so I didn’t even bother moving forward with any inquiries or tours.
AVAILABILITY Is the venue even available for the time that you want to get married - many venues are booking at least 18 months in advance, so you may just want to be flexible on dates if you have your heart set on a particular venue or location. Timing for your ceremony and or reception also tie into this. Consider are you given adequate time at the venue to take photos before the events take place, and if you would like for the party to go on all night - does your venue permit your reception to run past 10PM/11PM (which is the usual noise ordinance in California). And if they do, they may charge extra to have your event run longer.
Capacity & Exclusivity (and Privacy)
CAPACITY If you plan on hosting a wedding with 300 guests, it is obvious that a venue that can only accommodate 150 is not the venue for you, no matter how much you like the style. If there is no way you can budge on the guest count, then be sure to inquire or check the minimum and max capacity when asking for the wedding packages or if you use a search engine on a wedding website like Wedding Wire - include the guest count in the filter while searching for wedding venues.
EXCLUSIVITY Do you want to be the only event held for the day at your particular? Some venues DON’T offer their entire property exclusive to you. You will find that is usually the case with resort/hotels, or venues where they have a public space. If you do want to have your wedding at a location in which they hold multiple events in one day - also consider that even if there is another wedding/event that takes place in the morning, and yours takes place in the afternoon/evening - there are delays and mishaps that can take place that will cause the previous event to overlap into the prep time for your wedding (I witnessed this when attending an afternoon wedding at a luxury resort hotel in Orange County, and it was extremely awkward that many guests were arriving while florists are scurrying to finish setting up). Also think about whether you would mind if there are onlookers/passersbyers on your wedding day - some wedding locations are easily viewable/accessible from public pathways, etc. I did not want to get married at a location that had public access or held more than one event in the day (although, after I booked my venue, I found out they had plans to create a public space on the venue property - thankfully those plans at fallen through for my wedding day so it was completely private to us).
Catering
Does the venue include catering? Some venues may have a very low rental fee but they require you to book their partner caterer and that caterer will have a minimum amount you have to spend on catering (which may cause you to exceed your overall venue and food budget). From personal experience and attending weddings, I would say to go for a location that has in-house catering and bar options (if you would like to serve alcohol); sometimes you just can’t help it because you are ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE with a venue and they don’t offer any catering/bar services (at least inquire with the venue on their preferred vendors or vendors that they work with frequently). I’ve noticed that weddings held at locations where caterers have to come in to work out of a satellite kitchen to heat up/plate the food - somewhere in the whole process, the integrity of the food gets lost, it just doesn’t taste the same as if all of the food is prepared in house and in one location instead of having transfer food that has been half prepared elsewhere. If you do have to find your own caterer and bar service, look for a vendor that can provide you with both - food and bartenders with alcohol (sometimes they will give you the option to purchase your own alcohol and bring to the venue which can save money, but I prefer to have whoever is providing the bar service to go ahead and handle bringing in the alcohol). Food is an important component of the wedding - make sure the caterer offers FOOD TASTINGS, you really want to trust that it’s all gonna go off tasting perfectly without tasting anything first?! (and yes, I’ve heard of caterers that do not offer food tastings)
Included Amenities
TABLES, CHAIRS, LINENS + TABLEWARE Let me tell you, a venue that will provide ceremony and reception seating/tables as well as the linens and china, flatware & glassware is huge. A handful of venues I researched needed me to provide, at least the reception tables and chairs, as well as the linens such as table clothes and napkins. Now the tables don’t just mean guest dining tables, you also have to think about cake/dessert table, cocktail tables for the cocktail hour, further additional tables such as a welcome table, gift table or photo booth prop table.
BRIDAL/GROOM SUITES Do you want a space to get ready before the ceremony? Think about whether having bridal and grooms suites are something that you and your wedding party need prior to all of the festivities commencing. Although my venue did have both which I wanted, we still had to get ready at our airbnb since we couldn’t access the space until early afternoon. I would have preferred to be able to access the suites in the morning so we could just relax there and have our hair/makeup done in that space. And if there will be children in attendance to your wedding, do you want there to be an extra space/room for childcare? While touring venues, I noticed that some venues marketed kid-specific rooms.
THE EXTRAS Are you desiring a specific kind of hanging fixture, massive plants brought in, sparkler send off, live animals (your own dog, a hired alpaca?!), furniture rentals, a live band or other entertainment, candles, confetti - these are questions to ask prior or during your tour if it’s something you absolutely want to include in your wedding day as some venues may not permit the item or service to be brought onto the property. What’s nice is that my venue allowed everything that I wanted on the property, such as sparklers (although they did not state the max length in sparklers that I could have onsite, and after bringing my ~150 sparklers to drop off I was told they were too long, but the venue had shorter sparklers on hand I could use), and an option to have my dog be apart of our big day. They also had a plethora or props and furniture that could be utilized for the overall design of the wedding, which made it extremely easy to decorate the space without having to bring in a bunch of rentals.
Accessibility & Communication
ACCESSIBILITY I always hear that if guests want to attend your wedding, then they will make it happen - so you should be able to have your wedding wherever right (this usually pertains to destination weddings)? Yes and No - if you’re going to host your wedding in a location that is out in the middle of nowhere or not easily accessible, do yourself and your guests a favor and make sure there is either a shuttle provided to them, or that you are permitted to have guests drive out and park in a lot nearby (but don’t make them walk a far distance - it really just takes away from the entire wedding/celebrating you experience if guests have to park and walk 15-20 minutes, especially in some kind of weather that is not conducive to a pleasant walk). Some venues will require that you provide valet to your guests due to limited space in and out of the venue - that was the case for my venue since there was an upper and lower lot and the roads to get in and out were tight, but they made it easy by providing us with a valet vendor that they use often and we just had to “add-on” that service to our overall package. If the venue is not local to you and many of the guests, are there nearby accommodations for your guests regardless of if you reserve a room block?
Also consider accessibility for you and your fiance. Will you be able to come to the venue for your planning meetings/tastings (if it’s an in-house caterer or restaurant). Will you want to hire hair, makeup and other services that are in proximity to your venue or pay for travel fees (whether mileage or transport like airfare) for vendors to come to your venue? I’ve worked with numerous hair/makeup artists and struggled most with booking those services. I didn’t want to be slapped with all these travel fees, especially since I knew I would need 1-2 assistants to accompany the main hair/makeup artist, so that’s multiple travel fees. But I hadn’t really worked with any hair/makeup artists in the San Diego area, and I would have to book them purely off of other bride’s reviews, or take the time to go down to SD for a trial - and most only held trials during the week (I worked during the week and couldn’t find time to go down for a trial).
COMMUNICATION My number one pet peeve in anything is lack of communication. I loath having to work with anyone or any business in which there is little to no communication. So it was important that I booked a venue in which they responded to me in a reasonable amount of time and also took the initiative to follow up or check in with me. You will see early on that if you are doing your initial outreach to a venue and it takes them awhile to respond, get back to you on any inquiries or be able to adequately answer your questions, that it will probably be like that during the time leading up to your wedding day. Granted, you have to keep in mind that many venue spaces do not operate during the week, so they will be more responsive over the weekend when the venue is actually in use, but that also, the staff is occupied working the wedding/event and not necessarily dedicating all of their time to administrative work like answering your emails. For my venue in particular, I knew that my coordinators would respond Wed-Sun which was their work hours - and I was okay with that, because when they did respond, they made sure to address all of my questions and take care of any concerns that I may have. They have a dedicated team for coordinating, payments and food & beverage so it made it easy for me to know who to contact.

This is obviously not an exhaustive list for venue consideration that will work for everyone because every couple and situation is different. But I hope that these few points provide insight to you during the wedding venue search - for me, finding the venue was quite the mission all in itself and I wasn’t even touching any of the wedding details yet. I put together this wedding venue points of consideration list to help with your planning process, because I would have rather had all the points right off the bat that I wanted to cover while vetting prospective venues. Next I’ll share more specifically on booking my wedding venue - if you’re currently researching and looking at venues, and want to share your experience, please leave me a comment and let me know how it’s going!

Choosing a Wedding Venue - Things to Consider