choosing a wedding venue

We've just paid the deposit on our wedding venue, which has made the whole thing finally start to feel real - WE'RE GETTING MARRIED! Now that we have an official date and location set, we can officially start to put plans in motion. We can now start doing all the fun stuff like dresses, suits, flowers, photographer, music, cake and everything else, but there were a few things we had to get sorted BEFORE we could decide on our venue.

WHO IS ATTENDING

The first thing you're going to want to sort out is the guest list - you don't need to have a finalised guest list but it's important to have a rough number of guests as that will really dictate which venues are even worth looking at. Even before I was engaged, I fell in love with a specific venue and had dreamed about getting married there but it ended up being too small for what we needed. It's okay though because I LOVE the venue we've ended up with too!

WHERE IS THE WEDDING

Destination wedding or wedding at home - that's the question. We also have two home locations as a long-distance couple, so that's also something to consider. Usually, the wedding location is the bride's home, which is what we opted for with the ceremony in my home church and the reception in Northern Ireland. With people travelling over, we were cautious about not being too far away for people to travel between venues if they haven't got a car.

WHEN IS THE WEDDING

We were fairly flexible with the date - we had an ideal timeframe in mind, but with our planning being quite short notice in the grand scheme of wedding planning, we were equally aware that it might be tricky to have those dates available. The most important thing for us was that it would be on a Saturday, as his family all needed to fly over. We ended up getting a date that suits us in a venue we love and also got so fortunate that the vendors took a liking to us because there were three other couples interested in the date before we had paid our deposit, but they kept it free for us.

WHAT IS YOUR BUDGET

Let's face it, weddings are expensive! I had created a spreadsheet of all the venues I was considering and along with location and capacity, it's also important to be aware of the price. Some venues will offer a per head charge, which will typically include your catering as well, but a lot you're looking at close to £10,000 for just the venue hire, so we had to rule out a few venues immediately because they were just too expensive. 

VIEWING THE VENUES

The next step after you've made a little shortlist is to start organising a viewing of the venues that you're most interested in. It's important to have a few different venue styles on the list even if you think it's something you're not interested in, because they might surprise you. Some people want a more rustic vibe and some people want a more classy refined vibe and neither is wrong and sometimes the vibe that you think you want isn't actually what you like when you go to view the venues.

PROS AND CONS

After you've viewed a few venues, it's helpful to compare the options available because no two venues will offer the exact same packages and sometimes one that seems perfect on paper just doesn't add up for you and the one that you weren't sure about originally actually ticks more boxes than you were expecting. We had ours narrowed down to two very different options so this definitely helped us decide. It's also helpful to have a second pair of eyes look over everything so grab someone you trust who has no bias towards either venue to give you some thoughts too.

SECOND VIEWING

As my fiancé is England-based, I did all of the venue viewings myself and provided him with the details but when he and his parents were coming over to visit the following weekend, we arranged a second viewing of our favourite venue. I had been very passionate about it on first viewing, so they were more than happy to accommodate us - there was also a wedding on that day, so it really helped to visualise what it could look like for our day! After a second viewing, we were more than happy to officially commit to the venue and finalise the details.

So I paid the deposit, and we officially booked our venue for our wedding last weekend! It's a little bit later in the year than we were originally intending, but as we were flexible, it was a date that suited us perfectly and has the capacity to deal with our large family groups. I think it's a perfect venue for us, and I'm so glad that we found it and that we were able to book it, and now I just can't wait to use it in the summer!