Picking A Venue (and setting a realistic budget)

They say when you meet "the one," you just know. And that sounds idiotic when you're single or when you're in a relationship that isn't with the right person. You think that you will fall in love with someone, get engaged, and make it work.

And then one day, you meet the one: the person who you will spend forever with, the person who you love despite the fact that she can't cook and he can't care less about reality TV, the person who makes you want to learn to cook and learn to enjoy American Idol.

You just know.

The same thing happens with a wedding venue. When you find the right one, you just know.

And with my friend Erika, she had that feeling yesterday.

She had searched for a wedding venue online countless times, never finding exactly what she was looking for. Over the weekend, she did another search. And by some stroke of luck, a venue she had never seen popped up. A venue that was perfect.

I told her she had to call immediately to make an appointment. She did ... and they didn't answer, so she emailed. And very quickly she got a response -- and an appointment.

She went today and fell in love.

The place is everything she wants. There is an area for her ceremony and reception, her photos, for the couple's "first look." Everything she could possibly want was at the venue. The price was reasonable for what she wants and when she wants (she's having a summer 2014 wedding, and, as you will learn if you haven't, summer prices are higher than winter). Of course, like every bride, she has to consider her budget.
Is this venue something she can afford? It is worth eating pasta a few nights a week to make the payments?
And, if you're like Erika, you look at the photos and think: This is the place. This is worth the sacrifices. This is worth tweaking a budget and making it work. I'm not saying put yourself on a liquid diet to afford your venue. And I'm not saying empty your entire savings account either. But be realistic.

If I asked you, on the spot, how much a gallon of gas is currently, you would know. Average price of a gallon of milk, you'd know that too. But average price of a 100 person ceremony and reception, including wait staff and clean up ... chances are you wouldn't have an idea until you started going to venues. So of course, you have a budget in mind, but you can't really create a budget until you start looking around and figuring out the cost of things.
And that's with every aspect of a wedding.
I called to make an appointment to try on dresses and the woman asked me what my budget was. "Honestly," I said, "I have no idea. It's not that I don't have a budget, per say, it's that I have no concept of what a wedding dress costs so I really can't create a budget."
And that's the same mentality you need to have when setting a wedding budget. When you get engaged, you have no idea what a wedding will cost. You can make an imaginary budget, but until you actually meet with florists and photographers, you don't know how much it will cost you to have them at your wedding.
So maybe your venue will be a little out of your predetermined budget. Maybe it's a little more than you had hoped. But it doesn't mean you can't do it. Just means you need to sit down and figure out how to do it.
Because the truth is: you only get one wedding (at least, that's what most people strive for; Elizabeth Taylor had a different experience). You should do it right, do it the way you want, and have it at the venue that is "the one." Don't force yourself to have it somewhere else, just to save yourself a little bit of money. You will absolutely regret it in the end.
BRIDAL BABBLE: How did you know you found the right venue?

Questions To Ask When You Go Venue Hunting (It's a long list!)

I feel like Pete and I have become venue hunting professionals. We have seen at least 15 in person, more than anyone I know has seen. It's just hard coming from New York to North Carolina. We want a New York wedding in North Carolina, and that's asking a lot. So we have to look around quite a bit and ask a lot of questions.

We didn't really know exactly what to ask the first time we went venue hunting, but by the last venue, I knew exactly what I needed to know. It was definitely a learning curve.

My friend Erika is looking at her first venue today, and I wanted to make sure her experience was as close to perfect as possible. So I put together a list of questions that she needs to ask. I broke it down alphabetically, just to make it easier. And I added four questions per category.

A lot of the points will be touched upon during your tour of the venue, but be sure to check through the list to make sure everything is addressed.

Questions To Ask When You Go Wedding Venue Hunting 

 ALCOHOL
1. What are the alcohol options? If you choose beer and wine, can you add a signature cocktail?
2. Can you close the bar during dinner?
3. How many bartenders are required for your headcount? Is there an additional fee?
4. Can you bring your own alcohol? If so, are you responsible for obtaining a license for the alcohol and bartenders from the town?

CEREMONY (if you are having it at the same place as the reception)
1. What is the additional cost to have the ceremony at the venue?
2. Are you responsible for obtaining a license from the town to hold the ceremony there? What is the fee?
3. Is there a separate entrance for the bride to enter and not be seen beforehand?
4. What exactly are you options for set up for the ceremony?

COORDINATOR
1. Does the venue have a coordinator?
2. Does the coordinator stay the entire time?
3. How can you reach the coordinator?
4. Can you use your own coordinator?

DECOR
1. What is included with the venue?
2. Will the venue decorate for you or are you responsible?
3. When can you come and decorate (if you are responsible) or drop off decorations (if the venue will handle it)?
4. Are you responsible for clean up/removing centerpieces at the end of the night? Do you need to take the decor with you at the end of the night or can you pick it up at a later date?

HOTEL (optional)
1. If there is a hotel on premises, are you required to book a certain number of rooms?
2. Can you block a certain number of rooms?
3. If you do and they do not book, when will they be released? Are you responsible for paying for them if they are not booked?
4. Does the hotel offer a wedding discount?

MENU
1. Are you married to a specific menu or is it flexible?
2. Are you able to bring in your own caterer for the cocktail hour? The dinner? The cake? Are there fees for this?
3. What are the menu options (buffet, plated dinners, passed hors d'oeuvres)?
4. How many servers are required for your headcount? Is there an additional fee?

NOISE
1. Are you able to have a band?
2. Are you able to have a DJ?
3. Is there a noise ordinance in the town (aka do you have to stop playing music at a certain time)?
4. Are you allowed to have music outside? Are you allowed to have people outside?

PAYMENT
1. How much is the deposit? When would you need to pay it? Is it refundable?
2. When do you need to make payments for your balance?
3. Do you pay servers/bartenders directly or is that included in the fee?
4. Are tips customary?

PHOTOGRAPHY
1. When are you able to take your photos?
2. Where can you take your photos? (You want to make sure there are great "background" ideas.)
3. Is anything off limits for your photographer?
4. Is there time between your ceremony and reception to take photos?

OPTIONAL EXPENSES
1. If you don't want a part of a package, can you remove it to lower the fee?
2. If you want an additional service, can you add it?
3. If you want to add time at the end of the night, can you? How much will it cost?
4. Do you need to purchase insurance (liability, inclement weather)?

VENUE
1. What exactly is included with the venue?
2. How many hours do you get? Does that include setup and breakdown?
3. Is there a minimum fee you must hit? (Certain venues say you must have a food and beverage minimum of a certain number of dollars, regardless of how many people are in your party)
4. What is the maximum number of guests the venue can hold? Minimum?

ETC.
1. If the venue is outdoors, what is the backup plan?
2. If you want items not offered by the venue (tents, resin chairs, etc.), are they allowed? Can you choose any company you want?
3. Do you get a bridal suite prior to the reception? Do you get a honeymoon suite after the reception?
4. If guests arrive early, is there an area where they can go (i.e, bar, common area) or are they not allowed in until the reception begins?



Okay, I know that sounds like a lot, but I promise a lot of it will be covered. And if it's not, just call the venue and ask them your questions.

Your best bet is to bring a notebook with you and write down everything. If you are like us and see a lot of venues, they will start to mesh together. So write down things you see on your tour -- or be like me and take photos at every venue. I have about 20 photos from each venue we've seen. It's so much easier than trying to remember.

Make sure you get the name of every person you speak with, plus their contact info. Most will give you their card, but if they don't, write it down. That way, you have a point of contact if you have questions.

Don't be timid. This is your day. If you want to ride in on a donkey, ask. If they can't do it, that is not the venue for you. And don't feel bad if you have a ridiculous request like that. Chances are there are people who have asked about more ridiculous stuff -- and people after you who will ask even crazier things.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What questions did I miss that you would add to the list?

Secret Venue Hunting (It saves you a lot of unwanted conversation)

Venue hunting is the wedding equivalent of buying a used car. You show up at the lot and someone is there to greet you and follow you as you walk around checking things out.

If you bring a buddy and try to talk to him or her, the "someone" will pop up right behind you, like the sneaky sneaky guy from Mr. Deeds. And so, to save yourself a headache, you're forced to make conversation the entire time. And you want to be polite, you want to ask questions, but you mostly just want to do things like check out the bathroom to see if it is large enough for Grandma's wheelchair.

But you can't, exactly, lead a trio to a bathroom stall.

This is why I started going to venues unannounced, yet invited.

Love a venue but not enough to make an official visit? Figure out a way to get inside without letting a wedding coordinator know.

We have a venue in town that is the upstairs room of a local brewery. We really love the brewery, love the food, love that the beer served is local. It would be something completely different for our out of town guests to enjoy.

The brewery was at the first bridal expo we attended, and I got paperwork from them. The prices weren't bad, except when you conside that our bridal party, plus immediate family, plus attendants, comes to about fifty people. But I still wanted to check out the venue. Just not formally.

We found out the brewery was having a breat cancer benefit. Of course, we had plans to attend (we do attend each cancer benefit we hear about, in memory of my fiance's mother). Luckily for us, the benefit was going to be held upstairs in the private room -- the one we would book if we were to host our rehearsal dinner there.

We got upstairs and it was gorgeous inside. A huge beautiful chandelier hung over the staircase, there was a large private bar which would be for our guests only, and the room was spacious (enough to set up a large game of beer pong, as you can see from the signs on the walls in the photo above, but then convert to a dining area). We saw long rectangular and smaller square tables. We found out where the DJ would set up, if we decided to have a DJ. We saw where we could set up the buffet, if we decided on that. We found out where the bathrooms were. We checked out the decor, the decorations, and the drapes -- all without having to be followed around by someone trying to be helpful.

We were actual customers that day, so we figured out the flight pattern of guests. We knew how crowded it would potentially be and the ease (or lack thereof) of walking around.

I already had prices from the expo, so we didn't really need to set up an official time to meet.

And I really liked this a lot better. It was such a realxing way to see a venue.

Unfortunately, we did eliminate this off our list (mostly because I want to invite all our out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner -- and that is our entire guest list -- and this would just get too pricey for us).

 
If you're local to me and planning your wedding, you'll want to know that this is the Beam Room at Front Street Brewery (9 N. Front Street; Wilmington, NC). We love FSB as a place to hang out (we have taken every single one of our out of town guests to FSB; it has become a tradition, which is why we wanted to take all our wedding guests here) but it just isn't going to work for us. I'm glad we figured this out by just heading to the venue instead of wasting someone's time by having an official tour, then coming to the same conclusion.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Are there any venues that you have "unofficially" visited?

It's Perfect, But ...

Don't read this post.

Seriously.

Don't.

Reading it will just be wasted time that you can't get back. Like the wasted time I spent playing Candy Crush at 4:30 in the morning because there was no way I was sleeping.

So I'm writing this post to purge myself of all these stress and pre-panic attack emotions that I'm carrying around right now ... and you reading it will only give you stress and pre-panic attack emotions.

So seriously. Stop reading. Unless you want to keep reading. You have free will. But I warned you ...

We went to see a venue yesterday. We went to see two venues on Saturday. It's like Groundhogs day. All venues, all the time.

They're all perfect, but ...

There's always a but. Which is a sentence that would probably make me laugh if I wasn't so stressed out right now.

There was the venue we liked, but the view of the beach was obstructed. There was the venue we liked, but it was $178 a head and that didn't include a New York cocktail hour. There was the venue we liked, but it was $150 a head for two passed hors d'oeurves.

There were two venues that were basically just rental spaces and you had to do everything yourself (including recessed lighting, and I have no idea what that even means, so I would definitely overlook that and we'd end up eating dinner in the dark).

The were the countless venues that were just ballrooms, and we don't want that.

There was the venue that had a flood in the parking lot that "happens when it rains." It rains here. All. The. Time.

There was the venue that's not booking next year.

There was the venue that didn't call me back (we're going on six weeks now).

There's the venue that did call me back but is way too small for us.

It's not like I haven't done my research. It's not like I'm not trying. It's not like we're not spending our weekends seeing a trio of venues. We're just not finding what we want.

And what we're looking for, it's not that specific. We want a venue on the beach that actually has a view of the beach, that will serve a cocktail hour and a plated dinner, that isn't just a ballroom and doesn't have (as Pete puts it) "that same corny carpet." We don't want a room where we have to do everything. I want to rent an all-inclusive venue. I don't want to have to figure out where to rent chairs and tents and recessed lighting from.

I have all photos of the venues we've seen, and I really wanted to go through them and post about the different venues and the hunting process. But I didn't want to have to end each post with a "but."

On the plus side, staying up until 5am meant I finally beat level 208 on Candy Crush, which I've been stuck on for months.

I've always been a silver linings kind of gal.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What is recessed lighting?

The Waiting Game (& how Jesus invented the three days rule)

I was on Pinterest the other day and found this fantastic pin about how Jesus invented the three days rule.

Okay, so I have to share (but keep going after it to read about weddings).

So, according to How I Met Your Mother, that's where the three days rule came from. It isn't, obviously, but it's a rule I always adhered to because, well, you were supposed to.

It seems like wedding coordinators do the same thing.

On Saturday, we went to see this venue:

Amazing. I mean, that looks more like a resort than a wedding venue. And yet, it was a venue. But oh, not just a venue. Possibly the venue.

We loved it. We loved almost everything about it. Yes, there are a few little things that aren't exactly perfect (like the fact that it was an hour away, which I mentioned the other day).

The place was amazing and the price ... well ... we don't know.

See, when we were there, someone was getting married.

So we got a tour of the venue, we got to sit with the coordinator, and she said she would email us a proposal early in the week. She couldn't do it right then because, well, that wedding needed her.

We saw her Saturday. No proposal yet. I'm trying to be patient. I mean, if it was a guy I met out in town who I wanted to date, I'd wait until Tuesday to freak out.

Except, if you know me, freaking out is one of the things I'm best at.

I have high, high hopes that this place is in our budget. But we won't find out until we get the proposal. Fingers crossed that one) it's in our budget and two) that she emails soon before the anticipation drives me mad.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Be honest: Did you ever follow the three days rule?

Venue Hunting

I've been looking online and found a venue that I quite love. It's on the beach, outdoors, open, maybe on an island.

We have a bunch of islands around here and you need to take a ferry to some of them, so I wanted to make sure this one wasn't on a ferry-only island. So I mapquested the trip from here to there.

It's a 54 minute trip from my apartment, about an hour from the church I go to every Sunday. 

I guess I could pick a church that's down by the venue, but would I be able to take pre-cana classes at my church? Or would we have to travel an hour each way every time we needed to take a class?

Logistically, my guests could stay down by the venue, since they are traveling anyway. But what about for me? Would it be a logistical nightmare for me to plan a wedding that far away?

I need advice.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Is it worth it to travel to check out the venue? What do you think?

Showing Up Unannounced

The other day, I got a call from a wedding venue, asking if I wanted to make an appointment. It looked pretty in the photo I saw, where it was lit up at night, in front of a lake. The venue is inland, and we're really hoping for something on the beach, but I figured it was worth looking at -- except it's about 45 minutes from home.

Pete wasn't sure it was worth the drive.

So I didn't make an appointment.

I went out for lunch today, a little over an hour from home. On the way up, I passed a sign for the town where the venue is. It was fate, I thought.

I wasn't sure how long lunch would last, so I didn't call anyone. I just figured I could drive by, see where it was located, and check out the lake. If I liked the grounds, I would take Pete for a drive and a formal look.

So, on the way home, I got directions to the venue and stopped by unannounced. I was greeted by this:

That's the photo of the entrance to a gated community, which, incidentally, you're not able to just drive around -- no matter how nicely you ask the gatekeeper. Yeah, I had no idea that the venue was a clubhouse in a gated golf community.

So instead of going in, you're left to do this:

That's me peering in, trying to figure out if there's a side entrance or a fence I could jump.

There wasn't either.

I did ask if I could just drive around (which seems a little crazy, yes, but across the street there's a vineyard community that is accessible to the public), but was told that I could check out the restaurant down the block.

Apparently, you can have a reception here, but that's not what I was looking for, even though there is a very nice hotel in the same parking lot where my out of town guests could stay.

I could have gone in the restaurant to ask and see if someone could show me around the venue. That was an option. But at that point, I had to think logically. It's not coastal. It's quite a drive from where the ceremony would be. It's in a gated community, so all my guests would be stopped at the gate. It's not that big of a hassle, but a minor inconvenience nonetheless.

And this is what the majority of the grass looks like:

Sure, it can't all be green in January, but this is North Carolina so I just expected more green than that patch.

To be honest, I'm kind of glad I didn't make an appointment because the venue wasn't perfect, so I would have been wasting someone's time. And if I didn't just happen to be driving by, I wouldn't have even stopped by unannounced.

It worked out for me, honestly, but it's not the best way to go. Actually scheduling a visit is the best possible course of action. Going all stealth-like and getting stopped before you pass go, not exactly the optimal option.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Did you make appointments for every venue you looked at?

I Broke The Rules. I Fell In Love.

You never mean to fall in love. That's not how it goes. You don't decide. You don't pick who you fall in love with. You just fall.

And it's usually the most amazing and beautiful thing you can do.

Except in my case. In my case, it's a disaster.

When I'm shopping, for anything -- a car, a dress, a birthday present -- I always tell myself not to fall in love with anything, and especially don't fall in love with the first thing you see. If you buy the first thing you see, you won't shop around, and you'll risk either overpaying or buying the wrong thing.

I'm amazing at buying presents. Fantastically amazing that people should hire me to buy their gifts. Unfortunately, it's a very unmarketable skill to have, so no one is hiring me. But the reason I'm good is because I don't fall in love right away.

Except now.

Pete and I went to a bridal expo on Sunday and we found a venue that I fell in love with. So in love that I couldn't get the floor to ceiling windows out of my head. Every seat is a window seat. Every. Single. One.

I couldn't stop thinking about the photo we saw taken from the loft, the one looking down on the perfectly wrapped chairs with their perfect satin bows.

No matter how hard I tried to push the words, "This is the place" out of my mind, I couldn't stop telling myself, "This is the place."

And then I got an email with prices.

Prices that are flirting with the very edge of my budget. Prices that include amazing views but don't include a cocktail hour (not an option). Prices that will allow my guests to eat incredible seafood entrees, but only two plated hors d'oeuvres brought around by waiters (additional is extra). Prices that give every guest a window seat, but don't include the perfectly wrapped chairs with their perfect satin bows (both are additional costs).

The logical side of my brain is saying, "This is not the place."

But I keep thinking of the view, the beauty, the fact that I'm in love with this place.

I didn't mean to fall in love. That's not how it went. I didn't decide. I didn't pick this venue to fall in love with. I just fell.

And it's a disaster because picking this venue with blow up my budget. But you only get married once. Well, you should only get married once. Shouldn't you have what you love?

BRIDAL BABBLE: Has this happened to you?