Wedding Planning – Venue, Budget, Date

The beginning of your wedding journey probably includes making 3 big decisions: The venue, your budget, and how long you have to get it all together.

Pro-Tip:  Use Pinterest

Date & Budget

The date and budget are relatively easy. I love fall so obviously, my dream wedding had to be in the fall months. We then narrowed the date down further by when our officiant was available. Easy and done!

As for budget, I look back and laugh at myself for believing I could get out of this for under $3,000… Some venues are 3 grand just to rent the space. But with the help of my parents and the fact that I’m DIY-ing the S%$t out of this wedding, it is saving us quite a bit of green paper! I will eventually link my creations here.

We ended up setting the cap for our part of the spending to about $3,000 and my parents are absolutely wonderful and helping to pay for the food and space. Keep in mind we are having a wedding guest list of 70-ish people. It’s not small but it is definitely not large. Like I mentioned before this is an expensive hobby…

Other budgets considerations:

• Flowers – I am doing all fake flowers (except maybe some Costco mums, because why not?) and buying them on sale at Hobby Lobby and Joann’s. As well as building the bouquets, boutonnieres, and floral arch myself. Going through a florist and ordering in flowers will be WAY more expensive, but a lot less work for you. I also like knowing exactly what everything will look like and not have to explain my vision to a stranger. Maybe I’m a bit of a control freak?

 

• Photography & Videography – Wedding photo and video prices are so jacked up it hurts. (Well the whole thing is but whatever, it’s love right?) We got our photographer on an amazing deal because my fiance has a good friend/teacher from school. Where many photographers charge one or two thousand for a few hours, we got ours for $750 for the day. YES! To be fair, shooting a wedding is difficult and often requires at least two cameras to catch all the special moments. If you have family or friends with a nice camera you could have them fill in as a photographer or videographer. Or have people take pictures all night and send them to you later, you will catch countless special moments that way.

 

• Alcohol & Food – Both are ingredients for a good party, am I right? But not so good on the wallet. If you go with a professional venue they often have restrictions on hard liquor (usually only beer and wine allowed), if you bring your own bottles you have to pay per bottle for the venue to open them, and or you have to use their supply and cannot bring in anything else. That applies to food as well and restrictions to certain caters or limited menu options. We decided to splurge on the food, since the venue caters and has amazing food, and then have a cash bar. I have too many friends who would drink my bank account dry if I paid for all the alcohol… Cash bars are not lame they are smart!

 

• Professional DJ – I honestly did not even consider one. Our wedding is small enough that I can get a close friend to MC when needed through the night and otherwise will make giant playlists to cycle through. A Pre-Ceremony playlist, Reception Dinner playlist, and of course Reception Dancing playlist. We’ll see if it works!

 

Venue

Unfortunately, we do not have any family or friends with a beautiful cabin or yard to host our wedding and we wanted to go all out (at least I did). That meant searching for and touring venues. We actually only toured three places once I narrowed it down based on price, indoor wedding option, and the general area we wanted to be. I just googled wedding venues in the area and it gives you different wedding websites to look through. Don’t be afraid to research!

Venue price factors can depend on how many guests you have, if it is indoor vs outdoor, how long you need the space, amenities included (each place is a little different), and if it is during on or offseason.

BE PREPARED when touring venues! Do not show up empty-handed and with no idea of what you are doing (even if you really have no idea). Go in with your questions written down so that you don’t forget, I took a notebook of personal questions and a premade list of questions on what to ask venues because I was a little overwhelmed. And if you don’t know where to start, just Google or Pinterest what to ask venues and you will find all your questions and more! The list I had used is below and then just try to come up with any basic ideas you have, such as:

• Size of wedding
• Indoor/outdoor
• Reception or Ceremony only location
• The date or time of year you want to get married
• How much you are willing to pay for a giant room for one day…
• Possible themes or colors (some venues have decor that will not match your colors)
• If you like the coordinator of the venue – Kathy is my venue coordinator and we really vibed and she made me feel very comfortable. You will likely need to correspond with them multiple times, so make sure you kinda like them.

 

 

Again, Pinterest will be your BEST FRIEND when planning a wedding. My meager little wedding board has become a full-on inspiration board with sub-sections. You can check out my Wedding Board here!

Thanks for reading!