If your grandparents have ever told you about their wedding day, they might have recalled how little time they spent choosing the wedding venue.
After all, there was probably only one suitable venue in their hometown, and you shouldn’t be surprised if your grandparents simply chose that before moving onto the next part of their preparation.
However, if you are preparing to get hitched, you have a much broader choice of venues than this. So, how can you make a final decision on which of them to go for? RusticWeddingChic.com founder and wedding expert Maggie Lord has provided a few pointers for The Huffington Post; we look at many of these tips more closely below.
Carefully consider the venue’s logistics
Doing this can spare you a lot of headaches later. Factors that you should be taking into account here include the number of guests you will require the venue to accommodate, when in both the day and year you want the wedding to take place, and if your guests will have particular needs regarding accommodation.
Before you choose a venue, make sure that you have at least a rough idea of how many guests the wedding will have. Then, you simply need to look up a venue’s capacity before deciding whether it should be crossed off your list there and then.
See the venue at the time of day you will get wed
Judging the appearance of a venue simply from the photos on its website isn’t good enough – but neither is visiting the venue to see how it looks through your own eyes, except at a very different time to when you plan to tie the knot. So, if you intend to marry at 5 pm on the big day, don’t just check out how the venue looks at 10 am. The time of day can affect small but crucial factors, like how the outdoor light enters the building and how much of a draft it has.
Decide what style and feel your wedding will have
Would you like a very traditional wedding that wouldn’t look out of place in a Disney movie? Or, perhaps, a ceremony with a Victorian theme, which would suit a historical building like The Wood Norton? Questions like these should be considered before you decide on the venue, as a wedding of a specific style might not easily fit all venues. You don’t want to risk trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions
When researching or visiting a venue, you could be full of questions. Some of these could be standard queries that you would have about any venue under consideration; others might be more specific to particular places. Whatever questions you have, list them before putting them to various people connected to the venue. This is advised because people in different roles at the venue could present you with different answers to the same questions. You want as unbiased a perception of the place as possible.