Should you love your wedding venue?
I write this from the past as a bride. Hindsight is a marvellous leveller and can make our seemingly sane choices seem crazy. However I think that it is important to recognise that as a bride you are making
decisions without the benefit of hindsight. The pressures are present and are palpable. It is now or never.
And now a step back in time.
So without sounding too pompous or spoilt, I don't love my venue. (Oh it appears I am like a little child.)
I do love it's location (nestled away from prying eyes) I do love it's price (exponentially cheaper than it's non-existent equivalent in London) I do love that it has accommodation (everyone can stay in the house or very close-by) I do love it's flexibility…
I just didn't love 'it'.
Why is that a problem? Well I guess it isn't and I should relent because the deposit is down, we are about to make the next big instalment and I love my suppliers. I was never going to
find the "perfect" venue. Mainly because it probably doesn't exist and if it did it would be completely out of our financial league…
Getting married somewhere fancy? Image Credit Cotton Candy Weddings. Full feature here
I just cannot shake off the fact it is not quite what I wanted. Perhaps a niggling worry that I would like to be married in church despite being completely non religious.
So why am I so troubled? There are far more important things to worry about. Indeed I should be obsessing over who will be our fiscal policy and how this may affect me and my country. So why am I obsessed over such dismally unimportant details? Oh yes, because I would love to be a perfectionist!
Getting married in a yurt? Image credit Marshal Gray Photography See full feature here
So what is problem? Superficial anna strikes, as the venue does not possess the most aesthetically pleasing interior. (Bloody delicious blogs with your beautiful venues). It's far from hideous (pretty much
as far from hideous as you can get), I guess it is just not what I thought I wanted. Gosh, I sound so spoilt and ungrateful. Let me try and explain. The space is set up well. The ceremony room is a beautiful wood panelled room (albeit with a bit too much red for my liking). It just doesn't ooze the grandeur of other venues I have spied! There are no uber high ceilings with beautiful architectural focal points. We will pretty much be getting married in front of a fireplace (roaring and making me "glow") but it is just a fireplace. Although what am I expecting, cherubs with lyres on the back of unicorns?
Anna exchanging vows with her husband. By the fireplace. Image credit Emma Case
My other problem is the Chapel (obviously deconsecrated). It is just a little spartan for me. There are still remnants of it's past. Some are perfect. There is a raised platform perfect for a band or other
entertainment, there is a mini minstrel's gallery perfect for my brother's "fantastic" idea of a super punch bong (that boy gets super excited by the thought of punch) and the room is long enough for my
dream of long table banqueting!
Getting married at the Registry Office? Photo Credit Dominique Bader Full feature here
However, the wood panelling strikes again but this time only to waist height and then the attack of the super "methodist" stone wall commences. There is nothing really wrong with this save the slight barn feeling I get from it. (Nothing wrong with barns just not my style.) So I moan when there psychedelic carpets and then I moan when there is nothing to see. What can I say
apart from I'm a complex girl!
Getting married in the cinema? Image Credit Emily Quinton Full blog feature here.
I was so excited by the venue when I first met it on a cold day in October. I just think I need to see it through new eyes and appreciate how lucky I actually am! I have plenty of ideas to remedy
these "problems" but fear I lack the creative drive, ability or funds to make things pretty. (Although, who has carpet in the master suite bathroom or in any bathroom??! That is truly unforgivable.)
So how did you reconcile less than optimistic thoughts about venues or vendors? Did you change venues or stick with it and for those marrieds amongst you, how did it turn out on the day?
Anna
Anna is the blogger behind Far From The Wedding Crowd. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. We'd love for you to join in the discussion below. You can read other posts by Anna on Love My Dress here.
Annabel View all Annabel's articles
Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
It’s a shame that nobody ever asks the band / entertainment where the best venue is – we’ve been to loads, know what they are all ‘actually’ like on the day – often multiple occasions and could give you a real insight before you make your choice!
Why on earth get married here?! Stop whinging and change it…
Why did I get married there? Well I guess it’s because it didn’t really matter whether I loved the venue or not. To me it was more than just the ceiling height.
Really…???
I think at times everyone has doubt about venue’s , suppliers , dress and maybe nearly every aspect of their wedding. Some time’s these doubts are right and we should change it but others time’s they are wrong and we are glad we went with it.
That “really” was at Sarah not Anna BTW. 🙂 x
I had various practical reasons for choosing my wedding venue – I was pregnant and we had friends travelling from the US and elsewhere, so we needed the venue to be convenient for them and close to our home – I was not in a position to be travelling to and fro to a venue far away from where we lived for planning meetings.
So we chose a pub near where we live because it could accommodate our guests, about 90 people (surprising how many London venues either cater for under 50 or 60 guests, or are mega-wedding venues for 200+; there is very little for guest lists around the 100 mark!) and was walking distance to the tube.
It definitely was not my dream wedding venue – that would probably have been a barn in the countryside complete with hay bales and barn dance – but to achieve *that* wedding, I’d have had to wait another year and be getting married in 2013.
I could have had that dream wedding if it was what I really wanted, but I wanted to be married before the baby was born – partly because I’m a traditional soul at heart and I worry about what my grandmother thinks, and partly as I’d already begun planning my wedding and the thought of delaying it so long broke my heart!
So it was a case of practicality and convenience over daydreams, and incorporating as much as I could from my original wedding plans (wedding flowers, favours, table decorations, cake all pretty much went according to plan) and we compromised on the things we had to. The venue lent itself to a certain style of decor, so I went with that rather than fighting it, and ended up with a very pretty, stylish wedding (in my opinion) which was still very personal to me, even if there were no hay bales or bunting!
You sound like me. Being picky about every little detail when really, from the outside, it’s probably ok haha. I have a love hate relationship with my venue. When I first went in… I loved it, I goose pimples and could see myself there instantly. But then time passed, we paid the HUGE deposit and reality kind of hit… we were paying more for the venue (for one day) than the price of new (small) car. Was it really worth that much money?? Ok so it was initially my dream venue, but it didn’t have accommodation, guests had started to question where they would be staying. Our point of contact at the venue had changed from the very friendly and helpful man we first met to various other snotty and unhelpful members of staff who put the price up, said we weren’t allowed to do anything fun, have confetti, banned bubbles and balloons!…
Anyway long story short, I got stressed, contacted the original ‘nice’ chap, who turned out to be the event supervisor. Told him I needed to come again and only wanted to speak to him not any of the others. As soon as I returned to the venue I loved it again! He went through every detail, every worry I had, he even dismissed a lot of the poppycock the other members of staff had scared us with. He’s amazing and always makes us feel welcome. So vendors learn your lesson and be nice to brides haha. Can’t wait to get married there now. xxx
“I was never going to find the “perfect” venue. Mainly because it probably doesn’t exist and if it did it would be completely out of our financial league…”
This struck a chord. This was how I felt. I almost gave up and booked somewhere I felt the same as Anna about. I just couldn’t ‘settle’ though. We dreamed of a barn/farm style venue, a bit like http://www.packingtonmoor-events.co.uk/ , but in close proximity to home. I also didn’t want to pay Packington Moor prices. So we’ve found a farm just outside our village and are making our own venue. It’s damn hard work and while more affordable than PM, it’s certainly no cheap option once you factor in all of the event hire that has to be brought on site and the amount we’re going to have to spend to make the place look more wedding venue and less working dairy farm. But I have every confidence that we’ll pull it off. And every single aspect of it will be how we wanted it to be.
That’s all you needed, Anna, faith in your abilities and confidence that your creativity would create a fabulous version of your vision. As I’m sure you did in the end 🙂
I have to admit, we had an amazing wedding day and in the end I don’t suppose the venue mattered, but on booking it (it being the first venue we went to!) as time progressed I felt way less sure we had made the best choice. I read stuff on wedding blogs about good suppliers and I wasn’t feeling the love from the venue particularly. Also, we didn’t have the money to massively decorate it and the interior decor started to look a bit old fashioned and not really us.
I looked into a cancellation policy but in the end decided it would be a waste of money and too stressful to start venue hunting from the start again.
On the day however, we had an incredible time and I don’t remember for a moment worry about the venue during the whole day, so I guess that it’s true to say really try not to worry too much, as long as they are providing good customer service and getting back to you promptly when you have a query etc. If not, follow your gut instinct and move on.
My sister is getting married in a yurt next year I can’t wait!!!!
I always dreamed of a small, stylish, city wedding ie: me, him, 2 strangers off the street and a registrar, followed by a lovely meal and a few, too many!, drinks.
What we’re having is a country lodge with 18 guests, It’s so far out in the sticks, no one we’ve told has ever heard of it, and its down the longest, windiest county road ever! There’ll be fairy lights, as requested by our 4yr old pink princess, and I’m actually wearing a “proper dress”, always thought I’d be in jeans and converse!
It was the second venue we looked at, we had almost cancelled the day before, but decided why not take the run out and make a day of it.
We both instantly fell in love with everything tbh, even the taxidermy!!! It will sleep all our guests, is child friendly, there’s 8 chidren, so just as well! And Anna, the events organiser is lovely and open to pretty much all our requests, there’s not many.
My only stipulation for our wedding day was NOT to get married in our home town, the registry office is ugly, snobby moi? and I have too much family I don’t speak to, but would expect an invite.
Go with your gut instinct, be it a church, registry off, yurt or local pub.
At the end of the day, surely it comes down to marrying your special someone?
Em
Xx
I actually changed my venue (and lost the deposit), I was so unhappy with it. Oh, the looks I get from people when I admit that… like, watch out for the BRIDEZILLA!
Our wedding is across the pond and I sent my parents to look at venues and take photos for me. From the pictures I thought it was what I wanted. When I saw it in person, my heart sank. It was just WAY more rustic than I expected. I was losing sleep over it. So I changed it, and I am so happy with my wedding now. For me it was worth the financial hit.
But you have to decide if you’re ^really^ unhappy or if you can live with things. We’re getting married in my childhood church. It’s not beautiful, and aesthetically it’s not my dream church. My fiance calls it “the big grey box” because of its stone walls 😉 But I realize that the feelings it evokes are far more important than the details of the place. I’ve got the dream reception venue now so I can live with a slightly mediocre church!
I would have to agree with you my dear!
Perfect attitude. We can’t always get what we want but perhaps what we want is not necessarily what we need.
(To paraphrase the Rolling Stones!)
Oh yes, our venue’s staff weren’t paragons of help either. In fact the original owner was wonderful but the manager was a nightmare!
It is so important to actually look after your clients. Yes, we’ve paid the money but that doesn’t mean you can ignore us!
Great point. Although some of us are more creative than others! I wish I’d been more organised!
Oh yes, with hindsight you can see that a wedding is far more than the ugly chairs or the bare walls.
I think it was breathing that concept in and believing it that took me some time!
That sounds amazing and yes the marriage part is the best bit!
Good for you having the tenacity to change. I was far too fickle.
Money is important but it is only money.
We spent a long, long time looking for our venue, and found our dream venue…three times….but each time we could not quite justify the price (think many large sheets of white paper breaking down and comparing costs in umpteen different ways, which had no effect on the final price!).
Then we went extremely the other way and booked a bargain pub…at first we were ecstatic and had lovely vision of giving my parents back a chunk of money that they had given us and the manager was amazing, but our excitement quickly subsided and we found that we didn’t talk excitedly about our wedding the way we had before the big decision (our marriage yes, but the party, no)…. the tipping point was concerns that our parents wouldn’t handle the stairs (their mobility declined in the months running up to our big day) and so, 4 weeks before the day we were lucky enough to chance upon our perfect venue over lunch, and so we jumped, changed and love love love that we did
(Our final venue was a little over our ideal starting budget and probably would have been dismissed in the weeks after our engagement but after spending more than a year planning our expectations of how much our reception would cost had changed…even our bargain venue was starting to get more expensive as we added all of the elements of the reception together)
I am so glad we ignored the people who said our dream reception venue would not exist. We wanted somewhere with the grand looks of a stately home and the DIY potential of a village hall. Somewhere with no retained suppliers, where we could set up our own bar if a personal license holder was present, but where chairs, tables and staging would be provided. With a big enough reception room to have tables, a stage and a dancefloor without needing to chuck people out before the evening do. And (just to illustrate why we rejected some venues) no extra fee for having round tables instead of long ones, and no per-head charge for using the kitchen. Ideally we also wanted a fancy staircase and some chandeliers and, if possible, we wanted all that for a hire fee of max £1.5k.
That’s ridiculous, people said. You’ll never find it. I’m so glad I ignored them, because we found something that fit all of the above and I gasp whenever I walk into it. And I have a three-figure amount of change left over from that £1.5k budget.
If it doesn’t matter to you if you love your venue, you may as well go for something cheap and convenient. But if it does, you should keep looking until you find IT. We so nearly booked a perfectly nice hotel, or a perfectly nice town hall, that would have been, well, perfectly nice. I’m so glad we held out for something amazing.
I am having huge problems finding a venue and am beginning to feel I should just settle, other people make me feel very fussy where as I have never thought of myself as a fussy person. I fear that my ideal venue doesn’t exist although it sounds a lot like yours Annie, would love to hear more about it! I know that getting married is the most important part and that on the day the venue will probably not matter but can’t bring myself to settle yet
Wedding Venues have always been on priorities, as the people love to have a perfect spot for their weddings to make it memorable. And this place is seriously awesome to continue with your wedding plannings.
Dear God. I remember how frustrating was it to me to find the perfect venue. I almost gave up, when I found them http://www.anoush.com/. From that point, everything was easy. And the result was amazing, better than I have ever dreamed.