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A loooong time. That was the most important thing to me so I spent forever scouring the internet and other resources for ideas. Also visited a good amount of places. I was looking for something a little untraditional. I was engaged in September 2008 and we didn't book a venue until June this year!
I spent an hour or two a day for a few weeks browsing places online and calling up some prospects. I browsed through many lists on the big wedding websites (Philadelphia Weddings, weddingwire, theKnot, etc) and saw hundreds of venues. Because we did not want a traditional hotel or reception hall, I was able to eliminate a lot immediately. There was one that seemed perfect, but I kept looking.
I ended up making a list of 50 potential venues, calling maybe 10-12, and visiting 4 all in one weekend. The last one, as I had suspected, was perfect, and we booked. And when I say perfect, I mean it's gorgeous, affordable, and offers a great menu - a few of the smaller things weren't ideal.
I think it helps to know what you want in an abstract sense before you start looking. For example, I had a few types of venues I thought would be amazing to get married in - a historical mansion, an art museum, or a garden. So when I found my venue - a historical mansion with a garden and an art gallery - I knew that it fit what I wanted.
months. and that's months of looking daily on the internet and booking apts and visiting every weekend, and some week days. it was awful. i even had a breakdown because i was pretty sure that our venue didn't exist. but my fi was awesome, as i just gave up he kept taking me to places and we finally found our venue. we both walked into the place and fell in love. it's not what i had originally pictured, but i'm ok with that because it's ours now.
We were one of the lucky ones, we vacationed in Sedona and saw the most beautiful intimate chapel... so I looked into it. It was the first thing we booked right after I got the ring. www.tlaq.com It's easy to see why though, and it met my FI's demands of "SMALL INTIMATE WEDDING"
We only looked at a three potential venues in-person before picking one. I did a LOT of online research and made calls/wrote emails before visiting any, though. Between our budget, availability, and our venue requirements, it actually narrowed our choices down quite nicely.
One the first day I went to look, we looked at two. I knew the first one was it when I walked in. I went to the other one though because I had the appointment. I got very lucky.
I think ours would've gone on forever if we didn't self-limit the search -- we had our hearts set on a caterer, so that narrowed the field considerably. Most venues had in-house catering, so we truly had few choices.
It's not the perfect venue by any means, but it's affordable and a 1 minute walk from our ceremony. But if I could cast my net anywhere, yeah, that would be extremely difficult!
FI & I spent more time on figuring out the "style" of our wedding (which we felt would demand a certain type of venue) rather than on the actual venue. Once we decided on our style, we had criteria that helped us narrow it down: NOT the usual hotel or banquet hall; daytime; kid-friendly/welcoming; outdoors; relatively intimate (less than 75 ppl); our budget. We really had less than 10 to choose from. Maybe go that route rather than just getting good recs from others...pick your wedding style first.
Still in the process. We have the church, but are still researching reception venues. I think we found the one, and are going to tour it Saturday (fingers crossed!!)
We have been engaged since April. FI was working out of state from May-September, so we didn't take our first tour until then.
3 months. I had an excel spreadsheet containing the amenities & prices of our desired venues. I researched for 3 months. After research, we selected our top 6. Fiancé and I visited the 6 places in 2 days. There was 1 venue that was the best. We re-checked our budget just to make sure, went over the sample contract, and made the decision. We brought his parents to see the place the 2<sup>nd</sup> time we visited. (My parents are more hands off than his. His mom was super excited. The look on his parents’ face when they saw the place was priceless. I wish I took a picture.) We signed the contract and give our down payment right then and there. Done. No sweat, no drama. =)
Less than 24 hours. We are planning long distance, so we visited all the potential sites in one day and decided the next. Of course, I negotitated with them for a couple days before signing the contract, but the decision was made right away.
about a week. HAHA! The reasoning is because he and I wanted to spend little to no money on our venue at all. we dont really care much as to where we are get married as long as it wasnt a complete dump. :P
So we decided on my step fathers local country club. its really modest and small but its free! and thats the key word! ;)
My planner suggested a site based on what I told her I wanted. I looked on the website and fell in love with it, but their listed prices were out of our budget. I was sad, so I found another option. Just in case though, we booked an appointment for our tour of the original site and we fell in love with it again. We changed our date to get a better price and because it is off season, they gave us a 25% discount. We put our deposit down the same day we toured and didn't even go to the other site.
Probably a couple of months of looking, but once we found the place we decided it was it within an hour or so. I'm indecisive. FI is not :-)
About 24 hours. Lol. Seriously. I knew without a doubt, 100% I wanted/needed to have the reception on Lake Michigan (hey, what's the point of living next to all that beauty then ignoring it?!). I spent a few hours looking at possible sites online (using websites and google maps) and came out with a list of 2 venues that might work out. We went to the one furthest away the next morning and while beautiful, it proved too small and awkwardly shaped inside. We drove straight from there to our venue. We pulled up and even before getting out of the car I said, "This one! I want this one!" Once we'd walked around the building (we didn't get a tour that first day of the inside!) I called the office in charge, paid for the hall in full, signed the contract, and set up a tour of the inside. Crazy, I know!, but I just KNEW it was the place for us! Its an old brick building from the 1920s. The front has a beautiful front entrance plus a giant wall of French doors. Inside the main hall is 4 walls of glass- 3 walls are floor to ceiling windows looking at the lake (which is just a few yards away!) and the 4th wall is a bank of french doors leading into a second, smaller hall (also for us to use!) which has the french doors leading out front. Giant playground, beach, marina, and big county park land all just outside the doors. Parking is plentiful and free. There is even a lift inside for people in wheelchairs. Woot woot!
Its taken us 3 months! Well, we have the official location with venue about 98%!!! Its between 2 as of now so at least weve gotten that far! Weve checked out so many different things! From an aquarium to a historic mansion to a cruise to a beach house in North Carolina!!!! Dont worry about it too much! Itll happen when it happens and dont try to force it either! We rushed into planning things at the beginning and then we got overwhelmed. Now the time feels right!
Umm... I'm still having issues. I've switched between two different venues and may still end up with a third. I don't know why it's so hard! I love the venues, but none of them feel right.
In the end though, I'm trying to remember that it's just one day. ONE. DAY. So i guess it's ok if it's not 100% perfect, as long as the pictures show that we were happy, it was pretty and we're in love!
I totally know how you feel!
It took us nine months. A lot of it is because we don't live where we are getting married so it was hard to find time to go visit the venues. A lot of online research was done.
Good luck!
We booked ours sight unseen since we're getting married out of state. We knew we didn't want more than a year engagement, and the couple places I found online were pretty much all booked up a year out. FI's paretns and my mom swung by, gave it the OK and we sent in our deposit about 1 week after getting engaged (and had to settle for a date 3 WEEKS later than the one we wanted so we'll be engaged a year + a week).
We actually saw the place for the first time about a month later when we were in town for my best friend's wedding, and I ADORE IT!!!
It took us one day, as soon as we went to see the 2nd place with my mom, we all said it was meant to be, my theme is red and gold and the venue room is all decked out in gold already!
It took us about 5 months. The best advice I could give if you are unsure of what you want (I felt the same way as you) is to: Listen & ask for the advice of your vendors in the industry about other vendors - they are helpful in deciding whether to secure a venue. For us, we came real close to booking our "dream" venue after months of negotiations! (Bees, if you want a venue & can't afford it - negotiate and bee patient!) However, right around the time of booking venue we started meeting with photographers - who seemed not really excited about our "dream" venue (they are awesome photographers, who never said they didn't like it, but thought other venues that I mentioned were better. This happened with every photographer we met!) One photographer even told us to "keep looking" since we arent getting married until 2011! We took his advice & I owe him a big, "Thank You!" We kept looking and found the perfect wedding for us & our guests. I didn't fall in "love" like I did with the other venue, but in my gut - I know we made the right decision. We also realized from months of looking at wedding albums, we decided the venue didn't have to be "perfect", but instead if we hired a great team of vendors, they can & will transform any venue into our dream wedding!
Good luck & I think if you take your time & ask around, you'll find a suitable venue for your wedding! :)
It took us 4 days to decide where to have our wedding and once we decided to have it in our hometown we knew immediately where we'd have our reception. Then we ran into some problems with fire codes but my grandparents figured that out for our Christmas present!
I spent a few days looking around for potential venues, and then we found our venue on a whim when we were out and about visiting a few of the potential ones...and as soon as my mom and I walked in, we knew it was perfect! We were done right then and there!
I might be weird, but we decided on our venue even before we got engaged. We knew we wanted to get married on campus at our alma mater and we had been to another wedding (my best friend is married to his best friend!) at our venue a few years ago. We knew that's where we wanted to be, so we actually booked it the day we got back into town (he proposed on vacation). We didn't even look at anything else!
However, I'd say, don't worry too much if it's taking you a while to decide. The venue is important, so you don't want to settle on something you don't love.
We actually had to find two reception venues--one for the luncheon after the ceremony in Massachusetts, one for the party for all our friends back in DC. However, we were lucky in pretty much knowing from the beginning what we wanted.
For the one in Massachusetts, we decided to go with the private dining room of a Legal Sea Foods. We looked for the closest one to the synagogue where we were getting married, then asked brides who lived in that area about it. They were able to answer our questions enough so that we had confidence it would work for us.
For the one in DC, we have a friend who owns a club. While the club was a decidedly nontraditional reception venue, our friend let us come in a couple of days early and decorate it however we wanted. It was right in downtown DC, so it was easy for all our friends to get to. And not only was the rental price low, but we were allowed to bring in our own food, and we got a five-hour open bar for 60 people for $250. Most budget brides in our area end up having to use space that is several hours' drive away, so we considered ourselves lucky to have something right in the city that we could afford, and just grabbed it.
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I feel like it is taking me forever to find something I love. I don't know if I am having a hard. Time visualizing or what. How long did it take you to find and decide on your venue?