Tips For Booking Your Wedding Reception Venue
Wedding receptions are the icing on the cake for your big day. Planning them can be easy and fun if you know how to go about it. Whether it’s a castle wedding reception or a local hotel or pub, planning is the key to success.
When booking a venue, take a checklist of questions to ask so that you can budget and plan properly because reception sites can break their costs down differently. Request itemised prices to make sure you have covered everything. You will need an idea of what you want before you talk to the venue so that the estimate is as relevant and accurate as possible. You will need to know how many guests you are planning to have and what parts you plan to do yourself and which with an outside company.
Items you will need on your list are venue rental fee, food costs, drinks costs, overtime fee, setting up and clearing up fee, staffing availability and fees and parking availability. Also, if you are planning on having your wedding ceremony on site, what is the ceremony fee?
Some venues offer wedding packages which can be both convenient and cost-effective, as long as you take care to find out exactly what is and isn’t included in the package. You may be able to buy a complete package or just part of one. It may make a difference to the price whether you are having a summer or winter wedding because summer ones are still more popular.
Sometimes a venue will use a preferred list of vendors. This is useful as you then have the security of knowing that they have all worked well together before and that they know the venue.
You may find that you are tied in to having to use a certain vendor for things such as catering. You need to check this. If you do bring in your own caterers, you will have to find out if you need to cost for or hire kitchen facilities.
Don’t overlook practical considerations such as how many people will the cake serve and what will your chair covers and table linen look like. Also, there’s glasses, cutlery and plates to think about which will be an additional cost if the venue isn’t providing them. The venue will also need to have enough space for parking.
With careful planning and a venue quote that has no hidden extras, your wedding reception should be a great success.
