• Make a guest list. You aren’t likely to rent a castle with a 1000 square meters banquet hall for a wedding of 50 guests. And vice versa - it’s not fun fitting 100 people into a venue for just 80. You might succeed, but that will take a toll on your, your guests’ or staff’s comfort.
• Choose the style. You need different venues for a country-style wedding and a Great Gatsby wedding. It’s possible to make over any venue, but is it worth the money?
• Make an estimate and decide on how much you are willing to spend on a venue. There is no universal formula, although you will find a lot of graphs and tips on the internet. Everything depends on your preferences - some want to spend more on a beautiful venue and food, others want to cover every surface with live flowers, others dream of an Eli Saab dress. Our advice is this: make a full list of your wedding expenses (starting with the invitations and finishing with your honeymoon and thank you cards) and sort out your priorities.
• Make a full list of questions you need to ask the venue owners. Not knowing the answers may cost you extra money in the future.
• Decide on whether you need accommodation. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages. An upside of a venue with no accommodation is having more impressions from your wedding day discovering the venue and not seeing all the preparation work, which can be rather hasty and involve a large number or staff (a number bigger than your guest list) in case of a large event. On the other hand, accommodation on the spot contributes to the guests getting to know each other more closely, which will create a family feeling and a more relaxed atmosphere at the event.
• If you are planning to involve a lot of vendors (florists, stylists, musicians and/or music equipment, fireworks, theatrical shows and etc.), take the distance between the venue and the closest city where you may find those vendors into consideration. Transportation costs are rather substantial.
• If you are planning a destination wedding, take the distance from the airport to the venue into consideration alongside with the guests’ transportation, whether you are going to pay for it or how the guests are going to get there. Also check where your guests are traveling from: some European cities can only be accessed by planes with long and inconvenient transfers.