Venues; sacrifice or spend?

The venue that you choose to get married at is often based upon you and your partner’s personality and style, and budget.

But what happens if your budget is tight, and your dream venues are expensive? Do you sacrifice your venue to save your budget, or spend to have what you want?

Myself and Mr M are in this exact position. For months we have been looking at wedding venues that can cater to a tight budget, but we’ve found that they lack that “x-factor”. After looking at 360° views of millions of places, we thought we’d probably end up choosing whats likely to be the cheapest option of them all – a lovely, but slightly dull community hall in a local town, simply because it had enough space to cater for our guest list and there was the potential to decorate it.

That was until tonight. Flicking through local wedding photographers websites, a list of recommended venues appeared, we opened a link to one neither of us had previously looked at. And that was it. We looked at each other and new that was the place we wanted.

With neither of us being particularly sporty (I get nauseas when I see some form of sporting activity on the TV), we’d avoided looking at golf and country club venues because its not very “us”. That was until we saw this place and we both totally fell in love. The ceremony room is white, with wood flooring, and the reception area follows suit. No fuss, no old fashioned decor, just a blank canvas.

But of course, perfection comes at a price doesn’t it?

Not necessarily. Looking at low-season prices, this venue is no more expensive than any of the others we’ve previously looked at – in fact it comes in alongside some of the cheapest venues we’ve looked at. Where the price does bump up a little is with catering. However, after a little mathamatical skills,  we worked out that for a hot fork buffet for 60 people, plus an evening buffet for 150, the price is exactly the same as if we’d chosen to have the main 3 course meal for 100 guests!! Bargain!!!!

So the answer really is to cover every single base when looking at the perfect wedding venue! We have just found a venue that ticks all the boxes, and its one we’d have ruled out because it appeared it wouldn’t be very “us”. Catering often is the biggest expensive when celebrating a wedding, but by working out how much different options will cost, you may grab yourself an absolute bargain!! And remember, you can save a chunk by choosing low-season as opposed to high-season!

All we have to hope now is that they can fit us in…