You Need a Wedding Date and Venue? - How to Choose
Picking a date and a wedding venue is the hardest step in the wedding planning process. Why?! Because you need to pick them both at the same time and they are both big decisions. Do you want to get married in fall or spring? What type of venue vibe do you want? Just a sample of questions that can make this step the MOTHER of all planning steps.
Here’s a few things to consider about the right date and wedding venue so that you can weigh your options and figure out when and where you want to get married!
1) Picking a Date
For some people this could depend on venue, but if you were like me who didn’t have a dream venue (besides Lake Como, Italy, which was in fact not in the budget) then I think considering the date first is a good place to start.
Limit your planning window.
My first piece of advice is to pick a wedding date that is about 6-8 months away from when you start planning. This likely sounds short to you and you may be thinking “why would I give myself less time to plan, won’t that make it more stressful?”
Yes this is considered short based on what has become the norm, but let me tell you why I recommend a truncated planning period. I thought I wanted a long engagement and at least a year to plan my wedding because I enjoy savoring the chapters of life. Along those lines, the engagement and wedding planning phase was a once in a lifetime chapter that I didn’t want to rush.
My husband and I chose a date that was 6 months away because, with him being in the military, getting married over a holiday period was best. For this reason, we chose to focus around the July 4th holiday.
This made me a bit sad because I thought I was going to have to rush through planning. However, once I started getting down and dirty in the wedding planning process I began to realize that 1) planning decisions were hard to make and having a limited time to make those decisions was key and 2) my life was getting put on hold to plan this wedding.
Decisions had to be made.
I ended up just making decisions because a decision needed to be made, whereas if I had given myself a year, I could imagine I would have mulled over a lot of these decisions for a lot longer. Also, in terms of life balance, I didn’t have as much time for hobbies. It was almost like being back in college and having homework, because when I got off work I had things to do for the wedding. Granted, some of the planning tasks are very fun, but plenty of it is tedious and stressful.
For those of you that want to get married at a super popular venue where the dates are very competitive, you may have to secure a date that is a year or more away. But for those who are flexible on the venue, I would truncate the planning period. You will still get to experience all the fun things that come with the engagement chapter. (I will make more posts about how I still did all the wedding planning/engagement things in a 6-month planning window) but you will also likely be relieved when it’s over and glad you didn’t stress for a year or more.
Keep an open mind with holidays and weekdays.
I feel like everyone thinks they need to get married on a Saturday when nothing else is going on in anyone’s life. But there’s always going to be something going on in other people’s lives.
We ended up having our wedding on a Wednesday that was also the day before the 4th of July. I don’t think a normal Wednesday would have been great, but it was perfectly fine considering the next day was a holiday for most people.
What’s nice about considering weekdays is that it’s often way cheaper than a weekend and with a shorter planning window, some venues that may be otherwise booked for weekends may still have availability on weekdays.
Holidays can be more expensive at certain venues, but if you book the day before the holiday, that could be a way to get the best of both worlds!
Don’t sleep on a vibey dance floor.
One last note on day of the week and moving into time of day. I’m not a huge fan of dancing. I’ll get out there and have fun but I wasn’t most excited for this part. With this in mind, I considered having a day wedding, like on a Sunday or something. I also like the pictures better during the day at weddings as opposed to the indoor pictures at night. Especially with all the colors and decorations.
LET ME TELL YOU. The dancing was one of my favorite parts of the wedding. This can happen at a day wedding, but I feel like it’s more the vibe of a night wedding. Don’t sleep on a good dance scene once it get’s dark.
Season.
My last thought on picking a date is that season doesn’t really matter. I know this sounds crazy, but let me explain. I love winter and fall and always had my heart set on getting married in a cool month. As I mentioned above we ended up getting married in July because of my husband’s work. What I found was that you can make the best of any season. Was it a tad hot? Yes. Was the wedding still amazing? Yes.
My point here is that perhaps consider a different season, maybe an off-season when not many people get married. That will give you more options in terms of venues and possibly save you money if the off-season for the venue you choose is cheaper.
2) Picking a Wedding Venue
Make a spreadsheet.
It won’t take long for all the venues you look at to start blending together. Below are the things I kept track of in our spreadsheet.
Alcohol.
If you plan on having alcohol at your wedding, look for a venue that lets you bring your own alcohol. By doing this we were able to save a lot of money. We bought the alcohol from Total Wine, a chain to buy alcohol in bulk, and were able to return unopened bottles after the wedding and even get some money back.
Time.
Look for venues that give you the most time to celebrate. As I’m sure you’ve heard, your wedding day will fly by. I CANNOT stress this enough! Everything seems to be so rushed day-of, so the longer the timeframe you have at the venue/reception spot the better.
Bridal Suite.
Our venue served as our wedding and reception location. I would recommend this because it was a smooth and quick transition from ceremony to cocktail hour. However, one thing our venue did not have was a bridal suite (there was one, but it was not available in the summer). I didn’t think it would be that big of a problem since we got ready at an ABnB, but it was stressful right before the ceremony. You all have to be on site before the ceremony, so it’s nice to have a place to chill, especially if it’s summer and an outdoor wedding.
Keep an eye out for a groomsman suite. Not all venues have these, but it’s an added bonus. I would say it’s not as necessary as the bridal suite since the bride is usually somewhat hidden before the ceremony and often times the groomsmen are out greeting guests or helping set up.
Hotels.
Our venue had a resort 9 minutes away, which was a short Uber for guests. I looked for a hotel as the venue to streamline the “getting home” part even more, but the prices were high and the vibe was not quite what we wanted, so having close hotels is the next best thing!
Tour in person.
I know this isn’t an option for everyone, but ideally go in person or have someone you know tour the venue for you. This is a good opportunity to see the current state of things since often times the website may have old photos. It’s also a good idea to ask all your questions at the venue tour since phone or email can be overwhelming, especially when communicating with a bunch of different venues.
Remember, this is the most stressful part of the process! I really do believe it’s downhill from this point. Still there are other stressful decisions, but once you have a date and a venue you know that you are getting married 🙂 See ya later, happy planning.
If you are thinking ahead about your bachelorette weekend and are looking for tips, check out my Camp Bachelorette post. Also, in case you were wondering, our venue was the Howard County Conservancy.
Let me know if you have any questions!
2 Responses