When you are beginning to plan your wedding, one of the crucial steps to get settled as early as possible is: Where are we getting married?  Where you get married in many ways determines what kind of wedding you’re having.  For example, if you’re looking for a traditional family wedding you many want to go with a church.  It seems like that would narrow your choices, and it does in some respects, but really it just determines your next steps- big church vs little church?  Inside or outside?  Where’s the reception going to be?  A lot of churches either don’t allow you to have your reception in the church or simply don’t have a good place to have one unless you’re ok with dressing up the gym or going outside.  Also, most churches do not allow alcoholic beverages or loud music, so if you want to do a Champagne toast or hire a rockin’ jazz band, a church is not going to work for your reception.  That being the case, you then need to find a separate location for the reception…it’s a bit more complicated than it seemed, right?  And if you decide not to go with a church wedding, the options for other venues are almost limitless, especially if you’re interested in an outdoor wedding- pretty much any piece of landscape is up for grabs at that point!

With so many options, it’s hard to know where to start and so easy to become overwhelmed that it’s tempting to keep putting it off, but doing so could lead to the problem of after you’ve found the place you want, it’s no longer available.  Many venues have to be booked 6 months to a year in advance for a wedding, so there’s really no time to waste!  So as to not be overwhelmed, perhaps the easiest place to start when choosing a venue is to decide on a few key points and then just go exploring!

First: Pick a month

I say month, because you want to be as flexible as possible going into the choosing of your location.  Choose a month that both of you enjoy the weather of, suits your schedules and is far enough away to give you the time you need to plan your wedding without going crazy: 6 months to 1 year is usually best.  Then, once you pick a venue, you have a date!

Second: Pick a city

It seems obvious, but even if you say Nashville, are you including Brentwood?  Franklin?  Antioch? How far out are you willing to go?  Think about where you’re guest are, where you live and how far you want to have to travel the day of to get to your wedding.  Unless your planning an On Location wedding in Europe or South America (in which case, please get a planner and then invite me! ) you want to reduce the stress of planning and of the week of as much as possible by choosing a location that will not be difficult to get to but still have the characteristics that you’re looking for.  Remember, you can always expand your search if you can’t find what you’re looking for.

Third: Indoor, Outdoor or both?

This may also seem like it wouldn’t necessarily narrow your search much, but you’d be surprised how many venues have limitations as to what they can accommodate.  The month you choose will largely determine whether or not outdoor is desirable due to the weather.

Fourth: This is crucial- how big is your wedding going to be?

You don’t need the final head count before you start searching for venues, but do an estimate of the relatives and friends on both sides.  You can’t go for a venue that only has a capacity of 200 people if you both have more than that just in your families!  Likewise, you don’t need to be choosing a venue that can hold 1,000 people if you’re only going to be inviting 150.  Look for a venue that suits the size of your wedding; you don’t want the venue to be packed or your guests will feel uncomfortable, but neither do you want every word to echo.  Keep in mind that you can usually expect that only 75% of the people you invite will RSVP that they will be able to attend, and not all of them will actually make it due to last minute illnesses, weather/travel difficulties, and other unexpected issues.

Fifth: Budget, budget, budget!

Knowing how big your wedding is going to be largely determine how much you can expect to spend on a venue.  There are lots of ways to keep the costs down when planning your wedding and you don’t want to blow your whole budget on the venue unless that’s the most important part of your wedding to you (i.e. location weddings in foreign countries would qualify for this category).  Once you start looking around at venues you will start to get a sense of what is an average cost for a venue that can accommodate the number of people you expect to attend.

Places to start:

One of the great things about planning a wedding nowadays is that you can do a lot of the research and initial planning online!  Most venues have websites so you can get a feel for the place and a sense of the cost before you even speak to them!  It saves a lot of time and allows you to only visit the venues that are really going to be in the running!  There are also several website that will help you search for venues and other vendors based on a wide variety of search criteria such as location, capacity, style (urban, garden, church, etc) and more!

I recommend Ashley’s Bride Guide and Wedding Wire as excellent tools to begin your search.  It will save you a lot of headaches doing random searched on the internet for wedding venues and allow you to get more focused results for your effort.  Of course, they don’t list every venue in the world, but it’ll help you get a better idea of what appeals to you.