Weddingbee

At first when I heard the theme for this week was venues, I thought I wouldn’t have anything to contribute because we’re getting married at my family’s summer home, so reviewing the capacity and price etc. really wouldn’t be of any use to anyone else. But then when I thought about it more, I realized I had gone into the planning with a very different picture of how all the details would work out, than it actually ended up. So here’s my advice for anyone trying to plan a wedding for their own backyard, grandparents’ house, out in the woods - or wherever!

1) Space/Layout. Even though the house where we’re getting married sleeps around 25, there isn’t a ballroom or single large public space that will hold more than maybe 20 or 30 people. So even though the around 120 that we’re expecting could all stand in the house at the same time… they would all be in different smaller rooms! Same thing with the area right outside the house - there would have had to be a number of small tents broken up. Make sure that not only is there enough space to accomodate the number of people you are inviting, but also that there is a single open area large enough for everyone to see the ceremony and for a coherent reception.

2) Rentals. You may just have to rent… everything. Many many costs are included in a standard site fee that you don’t even think about (coffee spoons??) that you have to pay for to get someone to lug out to you. Even certain things that you think you can provide (bathrooms) might not work for the location and set-up of the wedding. Here is a list of some of the rentals we are having to pay for that might be included in the average hotel/banquet hall site fee:

• guest tent for the reception
• cook tent (for preparing food)
• portable oven, grill, etc
• generator
• lights for tent & cook tent
• dance floor
• tables (for guests, cook tent, buffet & bars)
• chairs
• linens
• forks, knives, spoons, + extras of each for appetizer stations, coffee, dessert, etc
• appetizer plates, entree plates, water glasses, wine glasses, champagne glasses, mixed drink glasses, coffee cups, coffee saucers, dessert plates
• porta potties (the tent will be a 2 minute walk from the house which doesn’t make the house off limits, but we still need closer access for people who don’t want to make the walk)

I’m sure I’m missing some things too! There are also optional extras like air conditioning and fabric draping, as well as flooring for the entire tent, walkways, tent style upgrades and a million other little things.

3) Parking. One reason why we thought our site was feasible was that we have a nice huge flat field perfect for parking! That is… until we decided to put the reception tent there. Now we will have limited parking area, but 90% of our guests will be staying at one of our rented family homes within a five minute radius so friend and family groups can carpool over. I think it will be fine. Most private houses just don’t have huge parking lots tacked on, so make sure you make some arrangements for guests so they can actually get out and come to the wedding once they drive there!

4) Location. Our house is in the most gorgeous location ever - in the mountains up on a hill overlooking Lake Champlain. But… not much else is out there. For almost all of our vendors, we are having to pay travel fees for them to come from Burlington, VT or Montreal - the two closest real cities. Travel fees are relatively small, but considering it takes us 6 hours to drive up there on a Friday night after work, then hop in the car first thing Saturday morning for a 1.5 hour drive to a vendor meeting, it’s not the most convenient. The driveway up the hill is also not plowed in the winter, so we weren’t able to get a person from the tent company up to actually look at the site for months until the snow melted enough to snowshoe in on!! Again, not a huge concern, but make sure that you and your vendors (who hopefully aren’t too far away!) will be able to have the access to your site that you/they need.

These are only some of the special concerns couples planning a wedding on a private property that doesn’t traditionally host events need to think about. When an engaged coworker asked how my wedding planning was going and if I had any advice for her, the only thing I could think of to say was “Have it somewhere where they’ll provide everything for you!!!”

While for me personally, the tradition of my family members getting married in this house was way too sentimental not to do, if I hadn’t 1000000% had my heart set on this site beforehand, I would definitely have chosen a more inclusive location with easy vendor access. That said, I suppose the moral of the story is simply to think really hard about how much that dream of getting married by Aunt Lucy’s pond is worth, because chances are you’ll end up paying at least as much after you add all the little unseen costs together as you would for a conventional location. But if that really is the only place you could ever get married, like it was for me, then at least go into it with open eyes! There’s just something so sentimental and personal about getting married somewhere that really means something to you.

• Choosing A Band
• Brown Paper Packages Tied...