Finding the perfect wedding venue is never easy, but with a little patience and our expert checklist, it can be done.
The booking of your wedding venue should be the very first thing you decide upon. Because the location of your nuptials is the foundation that everything is else is built on. Your chosen venue will affect which suppliers you can book, how your wedding will look overall, and how much you’ve got as a budget once it’s paid for. Therefore, you must choose carefully, otherwise, the whole house of cards could come tumbling down.
But with so many beautiful wedding venues in the UK, how are you supposed to choose just one? Well, to help you in your search for the dream wedding venue, we’ve compiled a short checklist that’ll certainly aid in narrowing things down for you.
- Checklist on What To Look For In A Wedding Venue
- Does the wedding venue have enough capacity for your guests?
This may seem obvious, but far too many couples fall for a wedding venue, only to find it can’t fit their guest list. Decide on at least a rough head count of guests before you start looking at venues. And only look at locations that have enough capacity.
We know how pivotal this is to couples, and that is why in the recent list of our 50 Favourite Wedding Venues in the UK, we made sure to always include the capacity of each space.
- Does it suit your theme?
Unless you’re looking for a blank canvas wedding venue, it’s important to choose a space that reflects your theme. Otherwise, you’ll have a battle on your hands trying to twist the decor of the venue to match your theme. It’s tempting to start visiting venues as soon as the ring is slipped on your finger. But without proper consideration of styling, you could end up picking somewhere that really doesn’t work.
- Does the location work for you and your guests?
It’s all well and good, finding a beautiful castle in South Wales to tie the knot in. But if all your shared friends and relatives live in Edinburgh, they may not be too happy travelling all the way down there. Equally, you need to consider whether you want a country, or city wedding. Both have their advantages over one another. However, when it comes down to it, you need to consider your guests as much as yourselves. Can they easily travel to your venue? Find accommodation? Have places to go in the surrounding area? Try to look for a happy medium between pleasing your loved ones, and yourselves.
- Does it feel like you?
When planning a wedding, it’s easy to get sucked into the immaculate world of Pinterest and Instagram. These platforms are incredible tools for finding inspiration, and seeing how other couples celebrated their big day. But, they are not a real, true representation of how that day actually looked. The carefully selected shots on social media don’t show any flaws, or elements that aren’t absolutely perfect. And therefore they can be massively misleading, and fuel a desire for a look that really isn’t you. Or give you unrealistic ambitions for your wedding decor.
Search for wedding venues in the UK that feel authentic. That represent you, your partner, and how you honestly want your big day to look.
- Which is more important, your chosen wedding date, or the chosen venue?
Popular venues get booked up for weekend weddings months, sometimes years in advance. Therefore, you must decide on your priorities. Are you only prepared to have a weekend wedding? Are you willing to wait another year to wed in your chosen venue?
Due to the pandemic, and the backlog of weddings, many couples were forced to marry on a weekday in 2021, and 2022. But soon found it delivered many more advantages than they had previously imagined. Chiefly, budget. Meaning they could get married in their dream venue at a fraction of the cost, and spend the leftover wedding budget on further big day luxuries. Or creating their ultimate honeymoon! Don’t pass on the idea straight away, as you may find it offers you the best of both worlds.
