Finding Your Perfect Wedding Venue
You’ve got engaged, announced the wonderful news to all your family and friends, now it’s time to research and start securing the focal point for your perfect wedding day.
Deciding On Your Wedding Venue and Location
Where are you going to conduct the legal side of your wedding? Do you want to have everything at the one venue? Are you going to get married in your childhood Village / Town / City? Are you going to get married overseas?
The combination of wedding ceremony location and your wedding venue will strongly influence your wedding date. Be aware that some couples do plan their weddings years in advance, so try and be flexible with your dates and even days.
Searching For Your Wedding Venue
Once you’ve thought about your ideal location and wedding destination you can start hunting! Wedding Fairs, Wedding Websites, Wedding Photographers Websites, Social Media and Recommendations are all super ways of sourcing the right locations. If you’re searching on social media use hashtags (#) as most wedding suppliers will include this in their posts / profile so it will help to narrow down the search.
The route to securing our wedding venue Larkspur Lodge came from a combination of attending a wedding fair, checking out a supplier’s Instagram page, and seeing our ideal venue featured on one of their posts. Luckily, they had mentioned and tagged the location in their post so the detective work was done.
Booking Your Wedding Suppliers
Once you’ve secured your venue, you will probably find that they have a list of recommended suppliers for everything related to your wedding; Photographers, Florists, Wedding Bands / DJs, Venue Dressing, Hair and Make Up Artists, Wedding Cars, Wedding Cake Suppliers and Stationers. It’s definitely worth looking through these options as the suppliers will already be familiar with the venue and comfortable working with the team.
Wedding Day Food And Drink Options
When it comes to what people remember about weddings, I think of three main things; the Bride’s Dress, the Food and Drink and the overall enjoyment of the day. The food and drink at our wedding was important, and we wanted to make sure that our guests were fed and watered.
Our wedding day focused on three main areas:- The Canapes, The Wedding Breakfast and The Evening Food.
The Canapes
A number of weddings take place around lunchtime / just after lunch but sometimes the wedding breakfast isn’t served until late afternoon (I’ve been to so many weddings with mini Mars Bars in my bag!).
For this reason, canapes can be a welcome addition to your food options.
The Wedding Breakfast
We had a 3-course wedding breakfast, but decided to opt for the starter to be served as canapes for our guests to enjoy at leisure after the ceremony, along with their celebratory Pimms and Prosecco.
The main reason for the canape starter was to allow a good amount of time for our guests to mingle and catch up with friends and family.
If you get the chance, I would highly recommend booking a wedding breakfast taste testing at your venue. For us, this was a really enjoyable experience right before the wedding. We got to see the presentation of the food and make our final decision on our wedding breakfast.
The Evening Reception Food
With choices including Woodfired Pizzas, Mini Fish n Chips, Mini Burgers, Hog Roasts, Buffets, there’s so much on offer. Depending on your choice of venue, there may be a limit to the evening options, but guests are always happy with food when they’ve been drinking all day.
We chose the woodfired pizza option as we knew that it would suit all of our guests dietary requirements, and was a good option for young and old.
The Wedding Cake
This can be one of the standout pieces of the day and there’s so many amazing wedding cake ideas, designs and suppliers out there to suit every taste bud and budget. Word of warning, book your wedding cake supplier early as they get booked up!
My best friend had a Croquembouche (a giant profiterole cake) it was absolutely amazing, and we all got to enjoy it as the dessert for her wedding breakfast – delicious.
Sadly, COVID catering rules contributed towards our decision to not have a wedding cake at our big wedding celebration. Luckily, we did have one at our intimate wedding day so we got to cut a wedding cake and make a wish!
MY WEDDING WISDOM
THE WEDDING VENUE HINTS AND TIPS
Book A Taste Testing
Wedding taste testings offer a great opportunity to try out your wedding food and wine before your day. It’s also a really lovely activity to do together just before your wedding day.
Think About The Environment
Wedding Venues will often have their own rules with regards to confetti / table sprinkles at their venue. Confetti was prohibited at our wedding.
Ask The Right Questions
When you’re visiting a venue, write down a list of questions to ask, for example; Will you have sole use of the venue on the day? Accessibilty for older / disabled guests? How many highchairs do they have?
Trust The Experts
Wedding venues have so much experience when it comes to weddings. It’s worth asking for their recommendations / advice on how to approach the day as they will want to help you to plan the best possible wedding.