Finding a Fabulous Wedding Venue on a Budget

Claire has some great arti­cles about find­ing a fan­tas­tic wed­ding venue, which is def­i­nitely worth a read, and can be found here. With that in mind, I thought it’d be great to cover some­thing much more narrow.

One of the most spe­cific con­cerns of engaged cou­ples is, under­stand­ably, cost. Never fear! It’s a lot eas­ier than most peo­ple think to have the wed­ding of their dreams with­out tak­ing out a sec­ond mort­gage. I’ve come up with a list of five help­ful tips geared toward sav­ing money with­out com­pro­mis­ing class.

1. Always accept help

Many venues offer pack­ages includ­ing things like enter­tain­ment, place cards, flower arrange­ments and labor.

Say you’ve got a friend in a band, an aunt who loves to scrap­book, a cousin in floristry and some overly ener­getic nieces and nephews who you can teach to tie rib­bons and light can­dles. Four phone calls, and you can trim the fat off some wed­ding venue costs, leav­ing you with a fan­tas­tic space for a much smaller cost.

2. Time is money

It may mean a very long engage­ment, but the eas­i­est way not to com­pro­mise class for cost is sim­ply to book well in advance, even a cou­ple of years ahead, espe­cially if you’re look­ing for a dream sum­mer wed­ding in an iconic venue.

3. Keep the guest list personal

The pol­i­tics of fam­ily and friends can make the House of Lords look like child’s play. It’s easy to think you have to invite your sec­ond cousin twice removed on your mother’s side, or that a frienemy from high school you’ve never been able to shake would cause drama if they didn’t come.

At the end of the day, how­ever, it is your wed­ding, and there’s no point fill­ing a larger venue when your pre­cious bud­get could be spent on a classier, albeit smaller space.

4. Work with what you have

In a per­fect world, we’d all live by a beach, next to a lake in a secluded for­est, with moun­tain views and a fan­tas­tic met­ro­pol­i­tan back­drop and pas­toral farm­land at your doorstep.

Unfor­tu­nately, if you live in Lon­don, it’s unlikely that you’ll find a square inch of sand in a fifty mile radius. Like­wise, you might be hard pressed to find a panoramic cityscape in Cumbria.

Every loca­tion is beau­ti­ful in its own way, and so there’s no point pay­ing expen­sive travel and hotel bills for an entire bridal party and guest list when the per­fect venue could be closer than you think.

5. What could be closer than home?

Never dis­count the pos­si­bil­ity of hav­ing all or part of your wed­ding at home. Unfor­tu­nately, due to UK law, the sign­ing of all the legal doc­u­ments is restricted to churches, reg­is­ter offices and other licensed venues such as hotels.

Though the legal­i­ties need to take place in these spaces, there’s no rea­son to skimp on romance in the com­fort of your own home. Human­ist cer­e­monies offer per­son­alised, flex­i­ble cer­e­monies, hosted by open, non-judgemental cel­e­brants and can cut the cost of a venue for the cer­e­mony com­pletely.

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This guest post is by Sebas­t­ian on behalf of UK Venues. Pro­vid­ing in-depth list­ings, videos, vir­tual tours and wed­ding infor­ma­tion, they are one of the UK’s lead­ing venue find­ers, and are crazy about wed­dings. If you’re look­ing for a wedding venue, make sure you check them out!