It can be hard to know where to start when you begin planning your wedding. There are so many different things that need to be considered to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch. Discerning which things need immediate attention, and which things can wait until later, can be a tough call. In the planning stage of the wedding, most couples express feeling completely overwhelmed by the amount of decisions they need to make. While choosing a venue to host your wedding is obviously an important decision to make, many people don’t realize just how important it is for them to think seriously about the venue sooner than later.Securing the venue helps make a lot of the decisions fall into place.
Venues fill up fairly fast, and many popular wedding venues book as far as a year in advance. Booking your wedding venue is one of the very first things you need to do once you’ve begun the planning stage. The sooner you book, the less stressful the process will be for you.
Far in Advance
Wedding planners and venues alike suggest that you book your wedding venue nine to eighteen months in advance. A lot of people baulk at this timeline, but the reality is that venues get booked up pretty fast—especially if the space is trendy or unique. Most people get married on a Saturday or Sunday, and there are only so many Saturdays and Sundays in the calendar year for venues to make available.
The ability to get the date that you want isn’t the only reason to book so far in advance. There are other practical reasons why booking in advance is a good idea. For one, working with the venue and additional vendors to ensure that everything meets the exact specifications that you’d prefer is actually a fairly lengthy process. There’s ensuring that the aesthetic you’d like for your wedding can be accommodated within the space, and that all the small details that will make up the atmosphere of your wedding are properly handled. A caterer also needs to be booked, and things like the size of the venue and the amenities they have on site will all be important aspects of ensuring that everything goes accordingly with the catering at your event.
Second, there needs to be enough time between booking the venue and the actual day of your event to ensure that there will be no significant problems that need to be addressed. If you book a venue last minute and a problem arises, there’s often little you can do. However, if you have a venue booked far in advance, any issues can be ironed out far before the actual day of your wedding.
Time of Year and Day of the Week
Another important consideration is what time of year you’d like to get married. The season of the year can have a fairly large impact on the advance time you’ll need to book a venue. While the very best option remains booking far in advance, the demand for wedding venues is at a much lower volume in the fall and winter months. You may not need to think so far in advance if you’re having a winter wedding, but spring and summer are peak months for weddings, and venues tend to be booked up long in advance for any days that fall within this time of year.
Don’t forget that some venues offer discounts for a Friday or Sunday wedding, as opposed to the hot day of the week—Saturday. Check with your chosen venues to see if there is a break on the rental fee for an off-peak night.
