Picking Out Your Wedding Reception Venue

So by now, I am sure that you have started to think about where you want to have your big party; otherwise known as your wedding reception. If you look back or even ask your parents or grandparents, most of them (if not all) will probably tell you that their wedding reception was at a banquet hall, of course! Well, now there are so many other options and choices when it comes to where to host your reception. There are banquet halls, gardens, barns, backyards, golf courses and so many other unique ideas!

Being as indecisive as I am, I definitely pondered this for a bit when it came down to picking out a venue. And no pressure…. But I was told by numerous people that I needed to book the venue ASAP before the date was booked! To say the least, this made me SO nervous! What if I found the perfect venue but they were booked?  I had no idea that venues actually booked up years in advance. I jumped on the ball right away. When picking out a wedding reception venue, I thought it was very important to take into consideration a few different items:

1.       How many people are we planning on inviting? (We want to make sure that our venue can hold the number of people we are looking to invite OR that our invite list will fill any minimum requirements.)

2.       Are we looking to have an indoor or outdoor reception?

3.       What date is our wedding? (If we are having an April wedding, the flowers in a garden or outside might not yet be bloomed.)

4.       Will the venue go along with the theme or mood of our wedding?

5.       What will make our guests most comfortable?

6.       Is the venue known for having good food?

7.       Will the layout of the venue meet our wants/need?

First off, I have an Italian heritage. If you are not familiar with that, it means that I have a big family! With a big family comes a big guest list. My fiancé and I, along with our parents, put together our guest list and we are at around 400 guests for the wedding. We needed to make sure that the venue we chose could fit our guests comfortably. My fiancé loves to golf, so I was open to a few golf courses to have our reception at. However, the ones we agreed on could not hold our guest list; so, golf courses were crossed off of our list. Next, I wanted the theme of our wedding to have more of an elegant feel to it. Given that a barn is a bit more rustic, we decided to also cross that off of our list.

The next option we addressed was the banquet hall venue idea. Yes, I do think that venue halls are the norm and for a while had it stuck in my head that I did not want to do anything “normal”. However, I slowly learned through the reception venue decision that I did not want to make things more difficult or complicated than they needed to be. So… I kept my mind open when we started looking at halls. There were a few that we looked at that I did not like the layout. What I mean by that is that the room was not one giant square or rectangular shape; for some halls, they had what felt like wide hallways. I did not want anyone to be seclude from the room or not be able to see the head table or dance floor from where they are sitting; so I crossed those off of my list.

We finally came across a banquet hall venue where I felt comfortable from the moment I walked in. When we walked in, the lobby had a warm and welcoming feeling along with being beautifully designed. There was a large grand piano that I immediately could picture a pianist playing on as our guests walked in. As soon as we were given the tour, I knew that this was the perfect place. The hall had two rooms that were divided by a portable wall but when the wall was removed, it was a large open room. What was even better, the dance floor was a long floor that was right in the middle of everything. I could picture our tables of guests surrounding the dance floor and having a great time. I knew that I could not pick the venue just because I could picture the reception there or that I loved the layout… I knew that food was important. Luckily, the venue let us schedule to come in for a taste testing. We had the taste testing a week later and we had then made up our decision. Banquet hall it is!

It was such a refreshing feeling walking into the banquet hall for the first time and having a gut feeling that this was it. I hope that the rest of wedding planning is this obvious!

Do you like this layout as much as I do? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts! Xoxo BreAnna

Where to Tie the Knot?

“Congratulations on your engagement! So when’s the wedding?” This was probably the number one thing that was said to me as soon as I got engaged. At first, I thought it was a bit ridiculous that people were expecting us to have a date picked out right away; however, I very quickly learned how early wedding planning should start. So first things first, I needed to decide on what type of wedding ceremony I wanted.

It is more and more common now for couples to decide on having outdoor ceremonies in gardens with an officiate. Please don’t get me wrong, I think outdoor ceremonies are beautiful and I definitely tossed the idea around for a bit, but I ultimately decided that I did not want to be stressed out with Mother Nature’s imagination. There were actually a few key things that I kept in mind while my fiancé and I were deciding.

1.       Do we want to get married inside or outside?

2.       Does the uncertainty of weather make a difference?

3.       What time of the year do we want to get married?

4.       Is there an importance or significance for us to get married in a church?

After some thinking, we collectively decided that we will get married inside a church. Not knowing how hectic wedding planning would be, we agreed that it would be best not having the weather on the day of the wedding to have to worry about.

As much as I am not proud to admit it, my fiancé and I had not been consistent church goers prior to getting engaged so we did not have a “home church”. We then started to talk about the kind of church we would like to be married in. My fiancé is a big fan of the architecture and history of the churches in Downtown Detroit so that is where we started. We quickly learned that having a ceremony in one of those old churches comes with a pretty high price tag; um, almost two thousand dollars. Yes, when it comes to a wedding, two thousand dollars can end up being a drop in the bucket; however, I knew I could find other things to put that money towards. Needless to say, I was not all about those downtown churches.

Since we crossed those churches off of the list, we then started to look at churches around where we live. At each one I looked into, I just felt like something was missing. Then it came to me… the church that I was baptized at, that my parents were married at, and where my grandparents were married. I could not believe that I did not think of this from the very beginning! What was even better, this church was a very old church. The walls are covered in stained glass, the floor and alter are marble, and along the walls are the organ pipes. It was absolutely perfect. What was even better is that I have a direct connection to that church. While it is not a home church for me, I plan on making it a home. We found our ceremony site. I now know where I am going to be married.

After all of that, the end result was right under me the entire time. I was so worried about making sure everything looked perfect that I did not think about what felt perfect. I am so glad that I realized what was most important before I made a decision I would have regretted.

So bottom line, and my biggest recommendation when you are making a decision about your ceremony, do what fits. Do not try too hard to find the “perfect” place. The perfect place will be right in front of you.

Come on… how beautiful is this church? Xoxo BreAnna