All inclusive venue or wedding planner?

It really depends on the venue and where it's located. All inclusive venues are great because it can take the hassle out of coordinating different vendors. But you will most likely be stuck with what they have to offer and unable to bring in, say, a caterer that you prefer.

Not going with an all inclusive vendor gives you a lot of flexibility but it also means you will end up juggling more vendors and contracts. It may be more difficult to keep all of your ducks in a row for the big day. But that is where a wedding planner comes in handy.

They can do the research for you and give you options and suggestions based on their experience in the industry. But they aren't necessary and most people opt for a day of coordinator instead. ETA: As for cost, it could really go either way.

My wedding hasn't happened yet but it takes a lot of stress off of me to have the all inclusive since my wedding is in another city 2 hours away. I feel my package was unbeatable & I help plan events and weddings. I'll add that my venue is fully open to all vendors as long as they have liability insurance.

Agree with both posters. I picked an all inclusive venue becuase I will be planning from a different state so that takes TONS of stress off me. I also checked the vendors that were offered on several websites such as this, and they all got very high reviews so I was comfortable knowing that the vendors would be good.

ETA: Congrats on your engagement!

One thing to consider, my venue is only all inclusive if you have a 75 person minimum. So that would be another factor to add to your research of the venue.

I think in the end, do you research and if you find a place you LOVE that is all inclusive then go for it. If you find a place you LOVE and it is not, perhaps the wedding planner is a better bet.

This was my second marriage and the first time I had a wedding planner, which actually was a service who did everything for the wedding. I was so happy to have them, because I was planning from 4-1/2 hours away, and it took so much stress off me.

We're on a tighter budget, and a lot of all inclusive venues wanted far more money than our entire budget combined. definitely do research in your area and see what is offered, because for some places/people all inclusive venues are much cheaper but for us, they were just bank breakers.

We did a semi inclusive which came with a wedding coordinator. It's honestly been the best thing ever. For one per pesron price we have

Ceremony and reception space

3 course meal

5 hour reception

5 hours of open bar

full stocked cocktail hour

Barista bar with dessert

A wedding coordinator/DOC

All tables, chairs, cutlery and linens

Arch for the ceremony.

Private use of the facilities for the entire day

Venue handles all set up and clean up - we can drop all decorations off the the day before and they put them all together for us, we can pick everything up the next morning.

It's been such a weight off our shoulders not having to price everything out and SO much more affordable.

There's definitely a lot of benefits to all-inclusive, but I'm really happy we didn't go that route. We loved the flexibility of being able to choose all our vendors, bring in our own alcohol, and essentially make the day exactly what we wanted (even if we didn't know what we wanted going in). We were picky about the food, and loved being able to taste multiple caterers before making a commitment. We're even pickier about alcohol, and liked being able to serve what we wanted for a very reasonable price. At the beginning of our venue search I had a really hard time with all the bar packages, even the "premium" ones mostly had things my husband would refuse to drink. Towards the end of the planning, one of my friends mentioned that it was also nice having separate vendors because it meant that you'd need multiple points of failure for something to go noticeably wrong rather than just one person/company dropping the ball.

While I admit that it was extra work, our venue was extremely helpful with recommendations and advice so it really wasn't hard at all. They recommended nearly all of our vendors and we were happy with everyone. That said, I'm also the planning type. If we went all-inclusive I probably would have stressed a lot more about whether or not we were choosing the right place.

Same thing with a planner, if we had one I probably would have thoroughly researched every option myself anyway so it would have been a waste. I guess I'm weird, I honestly didn't think wedding planning was that bad. A day-of coordinator was key, though. I didn't want to worry about anything that day, handing it all off was wonderful.

Just my two cents. Absolutely nothing wrong with choosing an all-inclusive venue or hiring a planner, it's just something that I don't think was desirable for us.

It might not have been more cost effective, but we didn't go for an all inclusive and I'm happy about it. I liked picking all of the vendors and everything. We did hire a DOC which has helped tremendously already just knowing she'll be there and all of the discussions we've had so far. I think it totally depends. I enjoy picking the vendors, and I know the day of will run smoothly because of the DOC. I compared what we are spending to quotes we got from all inclusive vendors and its not much different for us.