All inclusive vs bring in your own vendors reception venues

My fiancé and I went with a venue that has everything included with the price. In our opinion it was a whole of a lot easier because if we hired outside vendors you needed to make sure everyone was insured. We love it because even though its all included I am able to customize it how we want it to be which we love.

The only thing with all inclusive, is that I would make sure you like the vendors that are included. Look at reviews for the individual vendors and not just for the venue.

I'm in the middle of planning our wedding with multiple vendors. It is saving us a ton of money BUT I think all inclusive is worth it if you just want to show up to your wedding. Most all inclusive places include a coordinator. You won't get that unless you hire one when bringing in multiple vendors. Hiring a day of coordinator can work but it decreases your overall savings.

I would decide based on what's important to you and your FH. If it's starting your marriage debt free go for the savings of a bring your own vendor reception. If you prefer the wedding planning process to be easy peasy (relatively speaking) go for all inclusive.

"Best bang for your buck" depends on what you desire, quality wise. Oftentimes, I'm not a fan of all inclusive when it comes to vendors. When it comes to linens and decor and stuff like that for a venue? Fine. But when it comes to hiring professionals who make or break your day (photographer, officiant, DJ, etc.), I think it's important to be in charge of who exactly you're hiring, meeting with them to make sure you like them/mesh well with them, and have seen/reviewed their individual work, rather than relying on others to do that.

We picked a venue where we have to find all of our own vendors and I'm happy with that! It's not hard to find an insured vendor if the venue requires it. Most vendors say they are insured either on their website or in their contract. We are saving a lot of money by picking ourselves and customizing our options. It's a little more work, but we also have a DOC who will be in charge of them all day of. I didn't like some of the vendors the all inclusive places around us had.

Our venue included all food, alcohol, rentals (linens, tables, chairs, dinnerware, etc...), serving staff, ceremony site, printed menus and directional cards, our wedding cake, an inn room for the night, a dedicated day-of attendant for me & H, and the world's best wedding planner EVER. So we only had to hire entertainment, photography, officiant, and florist. I preferred it that way because I'm very particular and would not have booked a venue that told me "you can only work with one of these 3 photographers", or something like that. In fact, no venues in my region include florals, photography, or entertainment, because they all know couples want to choose their own vendors, and not be limited.

I think it's a big misconception that the more "a la carte" you go, the cheaper it is. When you go with an all or semi-inclusive venue, certain costs can be subsidized somewhat by the venue. For example, my venue owns all their tables, chairs, linens and dinnerware, so while the use of all that stuff is accounted for in their package price, it's much cheaper to use theirs than hiring a rental company just for those items, who will charge you the premium price. Doing everything a la carte adds up fast, and the more vendors you have to wrangle, the more complicated things will be- you're writing more checks, you have more contracts to worry about, and more people to keep in touch with. Writing 5 checks is easier to keep track of than writing 17.

If I could do it again, I would 100% still go the all-inclusive route.

Everything FallBride said.

Our venue is inclusive and it's actually cheaper to go this route than to piecemeal the vendors together. Obviously that won't be true for everyone, but it is in our case. As it's less stress. From linens to dinnerware to flowers (we get a nice credit at a local florist) to the food, it's all there. All of the gratuity/tips are even added into our total cost. We literally write one check for everything. Except the bartender. We do have to bring in our own bartender. We did have the option to chose to bring in our own vendors, which would lower the cost of the package, but we loved everyone the venue uses. We had even decided the venue's caterer was our top choice before we found out he teamed with the venue!

*edit for clarity- For example, using arbitrary numbers, the DJ for our package is $400. If we choose to bring our own DJ, the venue would subtract $400. The officiant is $150. If we bring our own, they subtract $150. And so on. So it wouldn't necessarily be cheaper if the DJ we want is $1000 or the officiant is $200. I re-read my post and found that to be a bit confusing-ish.

I agree with Mrs Fall Bride and Jennifer M. We just had our wedding this past weekend and when we were originally looking at venues, we looked at 2 all inclusive and 4 non all inclusive venues. We found that the all inclusive was at least $5000 cheaper than the cheapest non all inclusive we found. Our venue had suggested vendors but we could pick anyone we wanted for DJ, flowers and cake. We also didn’t have to worry about a thing when it came to the day of which helped alleviate a lot of stress for us.

I think it really depends on the all inclusive vendor.

We went the all inclusive route - but this place is really budget friendly. They do catering through different local restaurants, all linens, dishes, flatware, cups etc are included. They have bartenders - we just need to provide the alcohol. Plus - every table gets a customized floral centerpiece. The pro with this - is that we have one planning meeting with our venue and all of this is set up and taken down for us. Its also only one contract we have to manage.

If you do more of a DIY place, you have to work with soooo many different vendors and have to make sure they all get there on time, in the right order and you have to get everything back to them or have them come pick everything up at the end of the night. To me - that sounds like a nightmare - I dont want to have to worry about any of those things - which is why I went all inclusive.

We looked at at least 10 venues that ranged on a continuum from highly inclusive (e.g., they provided photographer, flowers, dj, officiant -- just about everything but attire) to the absolute bare-minimum was included. Daughter priced out all 10 with everything they need included in the cost, and there was less than a $1000 difference in the bottomline for 9 of the 10. The tenth? The least inclusive would have been $2000 more than the next highest priced moderately inclusive. She ended up choosing one of the moderately inclusives (e.g., ceremony & reception site, all "furnishings," all linens, all food & beverage, a site coordinator, valets, etc.) and then selecting her own photographer, florist, officiant, etc. It has the site/staff/options she liked the best, and the price was really comparable to the others. We do joke that "wedding price fixing" is a thing -- no matter how they price things, it all comes out about the same in the end. Good luck!

I hope this doesn't ignore the question or make it more confusing but I found a good middle ground!

I looked for venues that had catering onsite, as well as tables/chairs/linens/flatware. I started out thinking I would hire separate vendors from there but found an event company that offers photographer/DJ/officiant. So I would have only two people to deal with for everything. Starting with a semi inclusive venue gave me the option of still keeping it simple if I wanted while still allowing me deciding later if I wanted to pick and choose vendors or go a more all in one route via an event company.

We went with all inclusive. I was hesitant at first but now I’m so happy we did! Try and look up the reviews for their vendors. And were given a choice too. 3 for photographer and 3 for DJ. So we still were able to find the best one for us. The cake was included as well but there’s only 1 person. Only not included was flowers and officiant. Even with all inclusive planning had some stressful periods. We wrote down a pros and cons list to help us decide

For our area and amount of guests, all inclusive was SO MUCH CHEAPER. Even if it wasn't, I think it would be worth it just because it's soooo much easier and less stressful.

From what I've researched in my area, bring your own is cheaper so long as your venue is under $3000. I would not recommend a bring your own more than that for sure

I have planned three weddings for my daughters....My oldest we had a wedding planner, a venue that only included tables and chairs, everything else we needed a vendor. The planer helped us as it was my first time planning this type of event us it was my first daughter getting married. The total wedding was $30,000 for roughly 100 guests. She had a caterer who changed prices the day of the wedding which caused a confrontation and almost ended up with the vendor stopping the wedding, The planner stopped that form happening but it created a great deal of stress. With planning my youngest wedding we looked at hotels, private venues etc and discovered that eh all inclusive one was better suited for her. Her venue, with linens, centerpieces, staff, wedding coordinator, china, chavari chairs, silverware, glassware, barware, staff, ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception, to included draped ceilings, up lighting, the total was $3700. We saved $3500 alone just be picking a Thursday over a Saturday (Venue stated that the have discovered that most guests that are traveling from out of town prefer a Thursday as it gives them time to tour the attractions (we live in Orlando) plus spend time with family. We also snagged a $1000 discount by booking on Black Friday. We still have to provide vendors for the cake, DJ, officiant, caterer, bridal party flowers, photographer, videographer. So far we are paying $698 for the cake to feed 100, the bridal party flowers to include the bride bouquet, 4 bridesmaids, 10 boutonnieres, 6 corsages, 3 kissing balls, and wagon garland was $664., the DJ with a photo booth, additional up lighting, and light show is $1200, the caterer for 4 passed appetizers, salad, cuban pork, beef carving station, salmon, spanish rice, yucca with onions and peppers, fried plantains, mashed potato bar to include white and sweet potatoes, bread, plated salad, and veggie...plus rehearsal dinner for 53 people was $3000. Photographer is $1200, we still have to book the officiant, HMU, tuxedos are $100 a person with the groom being free. Our budget not counting the dress and accessories is $13,000 with a guest list of 130 with 34 children under 18.

My venue is sort of all inclusive—the package I got included food and beer, a coordinator, an officiant, the ceremony site, and some money towards floral. Oh and 2 nights lodging for me and FH, So, I don’t have a separate contract for any of that. And I am adding on a full bar with the venue. I am using preferred vendors for other things (photos, cake) so I know the venue has verified their insurance and all of that and has experience working with them. For me, part of why I chose this was to have as close to a carefree wedding as possible. It was a huge load off my shoulders and that was worth it. It’s not cheap, but I feel it’s money well spent,