Backyard Wedding- Any advice on do's and donts

Do not self cater... big no no...

What's your guest count?

Where do you live? An outside wedding in winter can suck depending on location. A backyard wedding can end up costing more than a venue.

Where do you live? A large, climate-controlled tent along with food, linens, plates, silverware and bathrooms to rent will get super expensive so if you're doing this to save money I'd look at an all-inclusive venue.

Rent nice bathrooms.

Bathrooms. This is a HUGE expense. As a home owner, I would not want dozens upon dozens of people using my bathroom (one would be available and you would have to go through the entire lower level to get to it. The 2nd one is in our MB and there is no way I would allow access past the main level ... if even that).

Bathrooms.

Rain? Tent rental

Dance floor? Floor rental

Power? Generator rental

Parking?

Noise ordinance?

City permits? If party is over a certain head count the city does have to be notified. One complaint and they can come and shut it down immediately.

Dance floor is probably something you'll have to rent.

How's the electrical at the house? Is it capable of handling the DJ, food, and other electrical needs? How about plumbing? As others have mentioned, you need toilets, and the main reason is because your average house septic can't handle that much waste.

Backyard wedding seem easy, but more often end up costing more and being more hassle than they're worth.

Tents and floors are set up 1-2 days prior and taken down within 36 hours. Your one day wedding becomes minimum of 4 in the making.

A dance floor, nice bathrooms (not port a potties), lighting, heating, a safe and clear path from parking to the tent

Make sure you are legally covered/insured for any mishaps... cooking, drinking, dancing, property damage, injury, etc. If anything happens on your property or as a result of you serving liquor you are liable.

Venues can be expensive because of the "must have covered/worst case scenerio" situations that need to be covered for every single event. I think letting someone else take responsibility and deal with all of the above items/legalities/permits/set up/take down/clean up is money well spent.

How many people do you plan to invite? I'm having a vow renewal and I'll be working through some of the details too.

My advice is to not do this and have a reception at a place where all this stuff will be taken care of for you. No fuss, no muss, no forgetting things or running out of room in the budget.

The one backyard wedding I attended was miserable. It was so hot, there was not a dance floor, it was BYOB (as in YOU bring it), the food was made by her granny, and everyone got very drunk.

Don't go forward with this until you get a detailed estimate for your tent,dance floor, lighting, heating if you need it, tables and chairs, linens, tableware, bathrooms (if you need), a cook tent and field equipment, rest room trailers and all the permits/insurance you'll need. It adds up wildly fast.

Then get an estimate from a legit cater, with staffing and taxes.

When you get up off the floor, start calling venues.

Don't expect it to be cheaper than an actual venue.

If you are doing it because you think it's cheaper, it's most likely not.

Do ensure you have enough chairs the ceremony and reception or staff to move them. There's something about having to move my own chair from one event to another that does not sit well with me for a wedding.

My wedding will be outside as well. The biggest thing I ran into was the rentals. In my mind I was thinking $1000 max. I'm at $1500 now. Which isn't too bad. But that isn't including linens and dishes and things of that sort.

I'm renting

Tables chairs heater lamps popups dance floor

I'm also going to have a lot of lighting.

Just make sure you walk through each step. I didn't even think of bathrooms. Thank goodness the location I am outside of has quite a few and I'm having a smaller wedding. (Still trying to cut it down) guest count is a huge thing.

Insurance is taken care of already at my location but is so very important. I turned down about 20 places before I found one I could host the event at. A lot of locations won't even try.

...where do you live? A winter backyard wedding sounds miserable.

Chat with the neighbors. For my first wedding, a neighbor knocked on the door 5 minutes before we were starting and asked if we were having a wedding, then told us he had been planning to hack up a tree with a chainsaw that morning. Luckily he was awesome and we all got a laugh out of it, but he could have been pretty annoyed with us for not thinking of talking ot the neighbors. Oops!

If you're somewhere like me winter doesn't exist in San Diego. So mine in Feb will be fine with heaters. But yes very important where you're at. And if you'll have a lot of children and elderly. They tend to get cold easily.

I'm doing blankets as a wedding favor if you want a cool idea. (Pun intended)