Booking venue without seeing in person?

Oh man, if you can find customer photos of that place it might be better. just because customer photos would be more realistic in the sense that it's through the eyes of someone and not a filtered or edited picture.

I agree with Melle. You may want to look at reviews, either on the venue website, or on a consumer review site, such as Yelp (or whatever the French equivalent is) to see what actual people thought about these venues. They are gorgeous in these photos, but you really have no way of knowing when these photos were taken, how they were edited, etc. That would be my only concern, if it's what you're looking for and is in your budget.

Melle and Cristy are right. I read somewhere that a lot of these gorgeous, Instagram-able venue photos are staged by the venue, so they hire top-of-the-line props, tables and chairs, flowers, etc. and try to pass them off as someone's wedding. Definitely look around on Yelp, wedding websites, even Instagram (but look for real peoples' photos) and see if you can see what it really looks like if a real person rents it out. Or ask directly if these tables, chairs, table settings, etc. come with the venue.

Those pictures are gorgeous. We booked our venue without seeing it in person but did have the coordinator give us a facetime tour and my parents went to visit before we signed the contract. Could you possibly do a video call? I would look into anything and everything you can find online on the venue as well! It was nerve wrecking but we knew we wanted to have the wedding in the city I spent summers in growing up and things go QUICK so we needed to move - and in the end it totally worked out! The main advice I would give is go with somewhere that needs as little hands on work as possible and hire a month of if planning from a distance, it was a life saver.

We booked our venue without seeing it, but went off of real customer reviews and photos plus a Skype tour with the venue coordinator prior to booking. The wedding is in November 2020 so we will see how it ends up then!

I agree with everyone else that your best off looking at real experiences. So many places look absolutely beautiful in the venue photos but, as others stated, it's because they're fully staged, etc.

Whatever your decision, good luck! I'm sure you'll make a great day out if it.

Thank you guys for the tips! I ended up looking more into the first one and the reviews are bad and it is apparently illegal. I'll be talking to the second vendor and asking for a skype video walk-through and looking at reviews

Definitely look at actual weddings or events there. We booked our venue without seeing it but did FaceTime tour twice.

We booked our DW venue based solely on pictures online! Honestly I’m not even worried about it either. We saw lots of visitors’ pictures on trip advisor and read all the reviews, which helped a lot. Definitely look online for reviews from other guests that used your venue. Good luck! The pictures look beautiful!

Are you hiring a wedding planner there? You could have them take photos & videos of each, and get any critical questions answered (access for disabled guests, food allergies, etc).

TripAdvisor an yelp are your friends look and read reviews and look at real pictures. call BBB or look online and see if they have any pending cases against the business.

I'm excited for you because it sounds crazy lol!

Good Luck and keep us updated.

Wow these venues are gorgeous!! Best of luck on your search! I agree with Melle. See if there are any reviews with photos from guests or previous weddings