Budget friendly venues in NJ

I'm in NJ, and sorry to say, even for the low budget venues, $5000 is too low, unless you have an extremely small guest list. I'd look on the knot too, since I know they regularly have come out with deals for cheap venues in the area for brides to be.

This comes up literally four times a week, so TRY the search, but 5000.00 in NJ isn't going to go far. You can try the Garden Vista Ballroom, which is lovely and very affordable.

Yea my guest list is only 50 people. ive searched using wedding-spot and its a lot of money. i'd rather use it for a nice honeymoon. jersey sucks sometimes lol but thanks for the advice

Are you looking for an inclusive banquet hall?

Yes that might work

You could do a nice dinner reception, get a private room at a restaurant for dinner and cake.

There was a NJ thread earlier this week with a lot of good venues named. If you use the search bar I am sure it will come up.

Thank you

Well.....first, think about another date. A Saturday in prime season is going to be the most expensive time to book and a time when the minimums will be the highest. Think Friday, think Sunday, think early November.

Okay; here's my go to list; keep in mind that to keep to roughly 100 per guest, you need to start at a base of about 75.00 before tax and service charges. I'm not sure that all of these will fit, but it's a start.

-Bottagra, in Hawthorne

-Westwood at Garwood

-Garden Vista Ballroom in Passaic (ask for Jim)

-Englewood Womens Club (you need a caterer, but they recommend some reasonable ones)

-St. Eve's in Hohokus

-Pig and Prince in Montclair

-McLoone's Boathouse in West Orange

-Solar Di Minho in Newark

-The Manor, in West Orange (Ask for Patrick)

-The Grain House at the Old Mille Inn; you could stay here as well (ask for Lindsay Stewart or Marien)

-Bottagra, in Hawthorne (Ask for Dan)

-The Brickhouse, in Wyckoff (Ask for Michael)

-Michael's Riverside, in Lyndhurst

-Pintxo Y Tapas in Englewood

-The Charthouse, in Weehawken (Also dog friendly)

-Le Jardin, Edgewater

-Highlawn Pavilion (ask for Chris)

-San Cubano in West New York

-Fitzgerald's 1928 in Glen Ridge

-The Charthouse in Weehawken

-The Stone House at Sterling Ridge (Ask for Aurora)

Thank you so much!

We're getting married on a Monday (for several reasons) so that made a lot of things cheaper in NJ/NY. Depends what type of venue you're looking for. We were going for a rustic venue. On the lower end look at Perona Farms and the gardens at Rutgers. I forget what it's called but they have a nice setup there.

Oh...and congratulations!!!

Celia, you should just copy and paste this info. Its nice, though, that they have you for advice in such an expensive area. Kudos to you for providing the info...again! Lol

Well, I do have the rare perspective of someone who's been in hundreds of venues AND been a caterer for a lot of years. There are a lot of ways to orchestrate a wedding, but I can't even imagine how terrifying it is for people who've really never done something on the scale this has become. It's like trying to mount a Broadway musical for your first skit, lol.....And it can cost a shit ton.

Hi there, definitely NJ can be challenging to get married on a smaller budget for sure, not sure if you are saying venue only for $5000 & what your guest count is? So hope this helps I got married last year at the 1850's RiverHouse in Stockton, NJ it's a historic site with a totally gorgeous seasonal tent, it was lined, this super lovely brick floor & a really large grounds, along the water for us it was a great find, we had gone to see the other property didn't know of it until we got there, apparently it was only saved just a few years ago so it's a newer venue. Anyway for us the venue & then the rentals we needed came in at just over $4,700, which gave us the space, everything for the tent they even had heaters on standby for us (when we looked at other tented spots most didn't include them) plus that included all the tables chairs linens china plus the required monitor so we felt it was very competitive & a good price. Overall we had an awesome experience & we are still getting compliments from attendees.

We also looked at was Prallsville Mills, Greystone Manor House, RoseBank Winery, WoodsEdge Farm, Pearl S. Buck & Unionville Vineyard, not all of them were under the 5000.

Celia terrifying is an understatement, Lol. NJ is tough. Our wedding is at Prallsville Mills and we're trying to keep our entire wedding budget (not including honeymoon or attire) at $15,000. My FH thinks the honeymoon budget is included in that, but he's out of his mind.

It's really tough and definitely terrifying!

@Je-Ree are you looking to spend $5,000 for everything, or just the venue? Does that include food? Prallsville is $2,200 for the venue, but we still need to add rentals and catering. We also looked at Cranbury Inn which is about $99 a person I think and they don't have minimum head counts so that might work for you. It was a beautiful venue, just didn't have any outdoor options which I wanted.

Je, you made one very smart decision so far; keeping the guest count small. With a group that size, in a cute restaurant, some things start to look out of place (flashy dj's, giant bridal parties), so already your cost will be lower. (I just added Bottagra, in Hawthorne, and the Brook Lake Country club, in Florham Park,to the list above.)

Off premise venues, like Prallsville, which is beautiful, can be fun and beautiful, but as MrsBest pointed out, they rarely come in at a budget. You still need catering and rentals, and in most cases, a DOC, since working with an off premise caterer is not like working with a banquet hall.

But I go back to my original advice; think about an off time of year, a different day, a different time than a Saturday night. In some of the venues here, a Friday in March can save up to 30%. If you can think about getting married earlier, call some places and ask about 'value dates'; dates that are close in that they'd like to fill. And many places that will welcome you for THIS September are not so anxious to book a smaller party for a prime date a year and a half a way; It's simple economics; they only have so many billable dates and they need to maximize their income. It's the same reason I don't book elopements more than a month out.

I love my restaurant weddings; they have a totally different feel than a big banquet hall (not better or worse, just different). My partner did a wedding for 25 at Bottagra a few weeks ago, and he said it was lovely; they had their own private room. (Another plus for an off season wedding; since being outside is not a possibility, all those expensive to maintain gardens don't become a factor. A pretty inside is all you need.

If you can start thinking outside the box, you might be very surprised at what can happen!