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Elysia
Dedicated May 2022

Getting Rejected by Venues?

Elysia, on April 24, 2021 at 8:20 AM

Posted in Planning 61

Hi everyone! After cancelling our wedding, my fiancé and I are trying to plan things again. Our ideas of what we want have drastically changed, originally we were going to invite close to 60 people, now we plan to invite only 35. We live in PA in the Lehigh Valley area. Ideally, we’d like our...
Hi everyone! After cancelling our wedding, my fiancé and I are trying to plan things again. Our ideas of what we want have drastically changed, originally we were going to invite close to 60 people, now we plan to invite only 35. We live in PA in the Lehigh Valley area. Ideally, we’d like our wedding to be close to home, but we’re running into a lot of roadblocks.


I’ve messaged multiple venues, asking for more information. Each one got back to me straight up saying they wouldn’t do my wedding, that I should consider a larger guest list. I get my hopes up for the next venue to say something different, but so far that’s not the case. This is really disappointing, not everyone wants a big wedding, and one of the venues even had pages on their website saying they are known for their “small, intimate receptions”.
I’m not sure what to do here. We’re not changing our guest count, this is what we’ve decided on. Getting rejected by venues is taking the excitement out of planning. We’ve pretty much exhausted the options in our area and don’t know where to look now. Any ideas?
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61 Comments

  • Kari
    Master May 2020
    Kari ·
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    For a guest list that small, I would not look at traditional wedding venues. Our guest list was 60-80 people and that was the borderline minimum for many places we looked at. Almost all "wedding venues" near us can host 100+ people or more and it was not cost effective for us to consider them, and also having too few guests in too large of a space would have felt weird.

    In my experience, once your guest list drops below 50-60 people or so, start looking at places that have event space but don't bill themselves as a wedding venue. Event venues that cater towards company parties, family reunions, wedding and baby showers, etc are typically a better fit for smaller events. Try local parks and picnic areas, church reception halls, restaurants, event spaces at local colleges or summer camps, local breweries or wineries (or vineyards), environmental centers, inns and B&Bs, farms, etc. Any organization that does education (colleges, schools, museums, zoos, nature centers, educational farms, etc) typically has some gathering spaces that can hold a small group of people. Also consider an AirBnB or vacation rental as well - many can host small groups easily and you can take advantage of having a smaller wedding and finding a really unique spot to host it.

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  • D
    Donnaly ·
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    Sorry to hear that, try the Chelsea Sun Inn, it's lovely there.

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  • devotedlydavis
    Expert March 2022
    devotedlydavis ·
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    In addition to the tips above, you may want to search for venues that do "micro" weddings. I found several in my area, but they would only do them Monday - Thursday. Just a thought if your heart is set on a traditional venue.

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  • Emily
    Dedicated August 2022
    Emily ·
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    Have you thought about asking for elopement packages? You could also plan an elopement style ceremony and have a reception at a restaurant somewhere. That's so strange, our venue is just $36/person for food but otherwise doesn't care how many people we have.

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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    I reached out to them because I thought the Mill looked really nice. I wanted to see if they would come down on the venue rental fee because it takes up too much of our budget and they unfortunately said no
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    I looked into both of those, thank you. Parkview is not in a good area for pictures, but I did reach out to Blue. They seem nice, but we been there before several times and aren’t fans of their food. We’re not sure about having our wedding somewhere where we’re not confident in the quality of the food.
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    There’s a really nice fire hall by us that I reached out to when we first started planning. We didn’t go with them because they only gave 40 minutes of set up time, and my fiancé and I would be the ones setting everything up (we don’t have people to help)
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  • Katie
    VIP August 2021
    Katie ·
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    Wow only 40 minutes that's crazy.
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    Thanks for the ideas!
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    I think that’s what we’re gonna have to do. There is a venue that I absolutely love that’s a little under an hour away, it’s unfortunately $10,000 just for the space so that’s not going to happen 😂 I think we might have to make it out of state, because everywhere we look within an hour radius is way too expensive
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    That’s awesome! We’ve looked into pretty much every place in the Valley that is considered a “wedding” venue. Besides those, I looked at Historic Bethlehem Museums and Sites, Zest, the Allentown Brew Works, the Grist Mill in Hellertown, the Meadow, Saucon Valley Acres, Monterre Vineyards, and more that I can’t think of. Most of these are out of budget, and the ones that aren’t didn’t work for us: for one, the parking situation doesn’t work for the type of guests we have, and for another, they do multiple weddings on one day and you have to share the getting ready space with other brides.
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    Thanks for the ideas. The more I research, the more it seems like we can’t do our wedding in our hometown.
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    Thanks for the ideas. I really would like to have a winery wedding, but there isn’t anywhere around us with a reasonable price.
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    I sent them a message a few weeks ago! They look really nice. I haven’t heard back yet, I hope they respond.
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    I did find two venues near me that do “micro” weddings but they are for weddings under 20 people. We already cut a lot of people to make it 35 and can’t cut more
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  • N
    NewEnglandSettler ·
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    Are there any campgrounds near you? Many have nice lodges and/or pavilions that they rent out.
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  • D
    Savvy June 2021
    Dani ·
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    Have you looked into Woodstone? Or any of the other country clubs in the area? Some of them are very affordable. There's also Barnhouse Village, The View at Morgan Hill, Sayre Mansion, Barrister's Club, Bank St. Annex to name a few!

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  • T
    Dedicated October 2021
    Tammy ·
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    Rent an estate, house or farm. Look on vrbo under event rentals
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    We don’t have a lot to spend so the country clubs are not an option, they cost way too much. I know someone who had a wedding at Woodstone and what they paid for it was insane. The country clubs that I liked also rejected us. We tried Sayre Mansion but they are extremely out of budget. So are Barrister’s, Bank St. Annex, Barnhouse, and the View at Morgan Hill. I got the prices from all of them and was honestly shocked at how much everything was. I am not exaggerating when I say I’ve tried basically every venue in the Valley. We’re now looking at venues that are an hour and a half away.
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  • Elysia
    Dedicated May 2022
    Elysia ·
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    Not exactly near me, the closest is about an hour away. I looked them up but it doesn’t seem like they have any kind of event space
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