How long did it take you to find a venue

We got engaged at the end of October and booked our venue at the beginning of December.n

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If possible, I'd like to keep that date. We're both very cheesy and like the idea of 10+10=20. But if it's the right venue, I'd be willing to be flexible! We're looking in a radius of one area from where we live in Arlington, VA. So the wineries/rustic areas we've looked at and are planning to look at are an hour west of us. We're also looking at something in Maryland, about 45 minutes northeast of us.

We started planning about a week after we got engaged, and it took us about six weeks to find a venue. Sent out emails to eight different places and toured four of those. We are really happy with the venue we picked. It was the first one we toured and none of the other venues could match it!

I got engaged January 26th and booked the venue February 15th. We chose the 2nd venue we toured bc we both fell in love with it. Trust me take your time until you find the one

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A lot of my coworkers have gotten married here in Northern Virginia. I've gotten dozens of recommendations from about 4 of my coworkers, but most of their recommendations are out of our price range. Since I work in journalism, a lot of my coworkers also do wedding photography, which is one of the most important things on our list and might be able to give me a coworker discount. I've been doing pretty much all of the planning, but I'm going to see if my FH can find some venues that work in our budget. I keep running into the same ones over and over again.

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Most of my coworkers got married in another state, married in a church (including reception), or a venue that used to be priced lower and is now insanely expensive. So I feel you on that one. My firm actually does an annual audit on the venue we chose, so that's how I found out about it. It's a museum and they have a banquet hall-ish place attached to it. Beautiful chandeliers! We chose a church nearby for the ceremony. Don't get discouraged this early! You will find something you guys love soon!

We got engaged December 2 and booked the venue January 2. It was stage first venue that I saw and I fell in love but now I’m having some venue regret.

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Neither one of us are really religious, so a church wouldn't be right for us for the ceremony. I know I need to be patient, but we're aiming for a popular wedding season, and I want to get something soon. I feel like everything else will just fall into place once the venue is booked

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Nice! Yeah, we wanted to have a 10k budget and blew it but only cause it included staff, food, drinks (basically everything aside from flowers and decor) and made it so much easier to plan a wedding from afar. If you can get something thats all-inclusive so you can just focus on other things that might make your life easier.

My parents and brother live in the DC/VA/MD area. I totally feel you about not wanting to have your wedding back at home— however! I will say that planning close to trustworthy people (if you know a lot of people in that town or have connections) that does help!

I've been to quite a few cool bowling alleys and could totally see a wedding there. Looks like the chain Bowlero (which I saw visiting MD not too long ago) is pretty cool: https://www.bowlero.com/location/bowlero-bethesda

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Oh, no! I'm so sorry you're having venue regret. that's what I'm afraid of if I just bite the bullet and get something we 'like' instead of love!

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Pretty much our entire family is back home - my parents and grandparents and my future in-laws. They might be able to help. We'll have to see. I've given the responsibility of finding potential venues in NJ to my FH. So we'll compare when he gets some quotes!

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into it, but I have a feeling it might be similar to the one I've already looked at. The reception rooms felt sterile and very much like conference rooms. I get they're not all decorated, but it was still very off-putting. Plus, by the time we had the rental fee, food and drinks and added bowling lanes, it was WAY over budget.

If my goodness, we're almost engagement twins! He proposed early March and I've also toured 4 venues!

I absolutely loved one, but it was $10,000...it was sooo gorgeous and super all inclusive, like a full time wedding coordinator etc etc. But it was not including alcohol, DJ or photographer and all the little things like my dress, HMU, stationary, flowers...ugh. There's just no way I can afford it and I'm so heartbroken.

Then another venue that came highly recommended as "budget friendly" finally finally got back to me. For my guest count (120 ppl max) it would be nearly $8,500 and it wasn't nearly as nice as the more expensive one and did NOT include nearly as much. I was so heartbroken!

Anyway just wanted to tell you to hang in there...I've also been hearing from people who booked their venue asap and had a date written in stone and everything. I suspect most of them didn't have a budget to stick to 😒

Don't feelbad about taking your time. I feel I booked too quickly tbh. As time goes on, I'm scared it might be too small for all the people I want there.

Forgot to mention that I booked after 2 weeks of looking. I still love it but it seems too small

Honestly, it only took me a couple of hours of research on the computer before I found the venue I felt pretty sure about. Then we booked an appointment to see it in person and it was even more breathtaking than in the pictures. I went home and reserved the date immediately.

I highly considered my max budget whilst looking at venues as well. I wouldn't get my hopes up for anything until I saw the price. I live in Charleston, SC, which is a HUGE wedding town, so everything here is crazy expensive. I got lucky when I found Alhambra Hall online. I immediately fell in love with the pictures and then looked at the price... SO CHEAP compared to other venues here and equally as beautiful, if not more! It just felt right when we went to view it.

I got lucky in how fast it all came together, but hang in there! You will find the perfect venue and you WILL know it when you do. Best wishes to you!

View Quoted Comment That's what I'm thinking! All of my friends are my age and definitely have student debt. There's no way they can afford that right now. They have to have a lot of outside help. We're planning on paying for it ourselves and have a savings plan in place. My grandparents and parents have offered to chip in, but I'd rather not ask unless we have to. Good luck with your search!!

View Quoted Comment I hope it all works out for you! Venues wouldn't let you book them if they didn't think they could handle the amount of people you want.

View Quoted Comment Thank you!! We definitely have our max total budget in mind.

We got engaged in February. We booked our venue in March. I called to inquire about ten locations.
We looked at two. We booked the second one because it had more bang for the buck.

Honestly, I wasn't looking for any particular type of venue, just a place that would let me include my horse.
Both venues were ok with that.

We were going mainly off of price.
Good luck! We are getting married next year and alot of the venues I called were already booked , try not to wait too long.

We got engaged on March 13,2018 and booked our venue exactly 1 year ago yesterday (April 23, 2018)...I only know cause FB time hop told me We had a cruise at the end of March and I had just gotten back from Costa Rica for a friends wedding 2 weekends before that and was getting everything together for her local reception 1 weekend before...it was a crazy month for us. I used WW to find venues in the general area we were thinking that was in budget for what we estimated would be our guest count (we were actually dead on!) I tried to book as many as I could each Saturday in April. I think we did 4 the first Saturday and 3 the second Saturday. The place I wanted ended up being a total bust which really made me sad but the place we chose ended up being amazing.

Anyway, to answer your question, from engagement to booking it was 5 weeks, from actually visiting to booking it was 2 weeks. We wanted September 2019 but even a year and a half out, we had to move our date to November because they were already booked up.

Our venue is (mostly) inclusive (food, bar, linens, place settings, DOC, ceremony space... basically everything but a florist, photographer and DJ. It has beautiful white marble everywhere, a nice sized ready room, and our DOC made the tour a wonderful experience. I think that's what really sold us. She was super accommodating, answered all of our questions, was willing to work with us on anything outside of the standard, and didn't make us feel like we were wasting her time.

The venue I thought I wanted was more rustic but the room layout just didn't work and everything was pretty strict with what was and wasn't allowed. Plus, nothing was included which would have made for a lot of extra work trying to pull everything together.