How many venues did you tour before finding yours?

We visited 5 hotels in Downtown Chicago and went with the first one. They were in the process of remodeling their space and we liked what we saw, we liked the catering manager whom we met with, the menu offerings were also what we were looking for, and we also liked the historical meaning of the hotel especially since my fiance' is an architect. We visited places where we did our research online first to understand how much they were charging per plate, and ruled out anything beyond our budget to save time. Don't feel rushed, I'd say tour as many places as you can realistically find the time. However, when you start to feel overwhelmed, or can't remember the last venue you went to it's either time to take a break, or revisit the places you saw and think back which were the most memorable, and decide if you want a second tour? We took a second tour of the venue we booked after visiting all 5, and it solidified our decision. If you get any sort of strange/odd vibes, venue manager is overly pushy, I'd eliminate it, and go with your initial instinct.

We haven't been visiting venues in person but we looked through countless options in places from DC, NYC, New Orleans and Texas trying to decide what kind of wedding we would have and where. We looked at venues, restaurants and AirBnB looking for a cost effective yet beautiful and unique venue and we decided to go with doing a small elopement in New Orleans with just our very closest family and friends and having a large get together in my great grandmothers backyard by the water in Maryland the following weekend for everyone we couldn't invite to the smaller ceremony.