Venues

I booked mine within a year, but one thing to consider if you book more than 2 years in advance, is that the staff may change a lot. So if the venue has a coordinator you love working with, they may not be there in 3 years. The upside to booking earlier is that you can lock in better pricing because these places usually up their prices every calendar year. It also depends on the venue. They may only book 1 or 2 years in advance.

We booked our venue a year in advance. You could end up saving since most venues increase their price about $5 per person every year. If you sign a contract this year and lock in prices it could save you a lot in the long run. Just make sure your venue has a good reputation, and won't change owners or go out of business in the mean time.

We started looking at venues about 18 months out. I had heard that venues often book up a year or more in advance, so I wanted to start early. We researched several, and then I emailed about 7 of them to get pricing information. We had 4 tours set up, but after number 3, we had found what we wanted, so cancelled the last tour. Our venue had plenty of dates left in 2020, so it wasn't a huge problem, but I'm glad we booked early, got our deposit in. That just made me relax so much!!

Ours was booked and deposit paid just under a year ahead of time. We had a Friday wedding, so we had a little bit more flexibility, but if we had gone with Saturday, we easily would have had to book an extra 2-3 months earlier than that. All of the Saturdays in our season were booked over a year ahead of time.

If you are SUPER far out, I agree with the above comment - you may not be working with the same staff. But if you know you love a place and the price is right, YOU KNOW! Sign that paper whenever you are confident in your decision and ready to commit!

We started looking 2 years out and booked our venue 22 months from our wedding day. We got locked in with the 2018 rates and looking at their updated pricing for 2019, we saved $1500 by booking so early. I know my sister is currently in the process of looking at venues for 2021 and she's already come across a venue with her preferred date booked. I'm a huge proponent of booking early to get everything locked in/save money, so the sooner, the better in my opinion!

I looked at them right away but didn't book it til maybe 10 months before our date

View Quoted Comment Thank you! There is one we have looked at and she is booking out when we have our date set. Which is a plus for us. And I totally understand that the staff can change from now until then

We booked our venue 2 years out and I'm glad we did because prices for the food has since increased but our 2017 prices were locked in.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much! That helps a lot because I didn’t know venues change prices every year.

We booked our venue the day after we got engaged in April for our Leap Day wedding next year. We toured the venue in March. I started reaching out to venues last fall, though, when we started talking about getting engaged. Like PPs have said, if you book now, you can lock in your price & likely save a good amount of money. Our venue owner is planning on buying another building next door to the venue, and the prices will go up after that happens since the space will hold more (right now, it holds around 175 max). Just make sure you're confident in your decision before booking! This far out, you'll have a lot of open availability, though, which is great since you don't necessarily have as much if you do it a year out.

We started touring 18 months out. We toured 5 and booked 14 months out. We looked at about 30 venues online though.

View Quoted Comment That’s what we want too is to be relaxed because we know the venue is a big thing to book and make sure we have it. Because we have a couple tours set up and the one we have looked at is already booking for the year we plan on having our wedding.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much. Oh yes I definitely agree with the comment above that the staff will more than likely change with the wedding being so far out.

I booked extra early, about a year and a half out just because I wanted a November wedding and our venue offers a 3 day weekend package from Friday at noon until Sunday at 3 with tables, chairs, and decor included all under 2,000 so this venue is very popular in my hometown.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much. Because my fiancé was the one who wants to book as soon as we can if they let us which is totally fine with me that way we know we have it and it’s one less thing we will have to do.

View Quoted Comment We have been looking at them right away too which has been nice because we have found one we really like

I booked at 18 months

Venue was the first thing I started to look for. We both had a very specific idea in mind of what we wanted the venue to be and once I found it I want to be sure we can get it on the date we want.

We are going to tour on July 7th and will book that day most likely. Wedding is October 2020.

View Quoted Comment We like the idea of booking out pretty far, because the price sheet we have for the one venue we like has great prices it’s not as expensive as some of the more popular ones from my hometown.

We started looking at venues once we got engaged (year and half from wedding date) and booked it about 15 months before. Good thing too- we took the last summer/fall Saturday they had available next year!