Wedding Ceremony Venue/place Ideas

What's your budget and your wedding size?

Also, I'm confused as to why the pictures couldn't be done day of?

Anything in this area is going to be fairly expensive - you might want to do some research on the average cost of a wedding in NYC. (My husband and I kept it WELL under average, and it was still considered pricey by national averages.)

That said, in May, you might have good enough weather to do a park wedding and then a restaurant. Keep in mind, you need permits, and there are lots of restrictions on music, size, and such.

View Quoted Comment Hi Rebecca,
We only have 20 guests and not everyone is attending the ceremony. We are planning to go to a nice restaurant with everyone afterwards. So we are looking for a nice space just for the ceremony, which I'm assuming will take no longer than 1 hr.

We were also planning to do the pictures on the same day, but the place we had in mind only allows photos Monday-Friday and our wedding is on a Sunday. They are charging $2500.00 just to perform the ceremony at the place in addition to a 50$ Fee they are charging to take out a permit for us to be able to do the photos. I think it is a lot considering we will only be at the place for 1hr max for the ceremony and only the witnesses, the person performing the ceremony and us will be there.
Please correct me if I’m wrong and give me your suggestion if you think $2500 is fine. Our budget just for the dinner is $4,000. My fiancé wanted to treat everybody. Since we decided to do something simple we are spending the most on the dinner.

That's so odd that they don't allow photos. Just a very strange policy.

Unfortunately, in the NYC area, $2500 for a site fee is really not that bad. When my husband and I had to scramble to find a ceremony site, we found a lot of places that charged far more than that, even for just the hour. (And, to be honest, you have to consider set up and break down as part of your site rental, so it's generally more than an hour.)

Take a look at the venues search page here on WW, and also on the Knot. NYC has a page devoted to the parks, and rules regarding weddings at the parks, as well.

Restaurants are going to be trickier. You need to decide on what kind of food, how far away from the ceremony you want to be, and what time of day. However, with such a small group, you may be able to find a place that has a private room to accommodate you.

Good luck!

View Quoted Comment They do allow photos, just not during the weekend and our wedding is on a weekend. There will be really no set up because its just us, the witnesses and the person performing the wedding, not the whole party is attending. Plus it is an outside park. That is why i thought that $2500 was a lot when they will not be doing anything just for us to be there and perform the ceremony for 1hr maybe less. As far as the restaurant we have that sort out, i didn't ask for a private room because its really only 20 of us. My FI and I are really not picky so a large table did it for us. Thank you so much for your advice Rebecca, will definitely look at The Knot.

Hey Claudia!

As Rebecca mentioned, you should check out what are the requirements for obtaining a permit for various parks in the city. You should definitely look into Central Park, I don't think there is a huge fee for a ceremony held there, but there is a lot of regulations that you must stick to.

Do you know what type of restaurant you would like to go to for your meal?

View Quoted Comment Hi Sinéad!


Will definitely do!. We decided to go to an american restaurant in the city. It specializes in steak and seafood. My family is a little picky, so we decided to go for something that will offer a little bit of everything

View Quoted Comment

That sounds great!