On average, couples spend anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 on their wedding venue. This price range includes additional fees, services, and hidden venue costs. While it’s romantic to get lost in the beauty, location, and ambiance of a venue, it’s crucial to stay focused on how the overall venue cost will factor into your wedding budget. So, let’s break down exactly how much wedding venues cost. Plus, share some money-saving tips.
No matter what your wedding venue budget, there's a place for you! Be upfront with venue owners about your budget and be sure to do your research ahead of time.
What Factors Impact Wedding Venue Costs?
There are many factors that go into a wedding venue’s cost. In some instances, venues can cover and handle logistics like catering, rentals, and event providing an event coordinator or planner. Additionally, your desired wedding arrangements and details can all impact the price. Here are some common factors that influence wedding venue cost:
Size of Reception Space: Some wedding venues like hotels, banquet halls, and specialized event spaces have different rooms (allotment of space) to offer you based upon your guest list. Naturally, the larger the square footage of their room offering, the higher up in price the venue can charge. The size of your dance floor or the arrangement of your seats can also affect how much space you need.
What The Wright House offers: We have two venues at our location both with gardens, Ballroom Garden hold 250 guest and Provencal Garden holds 175 guest. There is NO price difference in between the venues.
How Many People: Some venues charge a ‘per-head’ fee based upon the number of guests you have coming to your wedding. This cost can be in addition to the catering fee.
What The Wright House offers: Our packages are broken down by the amount of guest you decide to have at your event. Our first group is up to 75 guest, you can jump into the next range 76-125 or pay per person.
Catering: You may encounter a mandatory or optional fee for wedding catering. As catering is one of the largest contributors to the overall wedding budget, having a venue include this number in your price can cause the venue estimate to skyrocket over what you originally allocated.
What The Wright House offers: We have a package option that allows you to bring your own catering staff in or we have two other packages, (Emerald and Diamond) that has our preferred catering staff included in the price.
Outside Vendor Fees: If a venue doesn’t provide catering, or has it as an optional catering package, a service charge for outside vendors may apply. In addition to catering, using outside vendors for music, lighting, bartending, and more can rack up fees.
What The Wright House offers: We do not charge any fees to have outside vendors
Rentals: Rental equipment can also contribute to the overall venue cost. Rentals usually include chairs, tents, and tables. Rentals can also mean electricity and floral arrangements. Many event locations (like hotels, banquet hotels, houses of worship, and specialized event spaces) include rentals at a minimal and reasonable cost for their customers.
What The Wright House offers: We do not charge for rentals, our chairs, tables, linens and center pieces are already included in the venue rental price.
Location: Once you’ve narrowed down your wedding location, you can start looking for your perfect wedding venue. Wedding venues in a big city or near a major airport can cost significantly more than those venues outside of metropolitan locations. In addition to location, the popularity of the particular venue can also cause an increase in the overall price.
Day of The Week: As (almost) everyone is after a primetime weekend wedding, venues can often increase their price point to secure a couple that particular day of the week.
What The Wright House offers: We do give a price break to events that are scheduled Monday - Thursday, verses the weekends. However, the price is the same through out the entire year, there are no increases for more favorable dates or times of the season.
How To Save Money On A Wedding Venue
Weddings are expensive—save where you can. Fortunately, there are a few ways to minimize wedding venue costs.
Host the ceremony and reception in the same place. In addition to canceling out cost for transportation to and from the ceremony and reception, oftentimes venues will strike a deal with a couple to host both their ceremony and reception with them. This can be anything from a percentage off to a packaged deal with inside or outside vendors.
Throw a weekday wedding. Hosting a wedding on a Friday or Saturday is expensive—venues can charge a hefty premium for the demand. Instead, consider a weekday wedding. While less conventional (and sometimes less convenient), weekday weddings help you save a massive fee on the venue and give guests have a reason to celebrate on a weekday if they can make it.
Photographer: Ashtyn Nicole Photography
Content: www.zola.com