Planning a wedding is of course a thrilling and busy
time. There are loads of exciting
decisions to be made; from wedding invitation design, to that all important
dress. However, before you move onto
these tasks, you must first decide on an appropriate venue for your wedding
reception and possibly the ceremony, if you are not planning on getting married
in a Church. So what factors should you
be considering when shortlisting wedding venues?
Size of the party
A good starting point for your venue selection is to work
out how many guests you plan to invite.
You should of course write down two lists; one for the day guests and
one for those that will be hopefully attending the evening celebrations. The secret when considering room size of
venues is to find the right balance; the space must be large enough for all the
guests to comfortably fit in, but not so big that it detracts from the atmosphere. I’m sure we have all been to weddings where
the evening celebration never seems to get going because the room is simply too
big for the number of guests.
Location, location, location
The modern world is much smaller than it used to be and it
is likely that you will have friends and family member attending that do not
live locally. It may even be that you or
your partner no longer lives in their home town or city and that you have a
large number of guests that will be travelling a long distance in order to
attend your wedding. Try to cater for
these guests by looking at venues that are well connected to the various travel
networks. Ideally the wedding venue will also
have the capacity to offer accommodation to guests to make things simpler for
them.
The right setting
Dash! Crash! Flash!
All newly married couples will tell you that their wedding day flew
by. After months and maybe even years of
planning; it is over. In order to relive
your memories in the coming years you will of course have your wedding
photographs. Ideally this will involve
the bride looking stunningly beautiful and the groom dashingly handsome - all
framed by an exquisite setting. Take
some time to visit the venues on your list and have a good walk around the
grounds to see if they are suitable. A
well maintained garden in which to stage shots will make the photographer’s job
easier and also remove the need to rush to a more suitable location.
Level of service
Every little girl dreams of being a princess and on her
wedding day a bride is finally given the chance to live that dream. And she doesn’t want to share the limelight
with anyone else! So be sure to check
that each venue on your list will only be hosting your wedding on that
day. Some venues will host multiple
events on the same day, which of course opens up the chance that guests will
mix and bride’s might even bump into each other.
Considering food
The last, but by no means least, issue to consider is the
quality of the food that will be served at the venue. The wedding feast tends to be the most talked
about detail of any wedding – after the bride’s dress of course. Having a look at the menu is of course a must. Where there are some exotic options on offer,
it usually indicates that the head chef is both experienced in a variety of
cooking styles and confident enough to deliver.
A good tip can be to arrange a tasting day and then order some of the
more complicated dishes. If the cooking
team can handle them then the less complicated dishes shouldn't be a
problem. You should also question the
staff as to where the ingredients are sourced from. Ingredients that are from local suppliers
will of course mean that the food is fresher and increase the chances of a meal
to remember. 
Matt Barnes is a 23 year old marketer, copywriter and general troubleshooter for the Wentbridge House Hotel in West Yorkshire. Outside of ensuring guests have their perfect stay, Matt loves going the gym and working on his car.