Important Questions to Ask Your Vendors Part 1: Venue Questions

Planning a wedding can and typically is SUPER stressful, especially if you are a DIY bride or a couple planning your own wedding (without a wedding planner).To keep you and your loved ones at ease it is important to make a list of what you and your future spouse want or would like to have at your wedding/reception.We started by making a generic list of things we thought would be cool or nice to have to add a special touch of personalization to our day.  From there we priced out our favorite things to determine if they would work for our budget.  If they didn’t work, we reassessed the budget and list of “must haves” to see if we could make it work or if it was something that we could live without.  After a few rough drafts and much discussion we were able to finalize the list and determine what we needed/wanted for our big day.

Having a “picture” in mind of how you see your wedding and reception really helped us understand what we needed to ask each of our vendors when negotiating a price or talking about the services they provide. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind when talking to your key vendors.  I’ve broken these questions down into three parts; Venue, DJ, and Photographers for you J This post will focus on  just venue questions!

Venue Questions

Your venue will be the biggest decision you make while planning your wedding and will therefore require the most “customization” or questions to be asked when making a decision.

1. What is included in the cost of dinner?-  Most times when you request information from a venue they will provide you will the cost of a buffet style and seated dinner along with a description or sample menu.  Although this may seem like it will cover what you need it is important to ask what the price per person includes.  For example does the cost per person include:

• Open bar?
• Dessert/cake/cake cutting?
• Champagne toast?
• Linens? (table/napkin/chair covers)
• Place settings?
• Coffee/tea?

Many of these things may seem silly but it is important to clarify (READ THE SMALL PRINT) before jumping into a venue that charges you per fork placed on the tables. (This happens I’m NOT kidding!)

2. How will the room be set up?-  This may seem unimportant but knowing how the reception room will be set will allow you to plan seating arrangements and activities throughout the night.  One venue we looked at had the dance floor on the right side of the room which made the table arrangements very tight and awkward for those that were seated on far side of the room to get up and dance.  Guests would have had to walk between 5 rows of table to get to the dance floor…how annoying?!  Flow and room set up are also extremely important when planning a buffet style dinner.  You don’t want to crowd the buffet area with guest tables and you don’t want the line to be too close to those sitting either.  That’s always appetizing to have someone’s hind-end over shoulder while trying to enjoy dinner…mmm delicious.

Knowing how your reception hall/room will be set up will also make things easier on your other vendors as well.  Your DJ, photo booth, cake baker, and possibly your photographer will want to know where they can set up and what the overall layout of the room is so that they can make deliveries and such.

3. How many hours are included in the room rental?-  This is a GREAT question that often gets overlooked.  The typical reception location rents their ballrooms for about 4-5 hours at a time, however this is not the case for all venues.  Our venue permits unlimited time in the ballroom but would prefer us to have things wrapped up by 2am to allow the staff to go home (2am!? There’s no way I’LL make it to 2am!..geez) Knowing how long you have to rent the room will make decisions like what time to serve dinner, cake, coffee, etc. easier for you. You can plan to space things out so that guest s are not starving by the end of the night.  You can also determine how long you will need to book your DJ and photographer for.  Knowing your time frame can also help you plan out the entire day’s schedule as well. If you have the room for 5 hours, you’ll have to determine which 5 hours those will be and from there determine ceremony, and cocktail hour times (on a side note, it may be good to ask where cocktail hour will be held, if it’s in the same room, is that hour deducted from the overall rental time?).

4. Is insurance required?- Some venues will require your third party vendors to have insurance to cover damage, loss, or injury in case of fire or other “natural disaster” or emergency. It is important o know what your venue needs in order to allow your other vendors to do their jobs effectively and without problems.  You don’t want to book a third part vendor and realize they don’t meet the requirements that your venue has established L.  In some cases, the venue you choose may have a list of vendors they have worked with in the past.  This is a great resource and may be a great place to start looking for a DJ, photographer, or even  wedding officiants.

5. Last but not least; Will there be a wedding coordinator present on the day of the event?  Some venues will provide you with wedding coordinators throughout the planning process and will typically have a representative on staff on the day of your wedding.  However, it is important to realize not all venues are the same.  If your venue does not offer a wedding coordinator, try to negotiate one into the venue price.  Having someone there on your day to handle the small and sometimes big problems, will alleviate a lot of stress on you and your guests.  You don’t want to have to worry about how your gifts/cards or seating arrangements will be handled. You’re there to get married not worry about the tiny details.  If you can’t get a wedding coordinator, try asking a friend or family member to help “put out any fires” on the day of so that you can enjoy yourself.

What do you think? Did I forget anything?