Wedding venues on a budget

summerday

Hello,

I am confused over how venues are priced. It seems that some of them have a room hire fee, some don't (but those ones often ask that you pay for 2 lots of meals), some let you supply your own drinks and may/ may not charge corkage, some let you use your own catering company for food, others don't...I am finding it all so hard to get my haead around as I have never been involved in any wedding planning before.

I have seen one nice venue that says they let you supply your own food and drink and don't charge corkage, should I expect that they will charge a huge fee for room hire to compensate?

I guess I am really nervous about contacting places to look round etc as I don't want to look a real cheapskate but our budget is really small and I don't want people making me to feel a real cheapskate when it comes to talking about the price and giving the message that we are on a tight budget. We are thinking we would like a wedding late in the day at a licenced venue, then just have 1 meal (probably a buffet). We would supply drinks for the toast but otherwise expect guests to buy their own at the bar. Then have disco after.

Can anyone tell me the rough costings of their own venue, especially anyone who has chosen to do things a similar way to we are thinking. And any other handy tips I would appreciate.

Many thanks

lisa_75

It all depends on what type of venue you are after. Most people I know on a very tight budget hire a room at a working mans club/labour club and either do the buffet themselves or hire a company to do the food. The venue will charge a fee for the room and possibly then charge for bar staff, this will range from £50 -£250 depending on the size of room.

What type of venue were you thinking of? Would a room in local church club/ labour club be suitable or were you thinking of something more upmarket?

jyonda

Last year we found an organic farm which is run as a community project for schools etc. who were looking to hire out their facilities for weddings on the weekends. Their rates were fantastic but due to our 2nd daughter being born we decided to put the wedding off till next year and finally went down to Somerset and visited them this summer. By this time they had gotten completely wise to the wedding game and decided to tripple their rates! So we won't be holding it there now but the point is that you can find places who have facilities but don't do weddings as their normal form of income or are just starting out. If you do find somewhere book it straight away before the pound signs start flashing in their eyes!

summerday

Thanks for your quick reply. I suppose if it was a venue where we weren't having to pay for sit down meals etc we could pay 500 pounds or so, and we would find a nice but good value caterer to sort out buffet food. Good point about bar staff, hadn't thought of that.

The venue I have see but got no price details of is a quaint, old-fashioned hall, one of the reasons I like it is because the room is fairly small and because we wouldn't have more than about 40 guests I don't want to go somewhere with a huge room that would feel really empty. But the venue looks beautiful and has huge, lovely gardens so I have no idea if it's way out of our price range or not yet.

lisa_75

saraht wrote:

Thanks for your quick reply. I suppose if it was a venue where we weren't having to pay for sit down meals etc we could pay 500 pounds or so, and we would find a nice but good value caterer to sort out buffet food. Good point about bar staff, hadn't thought of that.

The venue I have see but got no price details of is a quaint, old-fashioned hall, one of the reasons I like it is because the room is fairly small and because we wouldn't have more than about 40 guests I don't want to go somewhere with a huge room that would feel really empty. But the venue looks beautiful and has huge, lovely gardens so I have no idea if it's way out of our price range or not yet.

Honestly, I would not worry. Just give them a call and ask them the cost of room hire. It is a question they will get all the time. Then if it is your price range you can go and look round.

If you have £500 for room hire alone that should get you somewhere very nice.

JenIttels

It's all so tough isn't it, you're definately not the first to be bamboozled by it!

One other thing to throw into the pot is that I've heard some of the cheaper places sometimes jack up their bar prices at the event to compensate for the cheaper room hire cost. Something you might want to be wary of if you're also inviting people who are MSEs!

Lots of luck

PS Try not to be too nervous. It's their job to make as much money as possible. It's your job to make sure you get the best value and the venues know that too!

inkie

Don't mention its a wedding at all - just a party -they don't need to know anything different - you can take all the 'wedding' stuff along, and not pay over the odds. Or why not book a 'bar meal' in a private room in a nice pub - that is in effect what most wedding receptions are.

Becles

We got married on a budget.

The wedding ceremony was at 4pm, and we all had a sit down meal about 6pm. The hotel provided a free disco for all the guests, so we just joined in with that rather than having our own evening entertainment. We provided enough drink for a couple of glasses of still wine and a glass of sparkling wine each during the meal, and people bought their own drinks in the evening.

It worked really well. It mean I had the morning just to relax, then loads of time to get ready in the afternoon.

newlywed

We found lots would only allow you to use their caterers, only allow their bar staff etc etc. Some costs were horrendous, £1,500 for a room that would only hold 80 and then you had to use their caterers where a light finger buffet (as in hardly any food) cost about £20 a head!! :eek:

We hired a village hall just outside the city we live in (for about £200 for the whole day). That way we could provide our own alcohol for everyone (day trip to France style - beer and red/white wine only), convince friends to help dish drinks out, provide our own food, decorate it how we wanted, with a park right outside the hall for photo's and kids etc, and just had to post keys back through the letterbox afterwards!!

Edit: we looked at some private schools that hired rooms out for weddings too.

Just ring, or else e-mail. If the price is huge just say ok thanks, we're just gathering the information at the moment and if we want to view the hall, who do we contact? Job done. Nothing about your budget. No-one expects you to choose the first place you ring!!!

We got married at 3 pm and so no-one would expect two meals. We didn't do "evening invites" so only one lot of invites and just a huge buffet.

yellowlawn

My local Masonic Hall is very reasonably priced for events like this. If you want I can get some prices together for you?

houndour

Hi,

We had the meal and evening buffet, so not what you're after, but we did look at a lot of different venues. And the prices and conditions vary so much.

Don't be scared to phone and ask for prices....write a huge list of all the venues you can think of in the area you want to get married and phone or email them all and simply ask for a brochure and price list. This way, when you get the info in the post you can quickly eliminate the ones over budget without taking the time to visit.

A great site is https://www.hitched.co.uk. The forum on there is fantastic and although the girls can sometimes get a bit fiesty, there is a wealth of information and also lots of other people doing weddings on a budget...

Hope that helps.
Sam