Venues
The questions to ask before you book a venue
A venue viewing is a sales meeting conducted in a beautiful room, and it is very easy to leave one having asked nothing that would change your mind. The questions that matter are unglamorous, they are about money, timing and what happens when things go wrong, and almost none of them come up unprompted.
What follows is the list, grouped so it can be worked through in order, with a note on what a good answer sounds like and which answers should end the conversation.
Money, asked properly
Start here, because everything else is negotiable and this is not. Ask for the total for your date, at your guest count, with every excluded line named. The phrase to use is “what is not in this figure”, and a venue that runs weddings well will have the list ready.
The specific items to name, because they are the usual exclusions: corkage, cake-cutting, staff overtime past a stated hour, licence extension, chair covers and linen, cleaning and waste, security, supplier meals, and the damage deposit and what forfeits it.
Then ask how the price changes. What is the deposit, when are the stage payments due, and what happens to the price if your numbers fall. Where there is a minimum spend, ask directly whether it reduces with the guest count, because the answer is usually no and that is the single most expensive surprise in venue contracting.
The date questions
Ask what the same package costs on a Friday, a Sunday and in the off-season. The gap is frequently a third or more, and it is the largest saving available to anyone with flexibility. Ask also whether there is another wedding on the same day or the day before, because a venue turning around from a Friday wedding has less time for your setup than it appears.
Time, which is where the day is won or lost
Ask what time you get access, and what time you must be out. Then ask the same about your suppliers, because florists and bands frequently need earlier access than the couple do, and a venue that opens at eleven has just decided your flowers arrive at eleven.
Ask what time the bar closes, what time music must stop, and whether those two are the same. Ask what time guests must leave the site. And ask, specifically, how long a room turnaround takes and who does it, because that number governs whether your running order is possible at all.
Confirm the ceremony room is approved
Approval for civil ceremonies attaches to named rooms rather than to the venue, and it is worth checking the official position rather than taking a description at the viewing.
Read the ceremony rulesThe approach by budget
Ask the exclusion questions first
On a tight budget the exclusions matter more than the headline, because they are what turns an affordable venue into an unaffordable one after the deposit is paid.
Ask whether you may bring your own alcohol and what the corkage is per bottle. Then do the arithmetic on the spot: corkage plus your wine, against their list price. It frequently does not save what people assume.
Ask whether external caterers are permitted, and whether there is a fee or an approved list. A venue that requires its own catering has effectively set your per-head cost, whatever the hire fee says.
Ask the operational questions
At mid budget you are buying competence as much as a room, so ask about how the day is run. Who is the named coordinator on the day, and are they there for the whole event. How many staff are on, and how many are behind the bar at the peaks.
Ask what happens if a supplier fails to arrive, and what the venue has in place for a power failure, because both happen and the answer tells you how experienced the operation is.
Ask to speak to the person who will actually be running your day, rather than the person selling it to you. A venue that arranges that readily is one worth booking.
Ask what you are allowed to change
With a larger budget the constraint stops being money and becomes permission. Ask what may be fixed to the walls and ceilings, whether candles are allowed and in what form, whether the furniture may be removed and stored, and whether a different layout to their standard one is possible.
Ask about noise limits, and specifically whether there is a sound limiter and at what level it is set. A limiter that cuts the power to a band mid-set is a known and unpleasant surprise, and it is entirely knowable in advance.
Ask about exclusive use, what it costs and what it actually covers, because at some venues it excludes the grounds, the accommodation or the following morning.
What actually makes the difference
- “What is not in this figure.” One question, asked early, that prevents most of the financial surprises in venue contracting.
- Whether a minimum spend falls with the guest count. It usually does not, and that is the difference between flexibility and a bill for wine nobody drank.
- Access times for suppliers, not just for you. Your florist’s access time is the one that decides what the room looks like.
- The sound limiter and its level. It is the most common cause of a band being cut short, and it is written down somewhere before you book.
- Meeting the person who will run the day. The sales conversation and the operational one are different conversations with different people.
Common mistakes
Asking about the price and not about the exclusions
The headline figure is the thing being sold, so it is the thing that gets discussed, and the excluded lines are individually small and collectively large.
Instead: ask for the excluded list in writing and add it up before comparing two venues.
Taking a verbal answer on a restriction
Candles, fixings, confetti, external suppliers and finish times are all answered helpfully at a viewing and governed by a document nobody has read.
Instead: ask for the supplier pack or house rules and read them before signing.
Not asking who else is on site
Hotels and larger venues run several events, and a second wedding, a conference or a bar open to the public changes your day materially.
Instead: ask what else is booked on your date and the day before, and get the answer in the contract if it matters.
Signing without reading the cancellation terms
They are the least interesting part of the document and the only part that matters if anything goes wrong.
Instead: read what happens if you cancel, if they cancel and if the date has to move, and check it against your insurance.
Viewing once, in summer, at midday
It is when venues look their best and when nothing about the evening, the lighting or the weather plan is visible.
Instead: go back a second time, later in the day, before paying anything substantial.
The answers that should end the conversation
Three responses are worth treating as a decision rather than a detail. “We would just move everyone inside”, offered without a plan or a capacity figure, means the wet-weather contingency has never been worked out. “We will confirm that nearer the time”, about access, finish times or exclusions, means those things are not yours to rely on. And any reluctance to put an answer in writing means the answer is not the one you were given.
None of these makes a venue a bad venue. They make it a venue that has not been asked before, and the questions are still worth asking, because the answers are what you will be living with on the day.