The Oblivious Bride – The Venue Search Begins

3 Written by jenny on May 17, 2010 – 5:00 am

Q:  What do you get when you have two MBA’s planning a wedding?
A:  A wedding plan with a mission statement.

The Mission-Driven Wedding

I’ve never pictured my perfect wedding.  I now know it will be a larger wedding, but beyond that I have no clue.  When Chris and I started talking about selecting venues, I realized there are thousands of options.  Would we want it to be at a winery?  A park?  A hotel?  A historical landmark?  Somewhere with a view?  Should it be in the city or outside the city?  All of these options sounded great, so how do we narrow it down?

Both my fiancé and I recently completed our graduate business school degrees and we often joke about b-school lingo that creeps into our day-to-day lives.

“Should we buy a new TV?”
“Well, this one is already a sunk cost. What is the ROI on a new TV?”

We decided to use our education to help us with our venue search.  Instead of jumping in the car to look at venues, we decided to brainstorm our wedding goals and strategy.  Only after that would we start thinking about tactics

We started by talking about our wedding goals.  At the end of the wedding, how would we measure it as a success?  We wanted to specify S.M.A.R.T. goals – that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely goals.  They are:

1. Each guest will walk away having made at least 5 new friends.
2. Guests would uniformly call the wedding fun and unique.
3. The wedding will be “ours” and we won’t let others take control of it.

With these goals in mind, we were able to outline our wedding venue strategy.  For example, if we want people to mingle and talk to each other, a sit-down dinner would not accomplish that.  Mingling is also easier when there is space to move around and explore.  That meant we’d prefer a venue with a mix of indoor and outdoor space or a venue with multiple rooms.  Our goals defined our venue strategy, which helped us narrow down our list.  We were finally ready to hit the road.

See it for Yourself

Like many other brides in California, my first venue resource was http://www.herecomestheguide.com.  With photos, 360 degree tours, and vital information like maximum capacity and catering options, Here Comes the Guide is a great site to filter venue options.  However, we realized quickly that you can’t trust the pictures online.  Most of these facilities hire professional photographers who are able to capture extremely flattering views of facilities.  When we actually arrived at sites and walked around for ourselves, we realized that there is often more to the story.

For example, we looked at a community center/park nearby and while the layout of the space was great, the landscaping was in need of a lot of work.  We also visited a museum with an amazing stained glass dome, but there were some fragile looking exhibits that were precariously situated in thoroughfares.  We also went to a gorgeous park in a nice secluded neighborhood only to discover there were far from enough parking spots for our large wedding.  The lesson learned – don’t fall in love with a venue before you go see it for yourself!

After visiting a handful of venues and going through our venue checklist, we were able to narrow it down to our favorite (to be revealed later!).  It fits our goals of being fun and unique, and it allows guests to move around multiple areas to mingle.  Now we need to figure out how we can do it all on our budget!

Next week:  The Budgeting Blues