By Becky Rogers, WeddingVenueMap.com

    Congratulations! You’re engaged and now you’re on the hunt for your dream wedding venue on a budget. Maybe you’ve already started with the help of family and friends or you’ve done some deep diving on the internet to help you figure what the perfect ceremony and reception space look like to celebrate your love.

Rachel Doyle Photography | Azalea Lodge at Mead Botanical Gardens

Before You Start Searching

    Information you need to get started

There are a few things you and your partner will need to discuss before beginning your search for that perfect wedding venue. First you’ll need to decide what time of year you plan to get married or if there’s a special date or day of the week that you plan to tie the knot on. 

It’s important to know so that you don’t waste your time falling in love with a venue that already has the date you’re set on reserved for another couple. If you have no preference of date or day of the week, it’s good to have a month or two you’d prefer to hold your wedding.

Live Happy Studio | Venue on the Lake

The second thing that’s important to know before searching for a venue is the guest count, making a list of people you absolutely couldn’t have that special day without and another list with everyone you’d like to invite including those must have guests. When you start looking for venues, you’ll want to look for venues that have the capacity to hold the entire guest list.

The third, most important, discussion you will need to have with your fiancé before searching officially begins, is the budget. This should be the budget for the entire wedding, once you have that we recommend having a consultation with a local professional wedding planner to get a better idea of what your budget will get you. 

It’s hard to know what things cost and how far your budget will actually reach. Especially in terms of the amount you really have for the venue rental and catering since this is the largest portion of your budget.

Dreamscape Photography | Altamonte Chapel

    Do you know what you’re looking for?

Before you begin searching for local wedding venues on a budget, you should know the overall vision for the entire location as well as the ceremony, photograph areas, and reception spaces. This is the time where you might decide if you like barns, ballrooms, resorts, beaches, or any other style wedding venues. 

Along with the style, you should decide if outdoors/indoors matters to you for either ceremony or reception space and which you would prefer for these.

Lori Barbely Photography | Trellis 925

Keeping Track of The Venues You’ll See

Chances are, when you’re looking at venues with similar styles it can be hard to remember which included specific features, what their prices were, and what stood out the most to you and your partner. 

To avoid getting confused or overwhelmed, create a system that works best for you to keep track of the venues, something such as a notebook, word document, spreadsheet, or anything else that helps you remember key findings. 

Some of the items you should include would be:

• Name
• Price for weekdays (with tax and service charges included)
• Price for Friday & Sunday (with tax and service charges included)
• Price for Saturday (with tax and service charges included)
• Hours allotted for rental
• Website (to easily find their gallery and information again)

With this list, there are plenty of other amenities or features that may stand out as important when searching and you may want to add those to the system as well.

Captured by Elle | Art & History Museums Maitland

Beginning Steps to Finding Your Dream Wedding Venue

Venue Budget

After all of the preliminary work is done and you’ve worked with a local planner or resource to figure out the breakdown of wedding costs in your area, you should have a better understanding of what each of those vendors costs and you can determine the realistic amount you have to spend on just the reception and ceremony venue.

Jennifer Nicole Photography | Ever After Farms

Resources in your area

Finding the perfect wedding venue on a budget can be hard to sort through all of the venues that don’t fit for you. Luckily there are free resources for engaged couples, such as ours i n Central Florida, that can help to narrow down the list for you to save time without sorting through all of those wedding venues yourself. 

The Wedding Venue Map is a print and online resource for engaged couples to locate and search through over 400 Central Florida wedding venues with over 40 different ways to filter through them. Our online venue search allows you to find the style, price range, ceremony and reception settings, as well as other unique settings that fit your venue vision the best.

Live Happy Studio | Bridle Oaks Barn

These kinds of resources will help you do preliminary searching to discover more of the things you like or don’t like about venues and to discover the venues you eventually want to tour in person. 

Be sure during this time to keep track of any venues that stand out to you and any of the information that will be helpful later in narrowing down the wedding venues that will be the best considerations.

Jennifer Nicole Photography | Field Manor

Narrowing Venues Down

Considering The Comparisons

At this point, you should have a list compiled of the venues that have fit your style, ceremony and reception requirements, and overall vision. The next step to narrowing your list into your top favorites that you’ll schedule tours with is to eliminate based on price range.

If you’re working to find a wedding venue on a budget, then the cost of the rental will need to be an important factor in determining those to move lower on the list. From here sort your list by the top picks based on the online research you’ve already done.

Captured by Elle | Bending Branch Ranch

Scheduling a Tour and Making The Most Out of It

Taking the time to schedule a tour is significant to deciding on a wedding venue, it gives you the opportunity to see the entire place including spaces that might not be easily seen during research.

Start with a few tours of the top 4-5 venues on your list, take the tours and if by some chance you’re not in love with any of them you can head to the next ones on the rest of your list.

Dreamscape Photography | The Delamater House

Questions to Ask

During your time on the tour, chances are you’ll have questions about the property itself, but there are some important questions you should be asking if you’re looking for that wedding venue on a budget. Knowing if they require specific vendors, especially catering company limitations, can affect whether or not it still fits your budget.

Other factors to consider might be how many hours are allotted on the day of, what spaces you’re free to use during your wedding, and if there are tables and chairs included in the rental if so what they look like. If you’re planning to have an outdoor ceremony around the time the sun would begin to set, a crucial question to ask is where the sun sets on their property.

Write down any other questions you might have for each specific venue, no matter how small, these are questions that may have answers to help in making your final decision.

Live Happy Studio | Orlando Science Center

Deciding

After you’ve gone on every wedding venue tour you and your fiancé wanted to see in person, there should be a relatively clear pick of which one or two venues stood out most. There might be an obvious fit for your vision and budget but if you’ve fallen in love with a space slightly out of your budget on the date you chose, there are ways to see if you can make it work without increasing the budget. 

Considering another day of the week rather than just Saturday like Friday or Sunday or even a weekday. Consider narrowing the guest list even further to the people that truly are the most important part of your wedding day may help your dream venue fit your budget.

If you have trouble deciding what would be the best fit for your perfect wedding day, this is where a local wedding professional or your wedding planner can provide those well informed suggestions. The Wedding Venue Map team is also always available to help engaged couples find that perfect wedding venue in the Central Florida area.

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