How to Choose a Wedding Reception Site

Naturally the focus of anyone's wedding day appropriately needs to be placed on the exchanging of the vows that unite two people in marriage. But once the ceremony is over, people will be gathering and spending time celebrating those vows at some form of reception. If you want the reception to be enjoyable for all your guests and especially for the two of you, it's important to know how to choose a wedding reception site . With a plan in mind you can go through the process of choosing a wedding reception site smoothly and with excellent results.

1. Talk Over the key pieces of your reception with your fiance. Before you set off to look at a single country club or restaurant it is crucial to your search for you and your fiance to sit down alone, together, to discuss the key pieces of your wedding reception. Discussing and agreeing on the main aspects of your wedding reception can simplify your search from the beginning. Going to look at places when you really don't have an understanding of what it is that you want can be a colossal waste of time and can even bring on some pre-wedding blues.

With your fiance, talk about how many guests your reception gathering will include. Make sure to include all the members of your family and wedding party as well as other guests. You don't have to have all the names and addresses written down before you look for a site, but you do have to know whether you are looking for a place for 200 people or 75.

You'll also want to have some agreement on general location of the reception site. This may be connected to where your ceremony is to be held, another issue you may need to resolve before looking for a reception site. How about the style of your reception? Are you looking for something elegant, home style, contemporary or country? In what season of the year will your wedding reception be held? Knowing this can help you to visualize various places that you look at according to a particular season. Some places that look great in spring do not look quite so wonderful in fall. Agreeing on these facts before looking at reception sites can reduce the stress of the search considerably.

2. Discuss the financial issues Today wedding receptions can be extremely pricey gatherings. Knowing how to choose a wedding reception site means knowing how to work with your wedding reception budget. You may be looking at a traditional situation in which the family of the bride assumes the cost of the wedding. Possibly both families have agreed to share expenses. Or it may be that you and your fiance have determined to pay all the wedding expenses yourselves. No matter how the costs are to be absorbed, before you go off looking for a reception site, you and your fiance need to have a firm grip on what your wedding reception budget will permit.

No one especially likes to get down to the money matters involved in something as special as a wedding, but the reality is that at the end of the day someone will in fact be paying for the reception. Knowing what you have to work with up front, from whatever source, will help you to rule sites in or out as possibilities without any wasted time. One of the worst experiences when looking for a wedding reception site is to really fall in love with a spot only to go home and figure out that it is entirely out of your price range. Discussing finances in advance is a key step in knowing how to select a wedding reception site.

3. Review the possibilities Once you and your fiance have talked about the kind of reception you want in some detail and have a clear understanding of the financial resources you have to work with, you can move along to the challenge of the particular sites There are lots of sources that you can use to survey the possibilities. On line services can really reduce your search time, but you might also get an idea from browsing through the Yellow Pages or simply by talking to other young couples you trust who have been through the same process. You can also talk about receptions you have attended yourselves.

This initial search should allow you to consider a large number of possibilities and how they measure up to your reception wishes and financial resources. The only real limit to this initial phase of looking is your own stamina and the overall time frame you have to work with. At the end of this review of possibilities you should have a list of anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen sites that interest you.

4. Make appointments to visit selected sites Knowing how to choose a wedding reception site means knowing when its time to actually get out there and survey the possibilities. Web sites, advertisements , even the recommendation of friends cannot compare with physically putting yourself on location. You and your spouse to be should make an effort to visit or at least do a drive by of the 6-12 sites that you have chosen as possibilities.

This first visit should include a brief discussion with the house wedding coordinator or someone on staff who can go through some of the particulars with you and give you a brief tour of the facility. Remember your first visit to any of these sites is exactly that, a first visit. Do not make a final decision on a wedding site until you have given all your "possibilities" a fair shot at impressing you. When you have completed your review, you and your fiance need to let the dust settle and then discuss what you have seen and learned.

5. Dine at your final choices With any luck this process should allow you to narrow down your choices of a possible wedding reception site to two or three. Now it's time to really get serious. Knowing how to choose a wedding reception site means knowing how to make a decision. The wedding reception, regardless of who is funding it, is your reception. Within the financial limitations which you have, the final choice should be yours. So when you have narrowed down your search,you and your fiance should visit the "finalists" and eat a meal or have desert at each spot and talk more with the wedding coordinator discussing any concerns that may have arisen.

When you have completed your tours, talk to as many people as you want, but then go off and make up your own minds. Knowing how to choose a wedding reception site includes knowing that in the end the people that need to be the most pleased with the wedding reception site are the two of you.