Your wedding day is supposed to be one of those days you remember for the rest of your life.
However, you don’t want constant reminders of your big day to be the overwhelming amount of debt you’ve accumulated in paying it. The average wedding to date can run a person tens of thousands of dollars, and while it’s important to make your day special, it doesn’t always have to have a high price tag. There are ways to have a wedding venue that won’t break the bank.
From the moment I began planning my wedding, my husband and I knew that we would not spend more than what we could afford. As we sat down to figure out the wedding budget, we realized that the venue would be the most expensive thing on the list. Determined to spend wisely on our big day, we decided to find a venue that was within our budget. Here are a few ideas we came up with:
Community Centers
In our area, there are a lot of community centers. They are basically buildings where different events take place for the citizens within our community. The centers often hold the most events during the week, and therefore, weekends were pretty much available.
Many of the community centers have large rooms for entertaining and a kitchen area for prepping meals. Since we were residents of the community, many of the locations were willing to offer a discount. These buildings are often overlooked because they’re not your traditional wedding venue idea, but they cost a fraction of what a hall would charge, and the rooms are often just as spacious and picturesque as any other room.
Local Parks
If you’re looking for an outdoor wedding/reception, then why not consider a local park? In fact, it’s like killing two birds with one stone.
Parks are beautiful all year round and often have areas where you can take beautiful wedding pictures. One park near us had a gazebo which would have made for a beautiful backdrop. Many parks will only charge you a minimal fee to reserve the area you’re getting married in which, again, can be a lot cheaper than other outdoor venues.
Home/Yard
Another option we had was to get married in my mother-in-law’s backyard. She had a huge two-family home with a beautifully kept yard. If you have a large landscape, or someone in your family does, this would be a great place to have an intimate wedding.
What’s even better is that you don’t have to pay for the venue at all! This cuts costs immensely allowing you to spend the money on other things like decorations, tents or wedding attire.
Church/Chapel
We ended up deciding to choose a small, but quaint, church where my family pastor was. The church was an older building so it had all the beautiful features, stain windows, crown molding, wooden pews, the works…. They also had a downstairs area that could be rented.
Because my family was close to the pastor, we were able to get a reasonable discount. We had the ceremony upstairs and our reception was held downstairs. While it prevented the drinking of alcohol and playing of secular music, our families were not big drinkers, and we were able to find instrumentals that suited us just fine. There are some churches that own halls or buildings in the area that are separate from the actual church location. If you’re a member of a church, it may be worth asking about the costs.
These are just a few inexpensive, wedding venue ideas.
Sometimes, instead of looking at what a location is, take a look at what it can be. All of the above venue locations may not have been an option for you because of its overall look, but don’t forget the wonders that decorations and creative designs can’t have on a location!