When you’re getting married or planning a wedding, you’re faced with many difficult decisions. One of the most difficult being; where are you going to get married? The first question is always when are you getting married right? And now all your girlfriends, mother in law and friends are telling you how amazing their wedding was and how you should do the same. But before you decide, let’s go over some of the key benefits and things to look out for when you choose where to have your wedding because other than making sure you have the right husband, where you get married is the next most important question.
Without knowing which side is which (venue vs. tent) on the display above, which wedding sounds more appealing? If you’re saying to yourself that it’s obvious that the right side sounds better, than you might be interested in hosting a tent wedding. Let’s get straight into the details of both and we will use real life examples to help you truly understand the differences. Also, we’re going to break it down from start to finish with every step involved in getting married. Take a look.
Starting With Rehearsal
Venue Wedding-
• On average you’ll get 1 hour the night before your wedding to go over all the details that will make or break your ceremony.
Tent Wedding-
• Take as long as you want. And not only do you have unlimited time, this is one last chance to reminisce with friends and family the night before your wedding.
Customizing And Decorating
Venue Wedding-
• This is very limited at venues. And every venue is different. Hopefully you come fully prepared because you’ll either get 1 whole day or just a few hours to decorate your venue and it must be cleaned up the night before or the next day of your wedding.
Tent Wedding-
• You’re the boss. If you want cut outs of pink doves hanging from the ceiling than that’s what you do. You can decorate and customize your tent from start to finish. This allows you to really show your love story’s true identity. Be creative and get as decorative as you’d like.
Depositing And Reserving
Venue Wedding-
• Many venues require more up front cost because they have limited availability. Once you book your time slot, it’s tough to “unreserve that”. On average, venues require around 50% up front.
Tent Wedding-
• All tent companies are different but you’re likely to pay only 25% up front and the remaining balance before your wedding.
Your View
Venue Wedding-
• We had this happen once. A client was renting a tent from us but at a venue. They wanted the tent on top of a hill because it overlooked a beautiful pond. The owner of the property ended up putting a fence and small shed in the desired tent spot and completely changed the location of our install. You have no say in what happens to the property from the time of booking to the time of your event.
Tent Wedding-
• Your view is what you make it. If you have a beautiful view and the perfect location for a tent than that is the perfect spot. Nobody can chop trees down or put objects in the way to take away what you want on your wedding day. You’re the creator.
Choosing Your Vendors
Venue Wedding-
• Many venues (not all) have very strict rules on who you can and cannot have as your wedding vendors. Why? Well because they can potentially make commission off each booking. It is an unfair partnership that you have no control of.
Tent Wedding-
• This goes back to what was stated earlier, you are the boss. You choose every vendor you’d like. This allows you to pick what you want and not what you have to settle with. We have recommendations but would never force you to use one vendor over another.
Hidden Charges
Venue Wedding-
• We are being very transparent with how we describe a wedding venue because these are the struggles that brides actually deal with all the time. Just watch out when you reserve a “base package” because you’ll end up having 2x the responsibility for 2x the price as their client.
Tent Wedding-
• We are a very honest company. And will tell you straight up, sidewalls, fans, heaters, lights etc are all extra money. We have a set up and breakdown fee but that is all addressed up front. Our rules stay the same and there is nothing you won’t know up front or if you ask. For example, we have a credit card processing fee. You know this before you place your deposit, not after.
You Get What You Pay For
Venue Wedding-
• Let’s say that your potential venue can hold up to 200 people. Let’s say it is indoors only and has a curfew of say 10pm. If your guest list is only 100 people and in the beginning of fall where the weather is crisp, and you want to celebrate all night than why would you have to pay for the extra space, not the right space, and less time?
Tent Wedding-
• This isn’t the case with a tent wedding because you rent the items that match the size of your party. You don’t need to rent a tent too big or too small. You rent the tent that fits your needs and you keep it all weekend so there is no time limit.
Are We In Or Out?
Venue Wedding-
• If you find a venue that has both indoor and outdoor space than you’re going to pay a larger price because it is probably very nice. It would be nice if you could control whether you’re indoors or outdoors…. wait? Read the next paragraph.
Tent Wedding-
• This is probably the nicest part about a tent wedding. You are fully protected no matter what. You can leave your tent wide open to catch that crisp breeze or you can enclose it to block out any unwanted wind.
Ever Play The Sims?
Venue Wedding-
• Other than pictures online and an occasional walk through with the event coordinator, what you see is what you get. This is nice because it is limited planning involved but that’s just it… limited.
Tent Wedding-
• If you’ve ever played The Sims, you probably know that you can start with a piece of property and build your house just the way you’d like it. We offer 3D planning that can do something very similar to that. We can place a 3D layout directly onto your property using Google Maps.
There you have it. We have broken down just 9 factors that should be heavily considered when you’re choosing where to have your wedding. We are not knocking wedding venues at all because we actually provide our services for quite a few venues. However, we do have customers that deal with these struggles all of the time and it is our job to inform our potential clients what they’re getting into before they end up making some of the same mistakes others have and will make. We hope this helps you in your wedding planning process.
If you still have questions about what all is involved in planning a wedding than please request our full loaded wedding guide. Our wedding guide covers so many details such as:
• Planning Timeline
• 3 Simple Money Saving Tips
• Our Preferred Vendors that we work with
• And An Exclusive Offer
We appreciate you taking the time to learn about the differences between a venue wedding and tent wedding. Please share this article with anyone you know that would benefit from reading the details explained.
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