Deciding on a Venue

Did you make your venue choice and everything you wanted?

If you find a venue you and your fiancé both love- I wouldn't wait too long on booking it as the venue is probably the hardest part of the wedding to book. Just ensure you read a TON of reviews on the venue ( look all over the internet for reviews- trust me ) and then go for it if you are satisfied. We booked our venue 2 years out!

IMO this is the most important vendor to book- do it first!!!!

Decide what type of wedding you want, what city and the estimated guest list then look for venues that can accommodate. We booked a lot of our vendors last year and they were already filling up for 2023, many of the ones we connected with were already booked on our wedding date.

All I know is that 2023 is supposed to be a crazy year for weddings. More so than what it has been so far this year.

Wedding season 2022 were for a lot of brides who has to postpone from 2020 and 2021. Now think of all the people who have gotten engaged over those two years. Thousands. Now we are half way through 2022 and so many more people got engaged this year. And they are all looking for venues to get married at next year. I know for the popular venues in Edmonton and area that in 2021 they were already fully booked for 2022 and had minimal dates available for 2023 ( like 3 Fridays and all Saturdays were booked already) I checked these places out in October of 2021. So I could not imagine what it looks like now. I suggest the sooner the better.

I also don't think the coordinator used it as a scare tactic, more so that they legitimately had more viewings. I went to viewings where they had 2 other couples checking out the place.

I agree with Liberty that there are alot of backlogged wedding coming up in 2023 (and rest of 2022) so locking down a venue/date could be something you need to consider sooner than later if you are looking for a specific time.

For us, we got engaged late 2021 and wanted to do a fall 2022 wedding. We found a venue we liked and when asking about availability dates, they didn't have a whole lot to choose from so that helped us push selecting a date. We truthfully didn't view a whole lot, mostly because alot where out of our budget or didn't provide things we needed.

If anything, if there are venues you are leaning towards, I'd ask for the availability dates for fall next year. This can give you a scope of how busy they are and if you need to make a decision sooner than later.

I looked for months, everything was expensive and I was getting discouraged. I had decided on an air bnb and just having lose family and friends. One day I was at work and I googled cheap venues. I clicked on one, messaged them and she had me booked for a viewing the next day, My FH and I went alone and both fell in love with it. They do it all, catering, decorations, clean up, florals, officiant, cake, you name it they do it all for an amazing deal. So my guest list of 15 became 45 and all I can picture is the day, it is so perfect and matches both our personalities.