Red flags when booking your venue🚩

If from the get go, they're pushing you to sign and throwing the "we're running out of dates" scare tactic on you, that's a major red flag.

If they won't show you certain areas during the tour, like the bridal suite or certain rooms you want to use, it suggests they have something to hide.

If they promise you the world, that they can do anything and everything, that's also another bad sign. Restrictions are in place usually because of costs, bylaws, insurance policies, or other legal liabilities. If they're telling you you can do whatever you want and they'll make it happen, it sounds shady and just a tactic to get you to sign. What's likely to happen is that 1) they don't deliver or 2) they won't go through proper channels to make things happen. We had one venue during our search tell us to ignore the menu and that they can create something at any price point. Throughout the tour, they kept referencing how we shouldn't worry and that they can do everything cheaper. That was a red flag for us.

Not so much a red flag but something you should keep in mind is whether they have exclusivity contracts with any vendor. If so, you're locking into using their exclusive vendors (likely at insane prices) or have to pay a fee to bring in outside vendors.

I would also look at how a particular venue handled the pandemic. Plenty of venues showed their true colours during the pandemic, not being flexible, taking people's money while not delivering, terrible customer service etc that's all documented by media and reviews. If they were willing to kick people during the worst of times, they won't be much better when it's normal times.