Stress and Money of Picking a Venue

If you’re getting married in a city that seems average to me, especially if that includes everything.


I think if you love it and your budget allows then you should do it!
My FH and I got a lot of flack from people in our family about how expensive our venue is but really it’s none of their business! You have to do what works for you! We have no regrets!

Depending on how many guests you are having that does sound about the average price for a venue with everything.

That doesn't sound too far off. If you broke that down into food, linens, chair rentals, space rental, server fees from individual vendors you would be looking at the same amount or more.


Plus sometimes the ease of booking one place that does almost everything is worth a little extra!
You mentioned that the bar isn't included, so you could have a cash bar or a toonie bar (guest pays $2 you pay the rest) to take a little financial pressure off of you. If there is desert provided with the meal you can save and get a smaller cake or fewer cupcakes (I've heard it's really unlikely to run out and really common to have cake left over). For decor you can save by buying second hand from Kijiji or Facebook yard sale pages. Then you can sell your stuff and make a little back too!

FH and I chose the venues we did with money in mind for sure. Our ceremony is taking place in FH's parent's back yard, so that was free, then for our reception we chose a spot that has never hosted a wedding before so they gave us a really good price and it allowed us to bring in our own vendors which kept costs within our spectrum. So sometimes it pays to go with somewhere that's not typically thought of as a wedding spot and it never hurts to ask! The venue even offered to pay for half our photographer if we allowed them to use some of our photos so they can start to advertise the space as wedding material. All in all, our wedding will cost us around $12,000-$15,000 which is exactly where we wanted to be.

That is about average when you go to the one stop venue type places tbh. I'm pretty sure the average price of a wedding in about $40,000..... If you go with a place that you can bring your own vendors, or is outside the city you can bring the price down - but I did this in MB and even though I cut a lot of expenses the wedding cost us just over $20,000 after tips and taxes.