Venue or "vision" first??

Neither. I would say, budget first. If what you envision or the venue you want is not within your budget, it becomes moot.

Otherwise, I'd say vision before venue. It's easier to find a venue to suit the plan you envision than to force a vision onto a venue that doesn't fit the mold.

I picked what was important first and worked from there. Vision can be tweaked.

Ie - love a photographer most, find out their availability.

I just wanted to get people together and have it look nice. But i wanted to get a lot of people together! so a venue large enough was key for me. Everyone is far flung, so i literally looked all over the province.

We picked a season, then a month. Then got the hall.

I dont think my budget was big enough for an actual vision though. I chose centerpieces and backdrop and napkin color, nothing too huge.

Like you said, you can make the country or city work, and it will look amazing!

Definitely Vision first. My fiancé and I always wanted something small and in the mountains.

But the stress of family and others pressuring us to do something bigger came and we decided to do something large, but after a few months of thinking about it and saving tons of money I started not being able to sleep at night once putting in estimates and getting some quotes back we ultimately talked and decided to go back to what we originally wanted to do which is a micro wedding in the mountains.

After that, everything just fell in place with the vision of us in the mountains. Even my wedding dress I was thinking what am I gonna love going through the mountains in with my husband taking photos.

I had an idea of what I wanted, and found a few venue options that would work well with that idea. We knew we wanted outdoor especially as our families are of different church backgrounds so wanted to keep it neutral in terms of not associated with any faith, and where we got engaged on a hike, outside seemed like the best option. Beyond that, we didn't have a lot of ideas, other than colours we like. We're not really having a set in stone theme, but when looking up wedding ideas, we found the dress code of "garden party attire" and we've been working on that kind of theme with light colours, summery fabrics, and floral designs, good for an outdoor wedding in August.

Now that we've chosen a venue, we have a better idea of what kinds of things would look good with the reception room and garden area outside. Thankfully it's pretty neutral, and will work with what we had in mind. A little bit more formal perhaps, but that can be nice too even if the original plan was a bit more rustic.

I didn't have a "vision" persay. My FH wanted an outdoor ceremony. After looking at a couple of places, that vision of his went out the window. Indoor was not to his liking. So we looked at another venue, where wverything would be indoors. After going to view it, we both saw the "vision" and we were in love.

Planning a wedding, I had a rustic laid back vision and then at the last minute before giving up on my wedding I found the perfect venue before seeing it in person, once my FH and I went and saw it, it was locked in, that my vision was coming to life, my FH fell in love with the laid-back feel.

Defiantly venue came first. I knew from a very young age I wanted to get married at this one winery. I told my now husband this is where I wanted to get married and he was completely on board from day one!