These are good prices, but watch out for the food and beverage minimum. At some venues, you are unlikely to reach it if you have fewer than 100 people.
My daughter and her future husband are planning a wedding for about 50, and they had to eliminate many venues from consideration because they’re designed for weddings with 100 or more people and priced accordingly.
Well, in this case, they have two options for venue rooms and one only holds 70. This is just one wedding option among many within an hour drive of my home. It’s not super high end - I’d call it moderate, but definitely doable with a $5k budget, even with extras tacked on for service charges and taxes. My point is, you don’t have to go overboard for a wedding if you have reasonable expectations or do a lot of DIY. We’ve had posts here about wedding brunches, potlucks, and other options which can keep costs down. If you have the $ and want to spend it on a wedding, that’s great but I don’t think you have to fall into trap of spending tons of $$ if you don’t have it to have a fun and enjoyable wedding.
@doschicos … just dealt with a golf course for a banquet. While the price of dinner per person, didn’t seem that bad, the other items really jacked up the price: coffee & tea @$65/gallon, a Facility fee that covered setup, teardown, house linens, tables, chairs, china, glassware and flatware; if we wanted champagne flutes, that would have been an additional charge; if we wanted cake cutting and serving, it was $5/pp more; we could have brought our own wine in, but with a $25/bottle service charge. And yes, there was a minimum food and beverage charge. And finally, 9% sales tax, 22% service charge on top of it all.
I think one would be hard pressed to do a wedding for $5K for 50-100 people at a rented venue…
I think part of the key of an affordable reception budget is:
Absolutely.
To add to the extra charges mentioned by @gosmom above, there’s a special one for weddings – ceremony fees. If you want to have your ceremony at the same site as your reception, you’re going to pay for it. One venue that my daughter and her future husband toured charged $1500 for this privilege, and you had to rent the chairs on top of that. They ended up choosing a different venue with a much more reasonable (but still significant) fee (and free chairs).
Suggestion: when starting wedding/venue looking start a spreadsheet just like you might have done for the college search. 
Seriously! It’s a good way to compare perks/pros/cons/prices/conditions, etc.
Good advice about looking at details/hidden costs. Tea at $65/gal is a great example!
Some church halls do not allow pot luck wedding (I was surprised that it was not allowed at DD’s Catholic church hall, whereas in other places in the Diocese it would be allowed). However she knows a few Catholic caterers that offer competitive pricing and great food. Looking forward to her knowledge/friendships with vendors.
Hope DD learns from others in her city on the pitfalls for costs, and how to do the best on a budget - getting what she wants, along with the guest list which is above bare bones.
I found some of those “minimum” requirements at a few venues I looked up.
“Maximum number of guests is 175.”
and then a bit further down…“Minimum number of guests is 175”
Good info on the “hidden costs” and extras. Thanks.
Tea is over rated as a beverage.
Lots to think about. I hadn’t considered a sum for the wedding as counting towards what we can gift per year. I think we will have to talk about it, maybe offer to pay direct some of the expenses. I’m leaning towards having a conversation with my S to get an idea of what they are thinking. I know it’s not city hall but beyond that I don’t know. They live in our area but the bride is from another part of the state.
We have a good friend whose D is getting married next summer and I have been a part of her discussion. I think different parts of the country fees for venues vary widely. This young woman is reserving a space in a city park for the ceremony. Doesn’t include chairs almost $1000. A church social hall and outdoor space. Has a kitchen,includes tables, chairs and indoor dance floor $4500. You must use a licensed caterer and bartender per church rules. Includes NO parking. So she has spent $5500 and doesn’t have a morsel of food.
Another local park with a beautiful wedding venue- all outside so would need a tent if rain. Has BBQ pits, restrooms and parking and amazing views. $5000 includes no lighting.
Lions club with both indoor and outdoor space, tables and chairs $4000.
What are venue prices in other locales?
One of the nicest venues in my area IMO is around $5.5-7K depending on the date for the venue which includes a large white tent that can handle up to 180 guests. It is waterfront ocean view in 3 directions including lighthouse views. This is just for the site and tent with everything else extra. Sounds like a better deal than your area @mom60.
Public arts venue in our area – $3600 for ten hour rental. This included set-up and tear-down time, which couldn’t be done the day prior without paying another $3200. This included their standard tables and chairs. We cooked most of the food ourselves. Rental for heating cabinets, hot boxes to transport food, china, silverware, glasses, cooking/serving gear, linens – another $3300. Hired professional serving crew and bartender (required, even for wine only) – $1800. This was the only venue that didn’t require a licensed caterer.
Other public spaces in our county were at this price or higher. The cheapest catering we found was $35/pp at a BBQ place upcounty, and it would have been outdoors in August. As it turned out, it rained the entire day, so it was a good thing they decided against it.
Big kid saved a ton on hiring local technical college catering program students to provide food for the reception. Her friends baked a bunch of cupcakes that were arranged as a cake, little kid created a centerpiece for the cupcake tower, and the groom used his Mac to play music. Flowers came from a farmers’ market. The community center overlooking the sound cost $1,200 to rent for the evening (I think it is now double that), including tables etc. Some things were purchased, like tablecloths and certain decorations. It was a low budget wedding, but everyone had a fabulous time.
I don’t know how much my niece paid, but she was able to rent a shelter in a park in her small town for the entire weekend at the same price as one day. It was a building with a big cement floor and doors that opened ground to ceiling, like a firehouse. It had a kitchen. On Friday night they had a bbq, on Saturday got married in the field and then had a catered dinner. Lots of drinks, cakes (homemade). They had pinatas (bride and groom) that were really fun. Also had fire dancers, chinese lanterns, inside fun, outside fun. It was all very casual but still a wedding. I really doubt it was more than $5000 for everything.
Daughter’s wedding was last night. Every aspect of it had been planned by her and her husband and it was a dream come true for them. Something that my daughter did with her bridesmaids and maid of honor, which turned out really well, was to put no limits or constraints on the dresses they bought other than that they had to be formal evening attire in either a blue or silver color motif. The result was that each of them bought their own individual dress in a style and color pattern they liked and which would be something they could wear in the future. It really worked visually and they really appreciated not being locked into one particular style that might not be the best look for someone.
Has anyone ever looked into their college venues for weddings? Our D seems to be mentioning weddings recently. I was wondering if college venues are more or less expensive than other venues.
@MichaelNKat…so happy for your daughter and her new hubby! Sounds like just what they wanted. Congrats to all!
Like your D, my D put no constraints on what bridesmaids and maid/matron of honor wore other than a general color scene and each bought dresses of their own liking and were their own style
D1 is going to have the wedding at her college town. We originally started with maybe having it at the school, but soon realized there were a lot of rules - had to use the school’s caterer, when the reception had to end, etc. Her school is a large U, but we couldn’t find an indoor venue that’s big enough to accommodate number of people she wants. It looks like we may need to rent a tent, tables, chairs, china, glasswares, etc, and they all add up.
I just hosted an engagement party for D1 today in NYC. There were a lot more venues available, and net net it was cheaper to do it at an established wedding venue than trying to create an “unique venue.” The party was very nice, with great food/drinks, and I didn’t have to do anything (except paying for it).
My DD asked me how to trim wedding costs. I gave her these suggestions:
^^ I agree @oldfort that it can be cheaper to go with an established wedding venue. My daughter is getting married next month. She had to plan her wedding in just a couple months and didn’t have time to orchestrate some unique venue. Friends have done this and mentioned all the added hidden costs with the ‘cheap’ unique venues - you often end up having to rent everything ala carte through different companies and what looked like a cheap option at first can end up a lot more expensive.
My daughter is going to a fancy place, but they included so much into the per person price that we found this to be a much better value. And there was far less stress involved. (Planning a wedding in less than 3 months is stressful enough!)
My son got married at his University but opted against having the reception there because we had to use the school’s caterers. He’d eaten at that cafeteria enough times to know that he didn’t want them to cook his wedding dinner!
@soozievt, thank you! It really was an amazing weekend, from Friday’s rehearsal dinner to this morning’s brunch. Last night’s party, after a brief 20 minute ceremony, was filled with off the charts love, joy and energy. Because of the close relationship we have with the groom’s parents and because the "kids, who have worked professionally in the party event industry for more than 10 years, assumed 90% of the responsibility for the planning, this past year has been totally stress free in putting it all together and the party was just amazing.