Expensive venue - worth it? What's too expensive?

My rule is that if I (or someone else!) have to get into debt to afford it, it's too expensive! If you can afford it without resorting to loans or credit cards or borrowing elsewhere and you really love it, go for it... if you don't really love it then I'd think twice- three venues have either opened, re opened or been refurbished in our area in the two years we have been planning- two of them would have been serious contenders had we not already booked our venue WAY in advance- so if you don't absolutely adore it or can't really afford it, don't be disheartened- something else will come up!

Have you thought of extending your radius by 5 miles, or 'thinking outside the box' and looking at spaces that *could* host your wedding despite not being officially 'wedding venues'?

Oh, and another thought- have you asked the venue if that is the best price they can do? We nearly walked away from our venue because they had a 'minimum numbers' policy for a Saturday that we weren't planning to meet... I was so upset! Then my OH asked 'can you give us a minimum spend rather than minimum numbers?'

To be honest I was expecting a figure WAY out of our budget (hitting their min numbers would have put them out of reach so I assumed the min spend would too!) but we were very pleasantly surprised by their min spend figure.

The fact that we have actually spent nearly double what we planned to is of course entirely irrelevant ??

I'm too lazy to figure how much much that costs but ours was about £7K. It was the venue we wanted, we could afford it and it was the right choice for us. Only you know if you can afford it and it's worth spending the money on.

I would say though, ignore other people's opinions. It's your day and your budget. I've told very few people how much we paid because I couldn't face the arguments.

Thank you for your reply, it was really helpful, thank you! I didn't think of bartering - but it must be worth a shot? The venue charge appears to be the same all the way through and I am planning November so perhaps there can be something done to the venue charge? I sent an email to them after reading your reply to get confirmed prices and asked about flexibility so hopefully they can give some on price!

I really do love the venue and just don't want to alienate anyone from my plans and equally worried my parents will feel they need to help out more but that really wouldn't be the case!! Does it just get worse from here?!?! Haha.

Thank you.

Dreamscometrue2015 - thank you for your reply too. It works out roughly 10.5K for the venue in total which is more than I would normally pay but i guess for the venue i love - can you put a price on it?... But yes - i think i just will lie and tell them i got a deal! (but hopefully i do!! )

Its always worth asking what their best price is - I'm a November bride too and its considered low season so we have been able to take advantage of lower (although still pricey courtesy of the W word lol!) prices.

i think the expense of things is all relative to individuals - you two will know what you can afford, and whether something is worth getting into debt for. Families (and a lot of other people) will have plenty of opinions if given the audience so just do what I do and don't tell anyone. In my view unless I am asking someone else to foot the bill then its no one else's business what we're choosing to spend ?. Given everything wedding related seems to be more expensive than usual, maybe your family haven't had exposure to what these costs might be and are therefore slightly out of touch? That's definitely been the case with mine

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