Wedding and Reception Venue Questions

[Austin Lafferty]

Hi BP Community,

Newbie here, I haven't been on the site much so please forgive me if I'm posting this in the wrong spot or not asking the right questions. I'll cut to the chase though. I live in an area with a lot of 20 - 30 somethings; me being one myself. My sister, a couple years older than myself, has recently gotten engaged and has been looking for wedding and reception venues. She keeps telling me about the ludicrous prices for renting out these even simple wedding/reception venues. One night can start at $4,000 and work to upwards of $8,000 and she is one of three that venue has in just that weekend! I couldn't believe it. When you couple that with the fact that she pays for everything (the catering, the bar and drinks, the wedding and reception planning) the venue has almost no costs besides overhead of owning a building. So I do some quick research and find out that almost all of these places are booked for a year in advance. Why aren't people falling all over themselves to build these venues and cater to this market? What I would like to get out of this forum discussion is advice from someone that maybe runs a venue like this or has built one to tell me what I'm missing as far as costs or licensing.

Thanks Guys!

[Kelly Maguire]

I work in the wedding industry. The big limiting factor for wedding rentals is that most people want to have a wedding on a Saturday night, and there are only 52 of those in a year. Most weddings are concentrated in the spring/summer, so you end up with a much smaller number of dates to actually work with. For a higher end venue (the stuff in the $5000+ range) in my market the rental fee will also include cleaning, day-of planning/setup, and valet parking.

Sunday brunch weddings are starting to become increasingly popular for this exact reason. Everyone wants a pinterest-perfect wedding, but not everyone wants to shell out $4k just for the space.

The last puzzle piece to the price is that wedding parties can be some of the neediest customers to work with, and it's not like you're going to get a lot of repeat business. In fact, friends of the bridal party often won't want to rent your space specifically because they've already been there for a wedding.

It's still a viable market I think, but you have to realize you're not going to get that $5000 price tag 365 nights a year, or even 52.