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!