Finding an affordable venue!

For me, finding a venue was one of the most stressful parts of the wedding planning process. For the most part you cannot find a venue for less than $1,000. According to my research the average venue costs between $3,000 to $5,000. The first venue we went to tour and price (which shall remain nameless)  was very pretty in pictures. But when we got there I was so disappointed in the tacky decor and cheap looking ballroom, that wasn't my vision at all! So when the owner told me that a Sunday rental, light hors' devours with beer and wine for 70 people would cost over $7,000 I almost laughed. Our first response was "That is our entire budget!" To which he said "You won't be able to have a nice wedding for that amount of money." His reply seemed like a challenge to me so I went with it and thanks to him I had the most beautiful wedding ever!

An amazing resource for awesome and sometimes historic venues is your local parks and recreation department (yes like the TV show). My amazing sister in law lead me to this so I must give her credit (Kath you rock!). I live in Raleigh, North Carolina and we have amazing event venues trough our local parks and recreation department. 

Picture I snapped in February, 2012 when I booked the venue.

We got married at The Tucker House. We paid $100/hour and $20 per hour for 3 hours of set up time. Overall we spent less than $1,000 on our venue and it was beautiful. BOOM.

Dining room where we set up the dessert buffet and candy bar. February, 2012

Some of the venues on that site start at $30/hour (yes you read that correctly, $30 not $300 or $3,000)

That staircase! February, 2012

We got married on the front patio area of The Tucker House. We had a table for outside seating and our beverage station set up on the large front porch of the house. Inside, there are several rooms we set up with round tables that were provided by the venue (score!). There is also a grand piano, beautiful dining room, and a kitchen that we had full access to. If that isn't enough there is also an upstairs that the boys used to get ready for the wedding. And you know what upstairs means in a beautiful old house....STAIRS! The most amazing staircase for pictures you will ever see! The cherry on top of all of that, as if it could get any better is the 2nd floor balcony that we got to take pictures on!

On top of the balcony!


Thank you for reading, more to come!
Love, Anna