Managing a wedding venue takes major skill. Mastering the art of venue organizing is one of the hardest aspects of the job. People want to know that they’ve picked the exact right place for their special day.
How do they know they’ve picked the right venue? They usually have 101 questions ready up their sleeves to ask you. So you’d best be prepared with a heap of knowledgeable answers to impress your potential clients.
In this article, we have compiled a guideline that offers the most common questions people ask any wedding venue before booking. Be prepared to provide thought-through answers.
Why Your Wedding Venue Matters
As a wedding venue manager, you need to understand that finding the perfect wedding venue can be tricky.
Couples may be tired and frustrated from long, unsuccessful searches when they arrive at your venue. From preconceived ideas about what they want to small budgets with big aspirations, to minimal guidelines, sourcing the dream wedding venue comes with its hurdles.
This is where your job as a wedding venue manager comes in. You should aim to have answered their questions before they ask them. Or, at the least, be prepared for all the types of questions to ask wedding venues before booking.
We know, we know: being prepared for all the questions to ask a wedding venue before booking can be seriously overwhelming.
But by thoroughly planning beforehand, you ensure that your client’s special day runs as smoothly and as magically as possible.
Common Questions to Prepare For as a Wedding Venue
1. When Is Your Venue Available?
Sigh. One of the first wedding venue questions that gets asked is about availability. Before you even begin to jump into the serious questions, you need to discuss with your client if your venue is available for use.
At this point, hopefully, your client will know what season they want their wedding to be. Spring and summer are the most popular times to host a wedding ceremony. Keep this in mind, as your venue will probably be most busy during these seasons.
You should also be aware of how many weddings your venue hosts in a day. Some venues host multiple weddings a day, whereas some host one over a few days! As a venue manager, you need to think about the venue offer you can provide on any specific day.
Tips to Discuss With Your Potential Clients
- Have a final meeting with your client to secure the location for the wedding day if your venue has multiple options.
- Discuss a payment schedule going forward. If your client has a wedding budget, as a venue manager you need to ensure that you are getting paid timeously.
- Discuss the use of wedding planners. Most weddings have an event planner of some kind who works in the same space as the event manager to help streamline the wedding day.
2. What Is Your Venue’s Capacity and Space?
As you tour your venue with your client, here are some recommended answers to have on hand about the wedding planning process:
- Be ready to let them know how many guests your venue holds.
- Whether or not your venue is child-friendly.
- Whether or not your venue is accessible for elderly guests.
- The deadline for the final guest list.
Space
Many venues have enough space to host all the different events of a wedding like the reception, cocktail hour, ceremony, and photos. But sometimes your wedding venue only has space for one or two events.
Be sure to make this very clear to your clients what events your space holds.
- Whether or not there is an on-site space where the wedding party can get ready.
- If a bridal suite is available for the bridal party.
- If there is a reception venue.
- If the wedding reception and the wedding ceremony take place at the same venue.
- If there is a space where the wedding gifts can be stored.
- If there will be a venue coordinator on the wedding date.
Food and Beverage Space
One of the more important wedding venue questions is if food and beverages are held in the same place as the wedding space.
What does your venue accommodate? Try to be as transparent about this as early on as possible.
- Whether or not your client can bring their own caterer.
- If your venue has a liquor license.
- If there are cover service charges for the bar.
- If your client can bring their preferred vendors onto the site.
- If your venue allows for purchasing liquor on-site.
- If your venue has a list of approved vendors.
3. Are There Different Pricing Plans?
An extremely important wedding venue question is how much the client’s potential venue rental costs.
After doing a few site visits, your client will most likely have a ballpark figure that they’re looking at. When it comes to pricing, you should be as transparent as possible. Include any service fees and additional fees when discussing the price.
If you offer packages this might help reduce fees or even take some responsibilities off your client's shoulders.
Let your client know upfront about the different pricing plans.
- Be ready with your different pricing plans, including the venue fee.
- Explain what is included in the rental fee.
- Let them know if there are service charges for venue staff.
- If your venue provides catering, tell your potential client what that will cost them.
- What off-site catering will cost them.
- If you have a cake-cutting fee.
- If there is an overtime fee.
- When the final payment is due.
- If event usage is included in the rental fee.
- If there are venue staff, what the cleaning fees will be.
- If necessities such as tables, chairs, glassware, cutlery, and crockery are included in the base fee, and if not, what those extra costs are.
- What hours are included in the fee.
- If there will be additional charges for running over time.
- If your client can use the venue the previous evening for a rehearsal dinner.
- If there is liability insurance.
4. How Does Catering Work?
Oh, catering. Every venue manager's favorite love-hate relationship.
As a venue manager, catering can be tricky. Both an in-house caterer and an off-site caterer come with their own battles.
While a lot of wedding venues offer catering, sometimes a client wants a different cuisine or simply doesn’t like the catering offered.
That’s why some venues prefer to hire a restaurant or outsource the catering. Restaurants already know how to cater to large groups of people, and the planning that goes into events will always be top-notch.
We’ve put together a bulleted list of catering answers that you should be able to relay to your potential client with ease!
In-House Caterers
- What the food and beverage minimum is.
- Whether you supply food for a cocktail hour or not.
- What style of food/cuisine you offer.
- If you are open to dietary restrictions.
- When you need the dietary guest count.
- If alcohol is included.
- The alcohol that you, as the venue, provide.
- If you provide a cash bar where guests can purchase liquor or if alcohol is included in the final fee.
- If you provide bartenders.
- If you offer in-house baking.
- If you provide a cake stand.
- If you supply venue staff.
- How many hours you offer on-site catering.
Bringing in Off-Site Catering
- If there is storage for food.
- If there is space where the caterers can prepare.
- If there is space in the venue for serving the food.
- Your venue’s policy on clients bringing their own alcohol.
- If you charge a corkage fee.
- The other vendors you accommodate at your venue.
5. What Are the Music and Entertainment Amenities?
The type of entertainment your venue accommodates can seriously sway a client.
While most venues have decent entertainment amenities, if you have something that stands out tell your potential client.
- If you have sufficient electricity, and what usage the client is permitted.
- The sound system you provide, if any.
- The space you have for a DJ or live band.
- The lighting you have installed.
- Demonstrate the acoustics.
- Let the client know if they can bring their own sound equipment.
- Let your client know about any noise restrictions.
- Show them the dance floor and how much space there is to move around.
6. Space and Safety Concerns
You never know when emergencies may happen. Drunk wedding guests are to be expected, and you do not want to be held liable. What if Uncle Steve trips over some wiring, smashes his head, and pulls down a speaker?
While these may seem like trivial pieces of information to give your client, you want to ensure that you have covered all your bases. Your client may have trialed a lot of different wedding venues before arriving at you. The more information you can offer, the more likely they are to pick your venue.
- If you provide a smoking outdoor space.
- The amount of bathrooms you provide.
- Explain the parking situation. For example, point out if guests can park at the venue or if there is a shuttle service.
- Let the client know that you provide a gazebo for inclement weather.
- If your venue is fireproof.
- The emergency exits you provide.
- If you accommodate wheelchair users.
- If you provide public liability insurance.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this guideline gives you some guidance into the types of questions potential clients may ask.
Now that you’ve read through all of these questions and answers, we hope you’re feeling more prepared. You are one step closer to taking on the task of managing your next wedding with the perfect venue.
Managing wedding venues, sometimes even multiple at a time, can get stressful. Trying to balance email chains, schedules, and calendars can get messy and disorganized very quickly.
As a way to streamline your organization, we recommend using an online tool to assist your management. Software systems such as Perfect Venue help streamline your event organization so it makes it easier for you to view and collate your information.
They offer online software that streamlines all your digital curation into one platform. I’m talking email threads, client profiles, calendars, and even payments for different customers.
Go ahead and watch our demo video here. Once you’ve watched it, sign up for the 14-day free trial for you to explore the site.
