Should I get my wedding planner or venue first?
Hiring a full-service planner first provides necessary guidance and accountability when you feel completely clueless. However, booking a venue first can lock you into their required planner, removing your freedom to choose from several options. It also forces you to independently decide whether to spend an extra $10,000 on a dream location or pocket the money.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Asking friends for vendor recommendations and past experiencesDid this help you?
- 2Hiring a planner from a venue's list of preferred vendorsDid this help you?
- 3Using Google searches and spreadsheets to compile potential venue listsDid this help you?
- 4Browsing vendor and venue directories on sites like The KnotDid this help you?
- 5choosing an all-inclusive venue to avoid coordinating multiple outside vendorsDid this help you?
- 6prioritizing hospitality, food, and guest experience over the venue's visual viewsDid this help you?
- 7accepting minor venue flaws like road noise because they go unnoticed on the actual dayDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Should I spend an extra 10k for more of a "dream wedding venue?" or should I pocket that $ for a wedding that will fulfill our needs just fine but might not have that ultimate WOW factor?”source ↗
“Did you get your planner or venue first?”source ↗
“I feel like I need the guidance of a full service planner because I’m like so clueless and also need someone to keep me accountable lol”source ↗
“Looking back, I would not have gone with a venue that required a certain planner, but definitely glad she knew our venue well and we picked her out of several options!”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 13Is hiring a wedding coordinator actually worth the money?
- 25How to find a cheap wedding venue for a large guest count
- 3How to get wedding advice without hiring a full planner
- 2Where should we stay on our wedding night?
- 3How to schedule a legal marriage before a destination wedding
- 2Inexpensive mountain wedding venues with views