Distinguish the Best From the Rest
Searching for a wedding venue can very often shatter the fairy tale that wedding planning can or should be a fun, creative way to spend a few hours each week. There are hundreds of venue options in each city, the major search engines don’t always help you narrow them down, and most couples consider more than one location for their wedding, so the choices go into the thousands.
Reviews from past couples don’t always help. You see review after review that says, “it was beautiful,” “it was perfect,” and you have no idea what that means. Was this couple anything like us? What does ”perfect” even mean for them? The reviews for the local fire hall begin to look a lot like the reviews for the Plaza hotel.
Most importantly, the venues themselves market almost entirely on aesthetics. So it’s only after you’ve seen ten venues (say goodbye to your weekends for the foreseeable future) that you realize how incredibly different their services are.
Some are what we call rent-a-venue. You contract for the space and you get a list of rules. From there, it’s up to you.
Some, like Chanteclaire, do the vast majority of your wedding planning and coordination with you and for you. About half of venues say they are all-inclusive, but the differences in their services is vast.
A groom recently said to us:
We searched through hundreds of venues, and toured more than we wanted. Your venue is gorgeous, but lots of venues were attractive to us. They were each unique, but also perfectly acceptable places to get married. We chose you because of the services you offered, that we didn’t find anywhere else.
At the time, this honestly shocked us. We have always known that our services were extensive - we obsess over it. But until that moment we hadn’t realized that, for engaged couples, understanding which venues offered which services (and understanding which services you really need) is almost impossible.
So many say they are full service, and they all mean something completely different. On a venue owners Facebook group we recently saw a question asking who offered all-inclusive services. Dozens of venue owners from around the country immediately responded that they did, and not one of them offered the same things (or what we would consider to be critical all-inclusive items).
So below we’ve decoded:
many of the services that can be provided by your venue
what venues imply they do, and what that really means
what we think should be included with each service
At the end we’ve included a link to a short quiz that helps you pinpoint how many services you probably want from a venue based on your style of wedding planning.
We hope this saves you many, many hours of tedium, and helps you find your perfect venue.
Part I: Venue Services (DECODED)
Pulling Back The Curtain On The Services Venues Actually Provide
Wedding Coordination
Wedding coordination is the area in which you will find the most confusing and inconsistent information. There are nearly as many definitions of ‘coordination’ as there are venues. Let’s discuss what it means so you can ask the right questions and determine what our favorite venues actually provide.
Note: wedding coordination is not the same as wedding planning. Wedding planning is discussed in detail below.
What is wedding coordination, really?
Coordination of a wedding is the management of the wedding day itself. Think of your Wedding Coordinator like the stage manager of a Broadway play. They visit the venue prior to the wedding and make sure they understand exactly how each actor should show up, where they will get ready, and when they go onstage. They make sure the venue looks like it should and that the audience knows where to go when they arrive. On the day of the event they cue: lighting, sound, props, and actors at the right times. They execute the vision set up by the director, and they utilize all the resources obtained by the producers.
What you may hear from venues…
At the low end of coordination services, a venue tells couples that the Coordinator simply coordinates the booking of their space by the engaged couple. This involves answering the initial inquiry, arranging the tour of the space, getting the contract filled out properly, collecting a deposit, and handing out the list of rules and restrictions to follow. Sometimes they offer a list of preferred vendors, which often isn’t particularly reliable (but we will cover that later under wedding planning). They will answer questions as they arise and call it ‘coordination’.
When you hear a venue talk about wedding coordination this way, assume immediately that you will need to either do it yourself or hire your own coordinator. To use our theatrical metaphor, on your wedding day you will at times be both the lead actors (bride or groom) and the audience members (attendees of the wedding). Adding the role of stage manager to that will be stressful at best and will take away from your experience as a guest at your own party!
It breaks our hearts a little every time we see a couple decide to coordinate their wedding themselves. Sometimes they do it because they don’t want a small wedding but they cannot afford a Coordinator.
Sometimes couples ask their friends and family to help them with coordination. But remember, that’s like asking the people you love the most to forego experiencing the wedding as attendees and become wedding staff instead.
Your wedding is also a right of passage for your parents. Imagine how it will feel when you give birth to your first child. Imagine them going off to school for their first day, then driving away from the house on their own. Now they are falling in love, and then getting married. It’s a big deal for parents, but so often they are expected to be little more than a checkbook and staff member.
Similarly, your bridal party is meant to circle you with love and happiness on your day. Your job is to bond with them as they support you through one of life’s great transitions. This is hard to do when you’re calling out orders from a never-ending task list you’re managing against a deadline.
Look out for the venue that says they have a “Venue Coordinator” as opposed to a “Wedding Coordinator.” This job title typically indicates that the person is charged primarily with protecting the venue. At vacation rental homes there is nearly always a person with this job. Renters are required to pay for this service. So although a vacation rental company says they offer coordination, their primary motive is to be sure rules aren’t violated, like allowing guests to use indoor bathrooms instead of port-a-potties. This level of coordination is a far cry from making sure the Maid of Honor is present when the bouquet is tossed.
The worse news is that there are many venues that provide this kind of coordinator, but do not allow you to hire an outside wedding coordinator. This leaves many important tasks entirely unmonitored and couples are trapped with whatever service they offer, generally prioritizing the venue over your event .
Even professional “Day-of” Coordinators often provide only a portion of full wedding coordination services. Some want to oversee setup of decorations but don’t seem concerned about the timeline. Others will be a constant reminder of the timeline all day but won’t touch a decoration and don’t greet or guide the other vendors unless expressly asked. This role is more of a personal assistant, but in the end, you still end up managing parts of the day.
Most Day-Of Coordinators will agree to coordinate the vendors you personally hired, but won’t take responsibility for them doing their jobs correctly. This is a reality because it is impossible to have any real influence over vendors they may have only met in the days before the wedding. Once a vendor negotiates and plans with the couple directly, they will never respect decisions made by a new contact on the day of the event.
For example, our sister-company that plans weddings at venues throughout our area only offers day-of coordination when they have also been the Wedding Planner, playing a lead role throughout the entire planning process. True planning and coordination go hand-in-hand to gain the necessary trust and authority to keep the wedding ecosystem in perfect balance. Hiring a Coordinator just for your wedding day is a little like hiring a babysitter to stay with five very rambunctious children for the first (and last) time. Don’t expect much control.
Proper Coordination Means:
Running the wedding rehearsal, teaching your bridal party where to meet, how to line up, when to walk, where to stand, how to look good in photos, and where to go next.
Motivating the bridal party to cooperate with the timeline while still enjoying themselves and not feeling over-managed.
Arriving before anyone else to make sure every decoration is in place the day of the wedding.
Greeting vendors as they arrive to make sure they have what they need and don’t interfere with the aesthetic (catering trucks are ugly and once they are parked and in use it’s difficult to get the caterer to move it out guests’ view.)
Answering guest questions before they are asked, “where is the restroom? where do we put our gifts? can I get something to drink? where do we go for the ceremony?”
Inviting guests to each new phase of the event so the Emcee doesn’t have to shout instructions over and over again.
Having the people skills, experience, and leadership to make on-the-fly changes to the schedule so that guests are never bored, confused or anxious. A great coordinator helps guests relax as they arrive and helps build energy throughout the celebration until its conclusion at the end of the evening.
Making sure the venue looks great at all times throughout the evening.
Guiding the couple and bridal party through each transition in a way that doesn’t feel pushy but keeps things moving.
Making sure the seating chart and the table set-up match perfectly to avoid embarrassing and disruptive oversights.
Wedding Planning
Wedding planning includes everything that happens prior to you traveling to your wedding. Successful day-of coordination can only be achieved if wedding planning was thorough and organized. If the Wedding Planner misses something, the Day-of Coordinator cannot always fix it.
Successful wedding planning includes:
Budget creation, including knowledge of local vendor pricing for each quality tier.
Selection of vendors, including negotiating contracts (using their experience to clarify tricky points before the contract is signed), and leadership of the vendor team from the beginning. The ideal Wedding Planner builds a team that works even if the team members have never met before. This requires extensive knowledge of each vendor’s needs, what processes they go through in the course of their jobs, and where they hit snags. For example, some churches don’t allow photographers to walk past the last pew where any guest is sitting. So if one guest sits in the very last row with 10 empty rows in front of them, the photographer can’t get anywhere near the couple as they marry. A great Wedding Planner knows all the issues that could arise for each vendor and plans solutions to them in advance of the wedding day. This results in the vendors arriving already trusting that the planner’s behind the scenes work will result in everything running smoothly and that the Day-of Coordinator won’t run into any issues. This is a far cry from handing you a preferred vendor list and letting you do the work. You would be shocked at how those lists are made. They often do not represent the best vendors in the area, but rather vendors that the venue owner likes personally or gets kickbacks from.
Design of color scheme & aesthetic style, making sure that outfits, florals, tablescapes, lighting, stationery, favors and other personalized items all coordinate. Wedding Planners see the best of all wedding design on a regular basis. They know the easiest and most affordable ways to get what you want. A truly professional Wedding Planner is intimately involved in helping you through this process, saving you dozens of hours and many mistakes.
Creation of timeline, ensuring you’ll have enough time for each phase and a smooth transition between each one. A great Wedding Planner will make sure each vendor will be ready for each phase and will have enough time so that they will never feel rushed. This is crucial for day-of coordination. For example, we recently saw a Wedding Planner allocate 10 minutes for the couple to eat because they wanted to do Golden Hour photos. Even though it was tight, the couple agreed because they really wanted the photos and didn’t think they had a choice. Our team pointed out that if the caterers weren’t ready on time, there would be either no dinner or no photos. Our team then re-worked the timeline from scratch and took control of day-of coordination so that the couple got everything they wanted with no issues.
Structuring the planning process, so everything is done in a relaxed and organized way. A great Planner doesn’t wait for the couple to ask questions. They lay out the journey from the beginning and let each person know exactly when their input is needed. This allows you to enjoy your engagement, rather than keeping you in the eternal planning anxiety most couples (especially brides) experience.
Navigating etiquette and family dynamics, as after all, we know that a great wedding involves sometimes dealing with challenging people, even the ones you love the most! You are bringing a very disparate group of people together who all have ideas of their own about what is comfortable and how things should be done. Group dynamics are not often intuitive, and after hundreds of weddings, and extensive experience, we can tell you which “plus one” is going to walk across the dance floor while you are doing your first dance, because she has issues with not being the center of attention. We can predict when groomsmen will become competitive (and destructive) after drinking. We can advise couples how to talk to their families about not inviting young children to the wedding, in a way that is caring and understanding, but firm. There are countless areas in which you will find yourself needing advice, and looking for it on the internet confuses and misguides many couples.
When a venue says they offer Wedding Planning, we encourage you to check that their definition meets the above criteria. Unfortunately, it rarely will. And, from our experience, using an outside planner isn’t always an ideal solution. The planner should be well versed with the venue they are using. For example, our team has the best understanding of how these tasks work best in our space. An outside planner can’t possibly know how decisions will play out as well as we do because they simply haven’t seen weddings work in the space before, much less hundreds of times.
In-House Catering
In-house catering is critical if you want to avoid dry, over-cooked, rubber chicken and lines of ugly chafing dishes. The only way to ensure that a meal is fresh-out-of-the-oven is to, (if not too obvious) cook it onsite and serve it the moment it’s ready.
When a venue is also the caterer, you know that the timing of the meal is managed by the same team that is managing the flow of the day. The result is a fresher, hotter, more delicious meal.
In-House Wedding Cakes
There are three issues that made us bring cake baking and decorating in-house:
risking transportation disasters
fixing issues that may arise with the cake at any time throughout the night
knowing which icings and fillings work well in an open-air environment
The issue with having your wedding cake made offsite is that wedding cakes are extremely fragile, so the less transportation the better. Putting a cake in the back of a truck always poses certain risk. Then the baker usually drops off the cake, leaving you high and dry if anything goes wrong before cake cutting. In addition, an offsite baker won’t always be familiar with the venue, so they may not know what type of icing to use. For example, some icings like cream cheese have to be substituted for another icing if the venue is an open air environment, as both butter and cream cheese melt when the temperature gets into the high seventies. An onsite wedding baker dramatically reduces all of the risks associated with the wedding cake and will be responsible for making sure the cake stays beautiful and fresh until its time to serve.
In-house DJ/Emcee (and band coordination)
There are certainly advantages to having an in-house DJ/Emcee.
At Chanteclaire we have 22 speakers hung inside and out in every area. It is set up this way so that no matter where guests stand, they are a part of the music experience and don’t feel as if they’ve left the party when they walk into another room. This is only possible with a venue that has an in-house DJ service, as most DJs do not have enough gear to cater to your specific venue and wouldn’t know how to go about setting up such an elaborate system the day before the wedding.
Hanging speakers (some are 15 feet in the air) allows you to get lots of volume but not be near anyone’s head. Older guests are especially grateful for this.
Dance lighting can be hung in all the right places
Equipment can be housed at the venue permanently, so backup equipment is easier to store and the overall look can be much more subtle and streamlined. It is cringe worthy to see a DJ setup that looks like a 15 year-old boys’ band in the midst of a very elegant ballroom.
The DJ/Emcees become part of the coordination team, so the entire event runs more smoothly.
In-House Florals
One of our favorite reasons to have any service in-house is that it eliminates the ability for a vendor to shrug and say, “sorry, but there’s just nothing I could have done about that.” For example, with florals, a disaster is in the making when a centerpiece delivery is made early in the morning and the flowers sit in a very hot space until someone from the venue arrives to turn the air on. The flowers end up wilted and brown.
We have also seen florists deliver flower arrangements that are quite different than what was discussed with the couple, only to say that they tried to call and talk about the change but the bride didn’t answer her phone all day. When your team is in-house, the communication errors drop dramatically, and there is never a feeling that the vendor is saying, “that isn’t our job.”
Onsite Lodging
This, in our opinion, is paramount. Brides often don’t realize the amount of stuff they will bring to their wedding. Once you start packing, it begins…what if I need q-tips, or a sewing kit, or band-aids, or stain remover or....? or…?… and the baggage starts to pile up. When you are onsite the entire weekend of your wedding, you arrive and unpack before any of your guests get there and your adrenaline starts pumping. You get to settle in and relax. All of your things are with you at all times, and there is no rushing.
Also, your bridal party is most likely a group of intelligent, free-thinking individuals who don’t just sit around and wait for you to tell them what to do. This can result in chaos when it’s time to leave for the venue and the two groomsmen who got ready early have made their way to the hotel bar where they are engaged in conversation and forget the time.
Staying onsite just makes things easier and more relaxed. It dramatically improves your entire experience.
Service Staff
Our favorite thing about onsite service staff is that they are multi-taskers. For example, when you bring in a caterer and a bartender as separate vendors, both vendors can insist that trash cans filled with the other group’s items need to be emptied or taken away by that vendor. We want to work with a staff that knows that every single thing that needs to be done to make a wedding great is always all of our responsibilities. At Chanteclaire, we can use bartenders to run the golf cart up and down the parking lot while guests are first arriving on property. We can use dining room servers to run to the houses and perform turn down service. The entire event is run more efficiently and more effectively.
In-House Photography/Videography
Photography and videography are services we have not created in-house at Chanteclaire. We haven’t felt the need to do this because unlike florals, where a florist modifies the style of arrangements to suit the client, photographers have a set style of their own and tend not to modify it (for good reason). So clients need to match their preferred aesthetic to a photographer who reflects that style.
We know that there is no shortage of talent around the area, so we believe one should leave choosing a photographer or a videographer to the client.
However, without guidance from the Planner, this can sometimes backfire. Couples often find a photographer at a bridal show but the photographer has never worked at their venue. When the Planner reaches out to start building the ‘day-of’ team, the photographer may not respond. If they don’t follow the venue’s suggestions and scope the property they may arrive and not know how to optimize their time. If they run late, the rest of the vendors at the venue have to run late. Then the food is is less than optimal, the guests are waiting and the mood starts to drop.
We compensate for this by asking that couples first look into our extensive list of talented photographers before looking at anyone we don’t know. Then we ask, if they do choose a new vendor, that the photographer understands right up front how we work as a team and what our expectations are. If we can get on the phone with the photographer early in the process, they typically get quite excited about our methods and begin looking forward to working with us.
Videography is much the same, with one small exception. We think having drone footage directly from the venue is a great bonus. We recommend that if your venue also has a drone, have them do your drone footage instead of your Videographer. At Chanteclaire, we have purchased a drone so that we can film the best days of every season, without strange vehicles around and with all the lights on and umbrellas up, etc. This way each couple can have a perfect video of the property, taken when the venue looked its best that season.
In-house Officiant
In this day and age, officiant selection needs to be flexible because about 50% of couples are having a friend or relative perform the service. Our preference is to have a few officiants we love recommending, and we explain their style and strengths to couples looking to hire one. Otherwise, we believe it is important to incorporate teaching a newly minted officiant/friend about the flow of a ceremony. If you have chosen a friend or a loved one to officiate your ceremony, the Planner should work with them to ensure they are prepared and knowledgeable about how the ceremony will take place. A Planner who lets the officiant just “wing it” risks the unfortunate situation of a ceremony becoming awkward which then sets the tone for the rest of the night.
Part II: The absolute simplest way to decide what level of services you want from your venue.
Depending on your personality, certain venue services are going to suit you better than others.
Some couples want to create their wedding free of any in-house services. This works in certain cases, such as:
you can afford a full-scale wedding planner and coordination team, experienced in building a team from scratch.
OR
your budget dictates that everything be homemade and contributed by family if possible.
Other couples would love to find a venue that does the wedding services in-house so they can relax and not need to be as in charge of the process. This works if the couple -
would rather focus on the meaning of the event rather than the administration and management of the event
can trust a team of experts so they do not have to make a million decisions throughout the process
This quiz is a quick (and simple) way to gauge where you fall on the scale. At the end, you’ll get advice on how to utilize the advantages of your style and how to avoid common pitfalls.
About Chanteclaire
Chanteclaire is a rustic-elegant wedding venue located in a valley around Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. We do most wedding functions in-house in order to control quality and deliver a consistently epic wedding experience.
Our secret sauce (besides the roux we put on chicken) is that, by becoming experts at every piece of the wedding puzzle, we can achieve a level of flow and ease that other venues struggle to provide. We are the triple threat of the wedding industry, so planning is incredibly easy with excellent results.
We know that a great wedding is one where, behind the scenes, someone knows:
what frosting will melt and collapse at your venue, versus one that will hold up in different temperatures until its time to cut the cake
which DJs will scratch badly through your event, walk away from the booth often, or wait to be told what to do versus a DJ that will smoothly lead all the transitions of the day and read the crowd to keep your guests on the dance floor all night
if the florist will deliver beautiful flowers that will wilt 2 hours later, or if the florist will create beautiful centerpieces and bouquets that have been treated to last all day
which caterer cooks at home or in a restaurant and brings warmers with the food held for many hours, versus the caterers that will cook onsite and deliver just off the grill/ out of the oven meals
which decor designer will provide table numbers that have cheap cardboard backings that face your guests, versus a decor designer that will create beautiful and organized tablescapes within your budget
which venue has hidden costs, like $0.50 per coffee cup versus which venue is upfront about every cost without beating around the bush
which photographers/videographers will stay on schedule and dress well for the event, versus the who ones will leave their duffel bags lying all around the venue grounds where guests are trying to mingle
what the stress points are for guests, and the situations when mood can drop and can't be easily picked up
how you get your Maid of Honor to give a toast that is warm and touching rather than an endless story of your private memories that might bore the other guests
how you stand your ground kindly but firmly with family about not inviting young children without causing a war
how you do a seating chart in a way that prevents arguments with family members
how you cull your invite list so you can actually afford this thing
how you convince anyone investing in your event why they should gladly spend the money
and countless other helpful things.
We know these things because we’ve seen them go wrong and developed new processes to ensure excellence in all our delivery. We are obsessed with throwing great weddings, and gifting that to kind, interesting couples fulfills us.
We want your engagement to be based in love and connection, not conflict over wedding planning.
Learn more about us at www.chanteclairefarm.com.