Finding Alternative Wedding Venues: One Important Trick

In my last post, I discussed two common problems that self-proclaimed wedding venues can pose for a couple planning a non-traditional wedding. Here I provide what a few practical tips for finding the perfect alternative wedding venue based on our experience. This includes the most important secret to finding a non-traditional venue.

 

Look beyond traditional venues

 

The secret to finding an alternative wedding venue is not to search for wedding venues! This may sound like a riddle or koan (“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”), but I promise that it will make sense.

When I say not to search for wedding venues, I mean that you shouldn’t Google “wedding venues in Colorado” and expect to turn up anything besides the usual expensive, traditional wedding places. These are the venues that host a lot of weddings and make a lot of money by doing so. Accordingly, they advertise heavily so that they always turn up first.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with researching or choosing a popular venue. You should explore all of your options: consider the traditional venues first to see if any of them fit your vision for an ethical wedding. However, you probably have already done this. And as described in part one, if you’re on a budget or dreaming about a really non-traditional wedding, you might be disappointed.

How to search for non-traditional venues

 

At this point you’re probably asking, “How am I supposed to find wedding venues without searching for them?!” The answer is that you need to think outside the box. Finding non-traditional wedding venues requires some ingenuity and patience on your part. There are a few reasons for this.

First, almost by definition, non-traditional venues don’t advertise themselves as wedding venues (or at least not successfully). They will call themselves event spaces, art galleries, summer camps, lodges, meeting halls, retreats, vacation rentals, community centers, parks, and so forth.

Some enterprising locales (increasingly, art galleries) have recognized their potential as wedding venues, but they are the exception. The majority of these sites serve as a gathering or meeting space of some sort; they are intended for other uses but usually open to hosting weddings. Your task is to picture your wedding taking place in areas not originally intended for it.

At the end of the day, you need a location where you can gather a lot of people, eat, and celebrate. These activities aren’t unique to weddings: try to think of places in your community where people gather and specifically search for them. Rather than “wedding venues in Colorado,” search for “art galleries in Denver” and begin combing through them.

Finding the information you need

 

The second reason you need patience is that non-traditional wedding venues don’t advertise themselves as such. Because alternative wedding venues don’t recognize their potential, they often don’t provide much information on their services. This is in contrast to commercial wedding venues, which usually have content-rich websites that are directed at people planning their wedding.

For example, let’s say you discover (as we did) a summer camp that makes its space available during the off-season. The camp’s website may be simple, and what information it has is probably directed towards camp-goers and not wedding planners. There might not be many details about the facilities—perhaps there are a few pictures and some information about room capacities.

This is quite unlike websites for traditional wedding venues, which have loads of pictures, reviews, services, FAQs, policies, etc. To get your business, traditional venues try to streamline the process as much as possible. Non-traditional venues won’t necessarily have thought of the needs of wedding-minded researchers.

As I mention in my last post, the frequent absence of information and policies at non-traditional wedding venues is a blessing and a curse. While these locations will be harder to find and require more investigation on your part, they are almost always cheaper than the big name venues. Moreover, they are probably more willing to let you take control of the space; this allows you to plan your ethical wedding with less interference.

Because alternative wedding venues probably don’t have all of the information you need readily available, be prepared to ask a lot of questions. In my next post, I’ll detail the most important questions to ask when considering a non-traditional venue for your ethical wedding.