Planning your wedding in your childhood home? Your grandparents’ farm? A private estate owned by your elusive, rich aunt who loves gazebos? Great! As wedding planners, we love the ‘built in sentimentality’ of a venue that means something to our clients. But the logistics can be nightmarish. And hosting a wedding at your house may not save you money-- contrary to popular belief. You may even be shocked to learn that you may end up spending more! It’s a game of hidden costs, y’all.Big Takeaways...
Planning your wedding in your childhood home? Your grandparents’ farm? A private estate owned by your elusive, rich aunt who loves gazebos? Great! As wedding planners, we love the ‘built in sentimentality’ of a venue that means something to our clients. But the logistics can be nightmarish. And hosting a wedding at your house may not save you money-- contrary to popular belief. You may even be shocked to learn that you may end up spending more! It’s a game of hidden costs, y’all.
Big Takeaways
A wedding at a private home is harder to plan than a wedding at a wedding venue. Boom. There are lots of things to think about, consider, spend money on, and to just plain figure out. Here’s a short list of ‘private home’ expenses that will add up:
Flooring
Tenting
Restrooms / PortoPotties
Generators / Power / X Cords / Outlets
Valet Parking or shuttles running
Extra Staffing
Permits
Accessibility
Safety Lighting
ALL rentals
We go into detail about all of the above!
How much space is necessary? 7 sq ft per guest. 6’ for an aisle. These are the norms, every wedding varies…
Before you decide for sure that you are going to host your wedding in your private home - bring a wedding planner, a rentals person and a caterer out to your home and see what they think. Chances are, they are going to bring things up that you haven’t considered and you don’t know what you don’t know! Hire professionals, take their advice.
Get Event Insurance! Call your homeowner’s insurance agent to see how best to plan for a big ol party on your property.
You better have a plan B if you are planning to do any celebrating outside!
What about food trucks? We love food trucks! But if you do dinner this way, you have to think about the timeline...and again, the space. You need extra staffing, roving bussers, well-placed trashes...and you may need 2-3 trucks. Maybe stagger them!
The Big Wedding Planning Podcast is...
Hosted and produced by Michelle Martinez.
- Edited by Veronica Gruba
- Music by Steph Altman of Mophonics
- On Instagram @thebigweddingplanningpodcast and be sure to use #planthatwedding when posting, so you can get our attention!
- Inviting you to become part of our Facebook Group! Join us and our amazing members. Just search for The Big Wedding Planning Podcast Community on Facebook.
- Easy to get in touch with. Email us at thebigweddingplanningpodcast@gmail.com or Call and leave a message at 415-723-1625 and you might hear your voice on an episode
On Patreon. Become a member and with as little as $6.99 per month, you get 2 exclusive, ad-free episodes, + Zoom Happy Hour with Michelle and fellow patrons every month!
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