First of all, unless there is a date thats really important to you, pick a venue before setting a date. What we had was a few month time span (which slowly narrowed as people told us about events planned). We didn't have a particular day in mind. We did know we wanted a Friday or Saturday wedding. But the more days you're willing to do it, the cheaper it will be. Saturdays are the Holy Grail of weddings. It's in many instances significantly more to get married on a Saturdays. Fridays almost always (a few exceptions) have a great discount. Ours was to the tune of , $5000.

Many of the places we looked at have minimum spending requirements through them. They all either had in-house catering or several outside vendors to choose from, with the same going for amenities. A lot of places don't have spending minimums on other days, some don't have them on Sundays. Most didn't have a rental fee, you just had to meet that minimum. We further saw dinners averaging just for food $25-50 per person. Bar packages were from $4 to $35 per person, but most top shelves stopped at $20.

Whats really nice is that when you do this, they take care of everything for you. They have tableware for you, tables, service, set up and cleanup. You just show up. Also, many offer someone to help keep everything organized for you. You go in in advance, plan the itinerary with them and they keep everything on point. You save significantly on stress especially the week leading up to the wedding.

Now we had a very large lists of places that we called. We actually went and saw like 5 or 6. I'm just talking reception, btw. Churches on average weren't too expensive, between $500 and $1000.

Further, we found that we didn't find outdoors all that cost effective. When calling around, many of the venues available here were in the $2000 range. Thats just to rent the space for 5 hours. Further, that 5 hours included set up time. It didn't include anything else. So you would still have to pay for tables, tableware and catering as well as setting it up and doing all the leg work. We had it coming out to be slightly less than many of the plain reception halls.

Now this isn't to say that it will be the same as where you are. Further, you may not have problems doing the extra work of set up and clean up (you and your family ). This is what I've found. We find a nice location with a beautiful view of the skyline for ours. In the end, the best is to call a lot of places and find out what they offer in your location. Oh, and if you're looking for photos on a budget, I would hit up some local colleges. Photographers are dreadfully expensive. I haven't seen any of them with decent work for less than $1500 with them averaging $2150.