20 Questions to Ask a Wedding Venue Before You Book
Viewings are sales appointments: golden hour, something fizzy, and a walk past the corner that floods. Bring this list and book the venue with boring answers.
Venue viewings are lovely, and that is the problem. You will be shown the room at golden hour, handed something fizzy, and walked past the one corner that floods in October. A viewing is a sales appointment. The venue has done hundreds of them. You have done two.
The fix is not cynicism, it is a list. Ask the same questions at every venue you visit, write the answers down, and the comparison makes itself. Below are the twenty I tell every couple to bring, with the reasoning first so you know which answers should worry you. Ask them all and you will know more about the place than most couples know on the day they sign.
The money questions
The venue and its catering will absorb about half your budget, which is why the money questions come first and why we built a whole guide to setting a wedding budget around that fact. The headline price is never the price. What you need is the total for your date, your numbers, everything included, in writing. Venues are not being sneaky, mostly. It is just that "from £4,000" describes a Tuesday in February, and you are asking about a Saturday in June.
Ask what the deposit is and when the balance falls due, what happens if you have to move the date, and how much prices rise between now and your year. That last one matters more than people think: a venue quoting today's menu prices for a wedding two years out will usually reprice it, and you want the ceiling agreed before you sign, not discovered in a cheerful email eighteen months later.
The "what exactly is included" questions
Two venues at the same price can be thousands apart once you unpack what is in the box. Tables, chairs, linen, crockery, a dance floor, a PA for speeches: at some venues these are included, at others they arrive on a hire invoice. Dry hire venues, which give you an empty beautiful shell, can be brilliant value or a logistics epic depending entirely on how much organising you enjoy. There is no wrong model. There is only knowing which one you are buying.
Ask who sets the room up and who turns it around between the ceremony and the meal. Ask what the wet weather plan actually is, and insist on seeing the room it happens in, because "we bring the ceremony inside" can mean a gorgeous orangery or a conference suite with a projector screen. Ask how many weddings they host per day and per weekend. One is the answer you want. If it is two, ask exactly where the other couple's guests will be at 6pm.
The day-itself questions
The rules that shape how the day feels are rarely in the brochure. The big three: the curfew, the sound limit, and the corkage. A midnight licence with a hard 11pm music cut-off is really an 11pm wedding. A sound limiter that trips the power when the band gets going has ended more first dances than rain ever has, so ask outright whether one is fitted and at what level. And if you dream of supplying your own wine, corkage per bottle decides whether that is a saving or a rounding error.
Then the people: can you use your own suppliers, or is there a tied list? Tied caterers are common and often excellent, but you are marrying their menu, so taste it before you commit. Ask who from the venue will actually be there on the day, by name and role. The person selling you the venue is almost never the person running your wedding, and the handover between them is where details go missing.
The answers that should worry you
Vague is the red flag. A good venue answers money questions in writing without being chased, names the person who will run your day, and says "here is what that costs" rather than "we can sort that nearer the time". Be equally wary of pressure: a discount that expires this weekend, another couple "looking at your date" on every visit. Real availability pressure exists, but a venue that sells with a stopwatch will manage your wedding the same way. If you feel rushed at the viewing, believe the feeling.
The 20 questions, ready to take with you
- What is the total price for our date and guest number, with everything included, in writing?
- What is the deposit, and when is the balance due?
- What happens to our money if we need to move the date?
- Will catering prices rise before our wedding, and is there a cap?
- What exactly is included: tables, chairs, linen, crockery, dance floor, PA?
- Is this exclusively ours for the day, or are there other events?
- Who sets up the room, and who turns it around during the day?
- What is the wet weather plan, and can we see that room now?
- What time can suppliers get in to set up?
- What is the music curfew, and when must guests leave?
- Is there a sound limiter, and at what level is it set?
- Can we use our own caterer, or is catering tied to the venue?
- Can we taste the menu before booking, and when?
- What is the corkage charge if we bring our own wine or fizz?
- Are there enough plug sockets and power for a band where the band will be?
- Who from the venue will be there on our wedding day, by name?
- How many guests does the space genuinely seat once the dance floor is in?
- Where do guests park, and how do they get home at midnight?
- Is the whole day accessible for older guests and anyone with mobility needs?
- What did the last thing that went wrong here look like, and how was it fixed?
That last question is my favourite. Every venue has had something go wrong. The good ones tell you a story and what changed afterwards. The worrying ones say nothing ever has.
Write the answers down, then compare like with like
Viewings blur fast. By venue three you will not remember who included the dance floor and whose curfew was 11pm, so record the answers as you go and keep them beside your budget and your timeline, in one place you can both see. Our free wedding planner keeps notes, budget and checklist together for exactly this stage, and takes a couple of minutes to set up. Then book the one whose answers were boring. Boring answers, brilliant weddings.
Venue questions couples ask us
How much of the wedding budget should the venue take?
Venue and catering together usually absorb about half the total budget. If a venue quote is landing far past that, the honest options are a smaller guest list, a different date, or a different venue, because squeezing every other supplier rarely closes a gap that size.
What is a dry hire wedding venue?
Dry hire means you rent the space only and bring everything else: caterer, bar, furniture, sometimes even power and loos. It can cost less on paper and give you total freedom, but every included-by-default service becomes a decision and an invoice. It suits organised couples with time, and punishes optimists.
What is corkage and how much is typical?
Corkage is the per-bottle fee a venue charges for serving alcohol you supply yourself, typically somewhere between 10 and 25 pounds a bottle in the UK. Do the maths before assuming supplying your own wine saves money: at the top end of that range, the venue's own list is often the cheaper route.
How far in advance should you book a wedding venue?
Popular venues fill peak-season Saturdays twelve to eighteen months ahead, so start viewing as soon as your budget and rough guest count are set. If your timeline is shorter, stay flexible on the day of the week and the season, where availability and discounts both live.
Do wedding venues include catering?
Many do, either in-house or through a tied list of approved caterers, and some are dry hire with no catering at all. None of the three models is automatically better value. What matters is tasting the food before you commit and knowing exactly what each place setting costs, service and VAT included.
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