One day venue rental vs weekend rental?

I’m not sure the reasons for booking multiple days unless it includes lodging and you have a lot of people traveling.
If you’re worried about the ceremony rehearsal, that can be done anywhere, and a rehearsal dinner can just be at a restaurant or even more casual at your house with pizza.
If you have the venue starting at 8am, that should give more than enough time to set up the morning of.The pros I could see is that everything is in one place so it’s easier to plan, the cons would be that it’s twice as expensive (I’m assuming) and would you use the venue all day the day before the wedding or just at night? If just at night the it seems like a huge waste of money.

The only reason I would consider a multi day rental is if people were staying multiple nights on site. We had an inn, with a usual resort motel closeby ( rented by room) where all 16 rooms or suites of people and use of the whole Inn and such was ours for 4 days, 4 nights, with our ceremony and reception in the main rooms on one day, and the next a 11 am -6 cookout for our big families that included the kids ( 167 more) . The extra cost for the whole Inn was less than 2 nights by the room plus a 1 day event, and was financially much better. ... My first wedding years back, a weekend would have been 2.5 times a single day to rent, and included no lodgings, horrible deal. Our night before welcome meal in a restaurant cost the price of the restaurant's regular price meals ( limited menu, 12 choices of meals,) plus $100, a room of the restaurant for up to 3 hours, and we were planning 2 hours. All the rest of an extra fee would have been a total waste, would not want it.

I don't see the point of renting a venue for the whole weekend unless you are doing a whole weekend's worth of events - like a multi-day wedding.

The rehearsal is useful if done at the venue, but it doesn't have to be - and can often be squeezed in during a half hour that the venue has free the week before. (We did ours on a Thursday, for a Saturday wedding.)

Rehearsal dinner is usually best kept casual - my ILs were amazing and hosted it in their own home, and we all hung out and ate good, homemade food.

If you have a DOC or a wedding planner, they should be able to set up for your wedding day of, no problem.

I feel like renting for 1 day is the norm, as everyone else said unless you are doing a full weekend then multiple days is pointless.

I think most couples book a venue for a 6-8 hour block on one night, not an entire weekend. Is your wedding a destination wedding, or is a weekend-long event typical where you live or in your culture? A three day long event is definitely not the “norm,” so trying to understand why 15 hours (in your example above) is not long enough?

We did 2 days (1.5 days really). We had our venue Friday afternoon starting at 3:00 until the end of our reception on Saturday night. There are several pros to having your venue for more than one day. The biggest is you can have your rehearsal on the day before without feeling rushed. Also, you can start decorating and getting things set up the day before.

Dear Brittany,

It depends on what the venue is setting up for, and what the price is. I looked at several different venues (some all-inclusive, some with a day or a few hours to set-up beforehand) and after weighing the pros and cons, we decided to end up having it at my fiancee's grandmother's home. We will have the tent and chairs there the Wednesday before (our wedding is on a Saturday), and most of our immediate family will be in town, along with our bridal party, to help set up and get things ready. We're also using a lot of both side's furniture and decor to decorate, so it'll be an elaborate and busy week with a lot of turning wheels.

If the venue already looks the part, like some that I saw were stunning, I'd let it speak for itself and just add floral arrangements here and there and wouldn't worry too much about time for chairs and decorations. Especially if you're getting ready at the venue: we're having our groomsmen/ little brothers, etc. take care of that while the girls finish getting ready and I take bridal portraits. If the venue needs a lot of work, I'd say it's all hands on deck from 8:00 AM until the guests arrive, and you'll have to stop supervising at some point to get ready.

In my two and a half years of planning and looking at venues, logistics, etc. I haven't found any reason to rent a wedding venue for more than the day-of unless it's a place that I wanted to host my rehearsal dinner and have time to swim, relax, drink champagne, etc. with the wedding party before and after the ceremony and reception.

The biggest pro would be that you have the lay of the land, and can possibly even set up things beforehand, which make your big day less hectic. Another pro, is if they have facilities that can house you and your bridal party; you can usually host your rehearsal there the night before and might have the opportunity to have a brunch the day after.

The biggest con is obviously money. Like I said, we looked at 20+ venues, one even out-of-state, because it was so beautiful that I loved the idea of not having to decorate anything, and we decided to just do everything ourselves. If you have the space, why not? You can always talk to your city about open parks, gardens, museums etc. that may grant you more than a day to set-up AND are already decorated beautifully!

Anyways, thank you for your post! I look forward to seeing what you all decide on!

Aubrianna Abbema

View Quoted Comment I should have clarified. Most places around here give you a day or so before for rehearsal and set up so we don’t have to decorate and all that morning.

View Quoted Comment But you have to pay for it? Is it just for the venue space or do you have to pay extra for the food for the rehearsal?

View Quoted Comment It’s almost double the price on all just for rehearsal. I’d have to pay extra for food.

View Quoted Comment

I agree with this. The only time I have ever heard of weekend multi day events is the random article of some wannabe celeb got married at a weekend event in magazine articles. It sounds stressful to organize that much and not everyone has time off to celebrate that long.