Finding a Ceremony Venue

Before looking for any venues, I thought that once I found the reception venue, finding a ceremony venue would be easy....wrong! After visiting a couple of nearby reception venues, I found the one and had no doubts about it. I've searched for a ceremony venue for a couple months now, and the process has been frustrating to say the least!

Mifflin Presbyterian Church

Although my reception venue (Winding Hollow Golf Club) offers a nice ceremony space on their golf course, my dad requested that we get married indoors in air conditioning so he "wouldn't sweat through the ceremony and look like he had jumped in a swimming pool for the pictures." I couldn't really argue with his logic, especially since he's shelling out a lot of money to make my day perfect! With a late May wedding in Ohio, you never know what weather will be like. It could be 90 degrees, or there could be a monsoon! I didn't want to add anymore stress to the wedding day by trying predict the weather, being wrong and then having to make a lot of adjustments to the ceremony. 

Not only did we have to find a ceremony space indoors, we had the added complication of finding a place that would allow my pastor to officiate the ceremony. Not every church allows another minister to come into the church to conduct the ceremony, so I looked at Presbyterian churches within a short drive of Winding Hollow. I found one that I really, really liked and I thought it would be a done deal...and then they told me they only allowed members of the church to get married there. So the search continued. 

Choosing a Reception Venue

Once you and your fiance have established a wedding budget, one of the first things you will probably look at is venues. Choosing both the ceremony and reception venue is a crucial part of every wedding. The ceremony venue is where you'll say your vows and actually get married, so you'll want it to be sentimental or inline with your wedding day vision. The reception venue is where you and your guests will spend most of your time, and it is usually the biggest expense in a wedding budget, so you'll want to choose a place where your guests will be comfortable, and that you'll feel comfortable paying for. If you're lucky, you may find a venue that will work for both your ceremony and reception.

Winding Hollow Golf Club was the perfect
place for our reception venue!

As Matt and I began planning my our dream wedding, we decided that it was important for us to get married in a church. Since my church doesn't have a center aisle and wouldn't accommodate all of our guests, we had to look for two separate venues. I started out by looking for the reception venue because  that's where the majority of the money in our wedding budget would be spent, and I assumed it would be easier to find a ceremony site than a reception site.

As I began my initial search for a reception venue, I found TheKnot.com to be very helpful. If you go to their vendor category, not only do they give you a list of reception venues in your area, they also allow you to insert criteria specific to what you're looking for like the number of guests, amenities, style and price range. (They never give a specific amount in the price range, but the dollar signs are somewhat helpful when you're trying to decide what you can or can't afford). There are also pictures of each reception venue, along with its contact information.