As with most aspects of your dream day, finding the perfect venue may require more time and thought than anticipated. You should research and brainstorm before you look for many reasons some of which follow:

Style: While spaces of every size and sort exist, perhaps they don’t in your area. If they do, they may not match your style, vision, theme etc. Work around this by finding venues you can easily transform, i.e. blank slates or non-wedding locations similar to what you are looking for.

Availability: Looking early is important because many book up way in advance. Even those that don’t sometimes have your chosen date already taken. If so, you can ask to be put on the waiting list if your date becomes available while continuing to look. However, if you can’t see getting wed anywhere else, extending your engagement is an option.

Size: If a place is too small, invite only close friends and family to your ceremony and include everyone else at the reception. Alternatively, if you have too much room, see if you can use only a portion of the space or get creative by spreading out the seating to minimize the appearance of the size.

Regulations: Locations without any restrictions are rare so consider what you will accept. Churches, for example, likely don’t allow alcohol, have limits on noise levels and closing times. Such are reasonable due to locational and TABC regulations, etc. Other sites require you to use “preferred” vendors, have minimum time requirements and other ways to increase costs you don’t want, need or can afford.

Given the number of possible places, you need a clear vision of what you are looking for to minimize the time and energy spent looking at venues. Among those considerations are budget, capacity, restrictions, style and availability.