Wedding Reception Location Options: Choosing On-Site Or Off-Site
With a wedding size, budget, and date determined, and with a vision of the type of wedding ceremony and reception pretty much formulated in your mind, you're ready to begin shopping for all the related goods and services. We recommend tackling the reception next, because securing the site for the date you want is so important, especially if your ceremony is to be performed there.
Depending on what is available in your area, your reception possibilities are: a hotel or catering establishment, a club or restaurant, a community center or meeting hall attached to a church or synagogue, a private home, or an unusual setting, such as a park, boat, or historic site. Each type of location offers a particular ambience and distinct advantages and disadvantages, as you will discover when you visit each of them.
Most couples find shopping for their reception fun because they often are treated to dinner, or at least invited to sample the menu items. They can also arrange to visit clubs to hear musicians play or receive video tapes of reception locations and parties that were held there. Along the way, you're sure to learn a lot about the hospitality industry, and to refine your tastes and define your style. Maybe, with a bit of luck, you'll even meet a banquet manager with whom you have an instant rapport and in whom you can place your total confidence.
On-site locations:
Reception sites fall into two basic categories: on-site and off-site. On-site means that the place can provide most, or all, of the reception services you'll need: food, beverage, staff, tables, linens, china, maybe even the flowers, the music, and the cake. On-site locations include hotels, restaurants, clubs, and catering halls; some church and community centers, historic settings, and more unusual places may have on-site capabilities as well, or will at least have caterers and suppliers to recommend based on a history of successful performance.
Obviously, the convenience of one-stop shopping is what makes on-site locations so popular with wedding couples, particularly those planning very large affairs.
Catering directors or program coordinators at these places are experienced party professionals. They will not only work with you to coordinate all the major elements of your reception, many will even coordinate related details with all other outside suppliers, like musicians, florists, photographers, and limousine drivers.
Because they orchestrate special events all the time, they know how to keep things running smoothly and efficiently, and how to remember everything you might be likely to forget, especially on your wedding day. The flip side to the convenience of one-stop shopping is that, by booking an on-site location, you are also booking the services offered there. You may not be allowed to bring in your own wedding cake or florist. You may be forced to choose from several preset wedding packages, and your wedding might not be the only affair in progress at the time. In the end, only you can decide whether the services and conveniences offered meet your needs.
Off-site locations:
Off-site locations are those that offer no services on the premises. You have the space (a private home) or you pay a rental fee for it (a loft or historic site), and you have to bring in everything yourself. Although some independent caterers may be able to provide much of what you need in addition to the food and beverage, others cannot. You'll find that the term "caterer" can mean anything from someone who prepares only specialty food items to a full-service company that comes complete with tents and air conditioners.
The good news about an off-site location is that you can have it all your way. You will choose and coordinate all the details, and you will be virtually guaranteed of a wedding that is quite unlike anyone else's. In situations like this, having a wedding consultant to guide you would be a big help.
