March/April 2021

FUNCTION VENUES
“HAVING TRIED AND TESTED SUPPLIERS WHO CAN WORK
WITH YOU SEAMLESSLY ON ACCOMMODATION AND
CATERING/BAR IN PARTICULAR WILL BE VERY IMPORTANT”
you will need to embrace tech and virtual – a
lot more natural to us all in 2021!
Having tried and tested suppliers
who can work with you seamlessly on
accommodation and catering/bar in
particular will be very important. Catering
and bar options should also extend to those
pre and post days and meals, not just the
main wedding meal. That’s not to say you
have to incorporate all of those things into
a package and it will depend on your ideal
client and venue style; you could have more
of a DIY vibe, in which case emphasise use
of your kitchens, ease of food deliveries
and the like. However, in general, where
everyone is not local, destination couples
and their families tend to need more support
and “done for them” services as options.
Absolutely key for destination weddings
is how you present your venue hire
and accommodation. It’s quite unusual
for a couple to pay for everyone’s
accommodation for a multi-day wedding so
even if you charge one overall venue hire fee,
make it clear in all of your sales processes
that part of that cost can be charged out to
guests and how.
Do destination weddings always have to
be more expensive?
A destination wedding doesn’t have to entail
more expense and there are ways of divvying
up the costs in the way of presenting it more
as a shared holiday rather than a wedding
with one couple or family footing the bill.
That will depend on a lot of factors.
What has to be carefully considered
though is that a destination wedding
is multi-day. Aside from the obvious
additional travel costs for people to get
there, this type of wedding involves bringing
people together for much longer than a
conventional wedding; ultimately people
need feeding, watering, comfort and
entertainment. Whilst this doesn’t have to
be for every minute of the day, and certain
parts of the stay can be “at leisure” for each
guest, that needs to be planned out, made
clear and communicated for a successful
and happy time for all.
To put it bluntly you probably wouldn’t
feel comfortable laying on just a hog
roast and a couple of drinks when you’ve
asked Simon and Karen to fork out £500
for accommodation and leave them with
having to pay all their meals and drinks
for three days! Unless this was made very
clear to them from the start and the whole
event had more of a “let’s have a holiday
together” focus rather than “you’re invited
to a wedding”.
How should you market your venue –
what kind of couple can you expect?
Destination couples will vary of course as
destinations vary but in general they will be
bold, wanting to create something that’s
very them, and wanting to look at ways to
create a special and memorable wedding
experience in your location, otherwise they
could stay more local, do what other friends
have done, follow more of a format and do a
lot less work!
Couples are likely to want to know what
others have done in your setting, what
you’ve done before and want to listen to
quirky touches you can help with to make
their wedding unique, and make the best
of what’s available locally (particularly food
and drink) to celebrate the area they are in
geographically. They are more likely to even
search for their wedding venue not actually
using the term ‘wedding venue’ but view
the whole thing as a holiday so you may
find them using terms like ‘party house’,
‘staycation’ or ‘private home for hire’.
LUCY GREENHILL
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelly Chandler is
passionate about
supporting venue owners
to develop and evolve their
wedding offering as market
conditions adapt and change.
An in-depth knowledge of the
destination market is just one area that Kelly
brings to her bespoke consulting programmes
for venues.
Kelly Chandler Wedding Consulting helps land
and property owners thrive by generating
profit from hosting weddings. Kelly and her
team offer specialist private consulting and
a range of training programmes focussed on
creating spot-on wedding offerings, growing
enquiries and resulting wedding sales. www.
kellychandlerconsulting.co.uk/services
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