March 20, 2021
Tips and Tricks: Hosting a Home Wedding in Connecticut
Hosting a Home Wedding in Connecticut
You’re engaged! Pop the bottles and cue alllllll the confetti. It’s time to celebrate AND time to start planning your wedding. What comes first? Well, the venue of course! You’re on the hunt for the perfect location for your wedding. You have a list, and you know with certainty what style you’re going for. But, you’re just not finding the perfect location.
After an exhausting search for the “perfect” venue, you’ve discovered that you can’t find what you’re looking for. They don’t seem to have the look, feel, or ambiance you want for your wedding. At this point, you’re considering just booking a plane ticket and heading off to a tropical island with your fiancee to elope! Then, suddenly, you think: what if we had the wedding at my parents’ house (or our home/family members ballin’ house, you get the drift!).
After the year we’ve all had, we’ve seen home weddings on the rise, and for very good reason! The outdoors are safer, your guests feel comfortable traveling to a familiar location, and there is an endless list of ways to make the space your own!
Photo: Carla Ten Eyck
Jubilee Events’ Love Affair with Home Weddings
Home weddings.. we love them. We really love them!! A home wedding gives you the opportunity to host your nearest and dearest in a place of absolute significance to you.
Home weddings are our specialty here at Jubilee Events. We’ve planned dozens of unique home weddings for our clients over the years. With our experience, we understand the logistical challenges and finer nuances involved with planning a home wedding. We also know that weddings can be stressful, and while it’s not only our duty to ensure you enjoy the planning process, it is also our mission to educate our clients on the who, what, and the why. With a unique property like your home, much of this stress can be heightened as the list of questions and details to consider grows.
You already have thoughts on your color palette, your date, maybe what you’ll be wearing. As you start to envision hosting everyone at your home that day, new expectations become prevalent, and it’s important to understand those before you hit the ground running!
Photo: Alicia Ann Photographers
A Home Wedding: Setting The Record Straight on Common Assumptions
You can control the costs because it’s at your home… Costs are not meant to surprise you, but we get it. Weddings are expensive (we will get into that topic in another blog post), but it’s important to understand what’s going into it so you can see the value coming out of it!
Regardless of the location of your wedding, costs can be controlled. It is understanding the price points of your potential vendors and the aspects that go into those costs. While there are “average” wedding costs available to you online, it’s vital to understand what goes into that “average.” Everyone is different — and for good reason!
Ask the questions to know what goes into the costs of your vendors and their packages. Some of your vendor costs may increase with home weddings, but that’s to ensure that all aspects are properly overseen and well managed, a value well received.
It won’t be as expensive because it’s not at a regular venue… This is a common assumption, but one quickly proved false. A venue has a site fee, of course, but this is the only fee you may be able to side-step when having the event at home.
Why?
There are a number of other necessities that you will need that a venue usually offers.
A venue comes with power, a roof, industrial kitchen, restrooms, flooring, lighting, a parking lot, and may even have some tables and chairs to utilize.
Your home, on the other hand, requires these additions — which are additional costs. Consider this: you are essentially building a venue from scratch. And that takes time, care, and a fine eye for details!
Circumstances are different with each home, but there are several details to consider (like the ones listed above). Simply put: having a home wedding requires you to build a venue in a matter of days, and you’ll have to rent and acquire all the necessary items to throw the bash of the year. Everything from salt and pepper shakers to parking lots.
Photo: Ali + Julie
You can have a month of coordinator for a home wedding… We highly discourage this for a home wedding as there are lists of logistics and details to oversee. Furthermore, don’t even consider a day-of coordinator. It’s entirely unfair to you to have someone step in so last minute and be able to successfully carry out your vision and day-of details as you have dreamt and planned them out to be.
It’s important to have an experienced planner on hand from start to finish. This will help alleviate a great deal of costly mistakes — errors that could have severe effects on your property or home and, more importantly, your peace of mind. A home wedding requires expert planning, which is why we want you to consider hiring a wedding planning team to be with you from start to finish.
When you wake up the next morning, you want to bask in the rings on your fingers, the speeches that were just made, and the fact that your feet are inevitably sore from keeping the dance floor packed all night! The last thing you will want to entertain is a clogged toilet, broken glass, or damage to your home or property.
Let’s face it: things happen and you want someone trusted to put the fire out before you smell the smoke.
You can invite more guests because there are no space constraints… This may be true and, hey, more power to you!! There’s nothing like celebrating something so monumental with all the people you hold near and dear to your heart. More guests directly impacts your budget as with every additional friend or family member, your costs go up. The best way to consider it is that with just one more person, your budget increases by $700, to start. Rental quantities, food and beverage costs, and even tent sizes are considered the higher (or lower) your guest count grows.
But, wait! There’s more:
It will be easier to have it at home… It might seem that way because set guidelines don’t necessarily exist, but as we have mentioned a few times, there are lists of things to consider as you get started. Through our experience detailed above, we’ve mentioned a number of these items, but to focus on them a little more closely:
Photo: Carla Ten Eyck
- Rain plan locations — whether you are having your ceremony onsite or not, a home wedding always needs to have a backup plan in case of inclement weather. During the winter season here in New England, we never complain about snow because we like to call our favors in during wedding season. The night before our events, we will do an anti-rain dance, slip a spoon under our pillow and pray to our Gods, but, when it boils down to it, Mother Nature can be a bit unruly. Having a tent on site will give you good peace of mind, but you may like to invest in marquee tenting, which will protect you and your guests as you travel to the restroom or parking area. This will also help protect the caterers and the food you are all excited to enjoy! You may find that, with a rain plan, all of your moments are packed into the same space. They say rain is good luck, but we know it can be a bit of a hassle. Here, it becomes especially important to have a well-versed team onsite to handle all of this — this way you’ll be able to look back and smile at all the other memories instead of first remembering the weather.
- Transportation + valet — as most venues have onsite parking, you may have to look into creating a parking lot for your home wedding. Even with a free lot of land or parking nearby, your guests are going to need some direction and guidance. That’s where our expert parking attendants and valet come in. Guest comfort is one of our top priorities, and parking is where it starts.
- Wedding insurance! This is something we speak in-depth with all of our couples about as it thoroughly protects you and the elements of your big day. On a property so personal and sacred, take the easy steps to protect it, protect you, and protect all of those who are guests onsite that day. Need a little information about wedding insurance? Well, take a peek at this helpful blog post we created here!
- Extra staff — Throughout the course of your day, you’ll need a little extra help and it could be for just about anything. Moving chairs from your ceremony to the reception, helpfully ushering guests from one moment to the next, preparing your maid of honor or best man for their speeches, communicating with your caterers that toasts are just about done and guests are prepared for their amazing menu and so much more. A home wedding, especially with a large property, requires more hands.
Your mind may be filled to the very brim with everything here, but now you know you have what you need to make the next choice as it fits your wedding day! If anything, we are always available to talk through your home wedding further.
[…] For more information and inspiration for your home wedding, be sure to visit our helpful tips and tricks here! […]
[…] learn a little more about our love for home weddings, check us out here and […]
[…] myths and truths to consider as you begin planning your fete. Check out our handy blog post – Tips and Tricks for Hosting Your Home Wedding in Connecticut – that will surely get you started on the right foot. Even if your event won’t be held […]