List of questions that must be answered before looking for a venue

I am not sure about others but I reckon I did pretty extensive research for my Phuket wedding venue.... and so I would love to share it with brides to be who are planning to have their wedding in Phuket and have no idea where to start. If I had this list before planning, I would have felt absolutely grateful and would be my life saver!

Before even looking, you must have the following information:
1) Party size? : I am Chinese so my so called small wedding is actually a huge wedding in Phuket. I am planning 120 guests which is really the bare minimum.
2) Dates?: Mines will be in December PEAK SEASON!! but dry season at least... if budget is an huge issue, please take note not to run into peak seasons. Wet season is a pretty bad time to have a wedding in Phuket although cheap! You will need to think about back up plans if you have an outdoor wedding. Planning a destination is also very time consuming... so consider that too!
2) Wedding Ceremony - Beach or Grass? - take note that beach ceremony venues doenst really fit a big crowd. So pretty much a grass lawn was a must for me
3) Dinner reception - Indoors or outdoors? : Prince L is an indoor guy, he sweats like a pig after 5 minutes in room temp and also Hong Kong is a very air conditioned place... my family dislikes the heat so we decided that dinner reception must be an air conditioned venue (this pretty much narrows down the venue option to probably 5-10 out of 30 venues) Take note: if a wedding size like mines with air conditioned dinner venue.... a wedding ballroom is a must!! I really didnt want a ballroom but after checking and checking, it seemed like the only best option I have.
4) Accomodation budget? - before falling absolutely in love with a venue, please check accomodation prices of the venue (exactly my mistake). One venue which I absolutely loved and thought was perfect in every single way had sky high uncalculable room prices so for me to have my wedding there, I would need to arrange nearby accomodation for the guests. For easy going relatives and friends, its totally fine... but not for my family. Just thinking about arranging transportation and accomodation at a nearby hotel already drove me crazy... therefore I had to let go of this stunning venue even if it was perfect in every single effing way!
5) Facilities? Work out with your partner what facilities the venue must have, you will be shocked what your fiance might expect and it could cut out a lot of options
6) Budget? - You will be shocked at the wedding costs, at the start, when I received the quotations, I was like WOW the prices are really reasonable and was getting really excited about doing so many things for the wedding until when the details gets in and you realise that you have blown the budget completely. Work out the details of the budget before choosing your venue. In my next post, I will talk about setting the budget

Road Block 3 - miscommunication with my fiance on the wedding venue

Almost lost it when I have done so much research on these venues (without a private beach access) to find out that Prince L (my fiance acts like a prince... drives me crazy sometimes) wants private beach access for reasons I cannot understand.

Almost confirmed with a venue and had to start from scratch!!

NOTE: please communicate well and clear of what you want the venue to have before going to far into the planning! Dont assume that the guys dont have any input... cos arguments happen when you assume they are OK and when you have done so much work to realise they are not OK.

So for my story, I decided to give in... at the end of the day, a wedding is just a day in your life, its really no big deal! It should be a happy planning process! So now I have final 2 venues and all down to costs.

Best article for those who are starting to lose themself over a wedding

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erin-johnson/advice-from-10-years-in-the-future----dont-want-the-wedding_b_9930892.html

This article speaks my words and I cant agree more... I shall stop stressing about the one single day of my life!

Road Block 2 : Family's 2 cents

From an Hong Kong Chinese background, there is no way you can ignore simple comments from your comments. To them, their advice is ONLY FOR YOUR GOOD and to help you, not to harm you. It is wiser to listen because the comments comes from years and years of experience which you do not have. Get the point right? But these simple little comments drives me up the wall. So what I have got so far:

- Phuket is a ghostly town (think about all the people thats died from the Tsunami and corpses are probably still in the ocean. Not very suited for a wedding
- Do we get covered on the accomodation and tickets?
- Are you sure the date you have set is the best date? How about so and so, are they able to come? (so and so is someone that I am not planning to invite)
- What? you are not inviting so and so?
- How about selecting a Chinese date that is suited to the birth time and place of both of you and ask the fortune teller?

You can ignore them but just gets on my nerves! ARGH!

Research overload!!

Every single girl gets carried away and thinks about stage 58 when stage 1 isnt even completed. But don’t worry, early research just helps planning anyway. So I started researching on items that’s not covered by the venue:

  Photographers – included in the package but I want a really good one
 Videographer
 Wedding gown/brides dresses
 Decoration ideas
 DIY ideas
  Make up and Hair
 Wedding bands

My main research came from:

Style me Pretty – for everything about weddings

The Knot – for everything about weddings

Something Turquoise – DIY ideas

Fearless Photographers – photographer and videographers

Pinterest for daily dosages of random wedding information

Google images – when you are searching for something specific and need the images of

Brides.com for dresses

Oh so beautiful Paper - Invitation ideas

Basically there is so much information out there, there is nothing you cant find! Theres loads and loads of different websites but I find the ones that I keep looking and looking back will be the ones above. Having said that, I'm still at the early stage so I will keep it updated if I find anything interesting. 

ROAD BLOCK 1 – Budget!

Remember to say “ do not wish for perfect wedding” a thousand times a day to remind yourself!

So once you have all the details, how to decide on the final venue…. 

For most people, the budget decides! I didn’t choose my favorite venue either but I am still very happy with mines! What I feel so far which I have learnt is that, at the beginning when everything was still green, you just hoped for any venue that responds… once you realise hey.. its easy! You hope for the most prettiest venues that is available and once you realise how many amazingly beautiful venues that’s available, you hope for the perfect wedding! Its an automatic road! But then the budget road block hits you and you have to decide whether you want the perfect wedding or you will go for what the budget allows

PLEASE DO NOT wish for the perfect wedding, this is just the start, theres such a long road of the most perfect everything. I had a really long rational thought process and realized hey I really do like the other venues too… If the best didn’t pop out, I will be already happy to be choosing anyone of them! Really, its just one day of your life so be rational.

My budget breaker was the accommodation – the accommodation was not included in my package and on top I have to work out where else the guests can stay because it will be too much for them. I also have to work out transportation a few times a day. Although everything else was reasonable, everytime I thought about arranging the accommodation and transportation, my head was stuck and I already panicked. There is no way I can arrange that and the wedding planner idea came back and more costs there! 

So a huge advice I want to give is consider the accommodation costs right at the beginning before getting carried away. A lot of the hotels don’t give you that information right at the beginning and it is easy to get lured into wrong direction and when you are given the accommodation cost bomb, it is so draining to think how can I rebudget or how can I shuffle costs around. I wasted 2 weeks and felt absolutely exhausted. Once I decided to drop my that venue, I felt a huge sigh of relief that I didn’t even realise how much stress I was in. 

First and foremost – Settling with a date and venue

Nothing needs to be done or better said, anything you do is nothing unless you have a date and venue. So I am now up to the stage where most information has been gathered, this is around 3 weeks of emailing back and forth asking for extra services and costs and getting all details of what the package provides and what if I want more questions. Knowing exactly what you are getting for the money you are paying and what you need to be paying for extra.

So with me, I am looking for indoor venue for the dinner reception, this has cut down my options by half so relatively easy for me to compare after that.