Why Should I Attend a Local Wedding Tour?
Planning a wedding can feel like a full-time job. The time it takes to research possible vendors and schedule appointments to tour venues, or meet with caterers and planners, can feel overwhelming. How do you find time to meet with one of each vendor, let alone multiple vendors, in order to make the most informed decision possible?
Wouldn’t it be ideal if you could meet with potential vendors, tour multiple venues, and knock out a huge chunk of wedding planning in one day? That’s the appeal of attending a wedding tour.
I can honestly say that I would not have had the wedding I did without the Snohomish Wedding Tour. I had a specific vision in mind for our wedding day but was having trouble narrowing down possibilities from venue websites and Google image searches. And between my schedule and my fiancé’s, I had no idea how we were going to find time to visit multiple sites, set up a variety of tastings with caterers, and meet with potential planners and photographers. I was squeezing in coffee meetings on lunch breaks, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time it was going to take to truly plan the wedding of my dreams.
So when my mother-in-law suggested the Snohomish Wedding Tour, I jumped at the chance to visit multiple venues, sample catering, and meet potential wedding vendors all in one day.
Here are a few key benefits to attending a wedding tour during the wedding planning process:
1. See the results of your research in person.
The Snohomish Wedding Tour is equivalent to seeing weeks’ worth of wedding research come to life. You can visit as many (or as few) of the participating venues as you want, see how each one would look set up for a wedding, and meet with local vendors who can help make your wedding vision a reality. It’s a completely different feeling to meet wedding professionals in person and discuss your wedding day.
We did preliminary research on the participating venues in order to focus on a short list of possibilities and go from there. Once we visited those (and found the venue of our dreams), we focused on the additional aspects of our wedding that we had researched but were dependent on our venue decision.
2. Visualize your wedding at possible venues.
Each venue was set up with wedding décor, with local wedding professionals available to discuss their services for our wedding date. We sampled local catering while we looked at farmhouse tables and other décor we could rent, chatted with photographers about their style, and gathered useful information for planning our day.
It’s one thing to see website images of potential venues, and something else entirely to see the venue actually set up for a wedding. We were able to experience each venue the way that our wedding guests would, which provided valuable insight.
3. Make a personal connection with possible vendors.
Multiple vendors and locations may sound like information overload, but it was incredibly helpful. It also gave us the chance to establish personal connections with potential vendors, which I used as a starting point for follow-up correspondence. We also met and connected with vendors that we may not have found through our online research.
4. Save time.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with where to start when planning your wedding, research local wedding tours and bridal shows. It can be a great way to collect information in a short period of time, which will jumpstart your wedding planning process. Coordinating meetings for the same day with the number of vendors you’ll meet at a wedding tour would be impossible.
Planning a wedding takes time and energy. There are multiple components to consider to ensure your wedding day vision becomes a reality. Check out more wedding planning insights to help you get started here.
This year, the Snohomish Wedding Tour is Sunday, June 2nd. Tickets for the tour are free with registration.
Photos by Jenny GG Photography from the 2018 Snohomish Wedding Tour at the Belle Chapel, coordinated by Katelynn of Prudence & Sage. Floral designs by Paeonia Pines.