Choosing The Reception Hall

When people talk about decisions they will have to make as part of their wedding planning, you will usually hear about the bridal dress, the flowers, the wedding photographer, the caterer, the band or disc jockey, the colors, the invitations. A good deal of time is spent focusing on details that most guests will not remember, and may not even notice at all. You do not always hear about one of the most important parts of the selection process: the reception hall. The hall that you choose for your reception will establish a mood for the party after your wedding, and it is this mood that will stay in the minds of the guests after they leave your celebration.

You will want to make sure that the decor and the ambience of your reception hall match the wedding itself. A lodge hall, for example, may not be the perfect setting for a formal, black tie wedding reception, but the reception hall at a fashionable downtown hotel may be the wrong place to have the reception for a very casual ceremony. Some unique choices work, though - there is an aircraft museum in Tampa Bay that has become a highly popular venue for wedding receptions: there is plenty of room to set out the food and drinks, and to dance, and there are also rooms filled with antique aircraft for guests to peruse while they are at the party.

Remember - just like you, there are hundreds, even thousands, of couples in your area also looking for the perfect reception hall at any given time. You will want to begin searching for your venue as soon as you know your wedding date. May, June and July are the most popular months for weddings, and it may come as an unpleasant surprise to you to discover how early other couples will book the most sought-after reception sites. If the two of you have a couple of places in mind, call them the day after you two have picked your date.

If you do not do this, you may end up celebrating your reception in that lodge hall, right after the bingo session has ended, and your wedding will end with a mood somewhat different than what the two of you had fantasized when you were considering the day of your union together.

Once you have picked a place for your reception, the next set of decisions involves the perfect decorations for your celebration. You can take a room that does not look promising to begin, and change it into a magical room that seem fit for a ball, if you choose the right decorations. While you will want to make sure that your venue's exterior is a fitting place to maintain the mood of the wedding, there are ways to cover over flaws, turn blank walls into panoramic scenes, and leave your guests impressed with the mood of your party. Selecting and transforming your reception hall may be one of the most challenging, but also one of the most rewarding, parts of arranging your wedding day.