Questions to Ask Wedding Venues about Your Orthodox Jewish Wedding

Not every bride is compelled to find the venue that offers the best deal for the price per person compared to other venues. I can’t relate to those brides. When I started doing research on wedding venues in the Metro- NY/NJ area, my goal was to find the best quality for the right price. Beyond using negotiation tactics to lower costs (to be covered in another blog), you should ask the wedding venue questions that highlight the pro’s and con’s in selecting the venue:

• How many hours are they charging for? Typically, it is around 6 hours, but you can use this as a negotiation tactic by requesting an hour less.

• Does the venue have more than one event going on at the same time? I found this to be a drag if I had to share my wedding space with other brides, and this was a deal-breaker for me.

• Is Valet Parking an added cost? Some wedding venues fail to mention that someone has to pay for the valet service, and this can become an unforeseen expense to either the bride or the guests that may have to shovel out the money.

• Does the wedding venue offer several different rooms that accommodate an Orthodox Jewish Wedding, such as a Tisch area, Bedeken area, Chuppah space, Yichud room, dancing floor that can separate men and women? Surprisingly, wedding venues may not bring up the fact that they do not have a private area / Yichud room for the bride and groom. In fact, two Manhattan wedding venues that I went to checkout could only offer a closet room for the newlywed bride and groom as a Yichud room.

• Does the wedding venue use the same room for the Reception and the Ceremony? Some wedding venues that do not have a lot of space may state that they can accommodate a specific number of guests, like 175 people, yet this can only be done by flipping over the Ceremony area into the Reception area. During the “flip over”, guests may be huddled into a room to find a shmorgishborg. Personally, for the Jewish Orthodox bride such a set up may not make sense since the shmorg would be given right before Dinner. However, the benefit with wedding venues that flip over their space for the shared Reception and Ceremony area are more likely to significantly lower their price if the bride brings this up as a possible deal-breaker.

• Is the wedding venue conveniently located or located near public transportation? If you find a wedding venue that you absolutely love but the only way for guests to get there is to swim or take a boat, then you may want to pass up on the wedding venue or use the inconvenient location as a negotiation strategy in lowering the cost per person.

• What is the percent gratuity on top of the cost per person, and is there another additional percent charge for maitre de services? Right before I was going to sign the dotted line with a wedding venue, they mentioned an additional 5% charge for maitre de services on top of the 18% gratuity and the State tax. While I still ended up signing with this venue anyway, it was only after the wedding venue offered other perks for free to settle my nerves.

• What services are offered by the wedding venue on the day of the wedding? One of the top reasons that I chose my wedding venue was because it came jam-packed with luxury services that included a Valet, Bathroom Attendant, Bridal Attendant, Maitre De / wedding coordinator, 2:1 waiter/table ratio, white-gloved attendants, and non-stop attendance to the needs of guests. They also offered place-setting cards, table numbers, menus per guest and even ice sculptures of any design we desired. I went through so many venues that were much more expensive yet did not offer most of these services.

• What is the wedding venues cancellation policy? G-d forbid there is a need to cancel, but should one arise for some reason then it is better to know the financial damage ahead of time.

• Does the wedding venue offer different ranges in time to hold the wedding, and are they flexible with changing times? One of the easiest ways to reduce costs per person is to have a morning / early day wedding, but there are also Orthodox Jewish-related issues with the timing of the wedding. Evening weddings are typically more expensive. Further, for brides planning to have their Orthodox Jewish Wedding in the winter, they should be conscientious of sunset times and make sure timing of the Tisch and Chuppah does not interfere with when the sun sets. My wedding was in February 2010 and our Rabbi officiating the wedding forced me to change the start time of the wedding from 4pm to 5pm to ensure the Hebrew date of our contractual marriage could not be disputed due to being too close to the time of the sun setting. Luckily, my wedding venue was flexible with changing the times.

• What is the quality of the food and liquor offered by your wedding venue? Another top reason I chose my wedding venue was because they were known for having hands-down outstanding Glatt Kosher food, provide top shelf liquor and a kosher wedding cake with several designs to choose from. Guests are offered seconds on their meals. Most venues will not include all of these accommodations in their costs per person, which means spending more money to get such perks.