50+ Lower-Cost New England Wedding Venues (That We Did Not Use)

For one of my first posts, I am going to show my work. Linked is a spreadsheet of 50+ unorthodox wedding venues in the New England region of all sorts -- parks, farms, museums, book stores, the works. My theory at the time was that if I could bring in my own drop catering, I could almost entirely cut out the cost of labor, and so was just looking for a beautiful space that would allow outside catering.

As you have doubtless discovered if you have done any of your own legwork, transparency is sorely lacking when it comes to wedding venues! Even if a site shares its fees online and the venue fee seems fair, does it come with a required caterer with an outlandish minimum per head? Do you have to pay for your own chairs and cutlery?!?!

For my own tracking, I wanted to know the location, ability to choose our own caterer and/or bring food or drinks in, the maximum number of guests, and other fees.

I make no representations about having kept this up to date; some of the items named here I simply decided not to pursue. There is nothing listed that was held out to me as being confidential.

Sheet 1 represents unfettered brainstorming mode. Sheet 2 (aptly named "For Real") represents the venues I was most excited about at the time I was creating the spreadsheet. 

They are all genuinely beautiful venues and I don't doubt we would have had a wonderful wedding at any of them! Nonetheless, we ended up going a quite different route. In part this is because we were at the time trying to stay within the $10K bracket which was pretty aggressive.* I didn't keep track entirely, but I remember being dismayed that it was hard to have a $10K wedding even at these uncommon venues. As you'll see while perusing, there are lots of add-on fees when you create a venue -- like furniture and cutlery, for which the prospect of paying utterly scandalized me -- that, from the venue's perspective, it makes sense to have the customers bear the cost. They don't need these things lying around all the time, and different couples may want to select a different look! However, if you go the restaurant route, like we ended up doing, they are already fitted for service.

Moreover, most of these would have imposed significant inconvenience on our guests. It is inherent to these beautiful natural parks, quaint city halls, etc that they are far away from transit hubs.

We kept looking and found the perfect way for us to meet all of our goals, but sharing this in the event that one of these is perfect for a reader!

*The transition from 10K to 15K to 20K happened over our long engagement and honestly as we just saved up more money, though that was not our intention going in. I have a pretty visceral memory that a lot of these venues "exceeded our budget" when you analyzed, but that means something quite different if the budget is 10K than if it's 20K. Quite possible that some of the venues here actually fit a 15-20K wedding.

Fine print: Exact pricing information is often highly confidential to businesses, particularly businesses where this price point is a "win/win." I will never share pricing without express approval from a business or vendor, unless that information is publicly available. I will strive to be maximally helpful to my readers without compromising trust placed in me by any businesses. Thank you for understanding and please reach out with any questions!