Photos on thumbnail courtesy of Trinlee Photography.
Shortly after celebrating your exciting engagement news with your family and close friends, you’ll likely be ready to hit the ground running on all of the fun wedding planning activities. While you will have plenty of time to complete the various tasks (unless your wedding is only a couple months away), you also don’t want to procrastinate on getting started, especially in regards to the more time-sensitive items. In terms of “time-sensitive” items, there are definitely a few that come to mind right away. Getting a general budget in-place is obviously a big one! After all, before you start reaching out to the various vendors, you’ll want to have an idea of a ballpark price for each and the wedding as a whole. Another one, which will be featured throughout this week’s blog post, is the venue selection process. Your venue will serve a major role in the big day itself, so it’s a decision that you’ll want to avoid rushing through! With this week’s blog post, we’ll highlight outdoor venues specifically and provide some useful information for couples that are searching for outdoor wedding venues in Houston (or any of the nearby cities).
Before we get into some venue talk though, we would first like to say hello to those that are new to our wedding blog. Madera Estates is a luxury wedding venue located in Conroe, TX, just north of Houston and The Woodlands. Here on our wedding blog, we strive to provide engaged couples with a plethora of resources and ideas as they embark on their wedding planning journey. Whether that be advice on the vendor selection stages, ways to create a stress-free planning process or anything else, you can find a lot of useful resources on the blog! Click HERE to check out previous posts.
Now…on to this week’s blog post and time to learn about what you should be considering when searching for outdoor wedding venues in Houston!
Make sure there is a back-up plan available
Unsurprisingly, the thing that we felt was most important to open this blog post about is the possibility of any weather-related curveballs that may come your way. While you obviously don’t anticipate bad weather when you’re planning your wedding, you also don’t want to ignore the possibility of it happening either. Especially in regards to having an outdoor wedding, it’s important for the venue that you select to have a back-up plan available (in the event that it’s needed). In other words, if you were planning on having either an outdoor ceremony or reception (or both), you’ll want to confirm what would happen if there were to be rain or any other weather-related issues!
Here at Madera Estates, we have an easy alternative that couples can utilize. Even though the outdoor space in front of the Grand Fireplace continues to be a popular spot for everything from an outdoor ceremony to an al fresco reception, final dance under the stars and so on, that doesn’t mean we aren’t prepared if bad weather were to strike. With the Hacienda available (which can be used for both ceremonies and receptions), couples are covered no matter what!
Start your wedding venue search early
As we kicked off this week’s blog post, we talked about how there are particular tasks that are more time-sensitive than others. There are certain ones that you’ll want to tackle shortly after getting engaged, just as there are those that can wait until the big day is a month or so away! In addition, we mentioned how the wedding venue selection should be one of the earlier items to complete. The reason for this is fairly straightforward. Simply put, you’ll quickly see that wedding venues can get booked up several months in-advance. This is particularly the case when you’re looking at popular dates, such as Saturdays in the fall. All in all, while this point applies to all wedding venues (outdoors and indoors), it is such an important point that we felt the need to highlight it here as well! By the way, for those that are also working on filling out the rest of their vendor team (photographers, caterers, etc), it’s important to note that this applies to many of them as well. To sum it up, by avoiding any procrastination on these stages of wedding planning, it just ensures you’ll find a venue and other vendors capable of truly bringing your dream wedding to life!
Search for natural elements around the venue
One of the most notable advantages of having an outdoor element for your wedding is the potential to include natural components that will certainly add to the beauty of your wedding photos. When it comes time to start touring potential outdoor wedding venues, keep this in mind as you evaluate different aspects of the particular venues. What might you want to consider?
How about incorporating a golden hour feature to your wedding? These always result in the most amazing photos! How about having a twilight ceremony? By adding in some candlelight and overhead lighting, a twilight ceremony can be such an amazing way to say your “I Do’s.” How about different options for the various photo opportunities? Whether it be of just you and your soon-to-be spouse, first look, wedding party or family photos, having options in terms of the backdrops can be a major plus in creating a stunning wedding album! In the end, there is just something about including natural elements into your wedding photos that we felt it needed a place in this blog post.
Combine both indoor and outdoor spaces
While this week’s blog post was focused specifically on outdoor wedding venues, it can certainly be helpful to find a wedding venue that provides the best of both worlds. Essentially, you can break up a wedding day into different stages. There are the getting ready moments, ceremony, reception and send-off. If the weather allows for it, why not do a mixture of both outdoor and indoor spaces? A popular approach for weddings held at Madera Estates would be an outdoor ceremony in front of the Grand Fireplace, followed by an indoor reception in the Hacienda before calling it a night with an outdoor final send-off! All in all, deciding on your wedding day timeline will likely require careful thought, but it’s definitely something in which you can lean on the expertise of your wedding venue coordinator for ideas!
Looking for Outdoor Wedding Venues in Houston? Tour Madera Estates in Conroe!
As you can likely guess, outdoor weddings can be simply magical! Whether it be for the ceremony, reception, final send-off or anything else, there are so many fun possibilities with an outdoor wedding. As a wedding venue that has an outdoor component, we’ve had the opportunity to witness this first-hand on many occasions! Throughout this week’s blog post, we discussed a few items that you’ll want to keep in mind when scheduling tours at outdoor wedding venues in Houston.
In the opening paragraphs, we talked briefly about our wedding venue, Madera Estates, which is located just north of Houston in Conroe, TX. If you’re currently engaged and in the venue selection stage of wedding planning, we would be happy to show you around our venue and answer any questions you may have! To learn more, you’re welcome to fill out the form HERE to request a copy of our pricing guide.