Are Barn Wedding Venues Worth It? What Brides Need to Know Before Booking
episode
Wedding Planning Experts | Wedding Planning Tips, Budget, Vendors & Advice for Brides
30 min
4 speakers
5 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Are barn wedding venues worth it for rustic couples in West Michigan?
You're looking into a barn-style wedding venue. What do you need to know? Is the bridal suite temperature controlled? Where is the ceremony being held? How is the audio handled for the ceremony cocktail hour and reception? If there's a tent, does it have sidewalls and heat? Are the restrooms nice? And so much more. Let's talk to the barn at Adams Acres. Welcome to the Wedding Planning Experts Podcast, hosted by Dan and Andrea DeWard, owners of Full Circle Weddings. After 25 years in the wedding industry, owning and operating multiple wedding venues, hosting hundreds of ceremonies and receptions, we provide tips to help brides and grooms plan their wedding stress-free and on budget. So let's dive in and talk about all things weddings.
Well, Bob and Dana, welcome to the Wedding Planning Experts Podcast. We're happy to have you here and we're excited to talk about your venue and learn a little bit about you guys. So welcome.
Well, thank you for having us.
Thank you.
Could you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got started with your venue?
We bought a property and the first time I looked at it, I said, honey, we can get married here. And we did that. And We've got five daughters and three of them got married there within like 26 months. And the phone started ringing. We went to the township and got all the approvals necessary. And we opened our venue to the public in 2017.
So to clarify, yours was the first wedding there? Yeah. And then after your wedding, your three daughters were married at the same location? Yes. Can you share some of your details about your venue, location, capacity?
Yeah, we're in Belding, right on Belding Road. The venue, we're open seasonally, May through September. Ideally for weddings, the guests count around 150-ish. Corporate events or fundraisers, we can go almost to 300-ish.
Approximately how many weddings do you do a year then? I would say approximately 20. The year after COVID, so 2021, we had over 40 some events and probably I think 31, 32 of those were weddings.
I think we're closing in on our 150th wedding now this year. How many of those are ceremony and reception versus reception only? I'm guessing a majority of yours, based on your location and what I know of it, you probably do a lot of ceremony and reception.
Yeah, I would say 98% of them.
Yeah, maybe one or two a year if they have a special connection to a certain church that they want to have the ceremony at. But most of the time they do it in our loft.
Yeah, talk about that a little bit. You mentioned the loft right there. Talk about your ceremony. You have a separate dedicated area for the ceremony. Maybe talk about that a little bit, where it's located. The first time I looked up there, The old rafters in the barn reminded me of the church cathedral.
And that's in the upper loft space of the barn? It's just beautiful up there and the acoustics are amazing. That's where we do the ceremonies up there. We have old church pews that we got from a church in Holland that was converting to chairs. And so it is just like a church in the barn. If we have guests that can't navigate the stairs or if guests show up late, we do have cameras and we have a lower level that, you know, with the television and the sound systems all tied together so those people can still see and participate.
Which is nice because I'm guessing in the barn there's not an elevator. No. So if somebody needs, you know, handicap accessibility or something, they have the ability to watch the ceremony. PA system, you mentioned the acoustics are really good in there. I know you have a background in audio. So have you built in some of that equipment to simplify the process?
Yes. I owned a car stereo shop for 25 years and audio is kind of a passion of mine and So when I was building this space, I was continuously looking for ways to improve it. And we were fortunate. One of the weddings we had was a gentleman that worked as a audio engineer in Nashville. And he made some suggestions to get me started. And then I've just built from there.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Are barn wedding venues worth it for rustic couples in West Michigan?
0:00–4:00
2
How did the owners convert their family property into The Barn at Adams Acres?
4:00–8:40
3
What ceremony layout and audio systems solve common barn-venue challenges?
8:40–19:07
4
What bridal suite, accessibility, and coordination services do barn venues need to provide?
19:07–29:13
5
How are catering, bar service, and vendor policies handled at a barn venue?
29:13–30:32
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from Wedding Planning Experts | Wedding Planning Tips, Budget, Vendors & Advice for Brides
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