Advice on booking a venue

We have almost come to a final decision. I'm looking for tips or advice for booking a venue. What do we have to ask or make sure they include in the contract? How can you approach asking for anything extra to be thrown in...etc.. any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Advice on booking a venue

1. make sure the open bar includes all top shelf liquors (this is important to our irish relatives LOL)
2. find out if they include white glove champagne service to guests upon entry into the venue. They should probably include that for free and it is a nice classy touch to add.
3. double check what the min. guests total is, because if you don't meet that quota you will have to cover the per plate for all of the empty seats!
4. We wanted to add a seafood station, which was an extra $16 per person. If this is something you want to add in but not spend that much $$, ask if you could do a 'modified' seafood station. We took out the lobster and saved like $6 per person which was pretty good.
5. Ask if you could do a combination plate for the salad and appetizer course (if you want to of course). I know that my family are huge dancers, and i wanted to spend less time sitting for the different courses. So, instead of a salad course and an appetizer course, we were able to do an appetizer over greens. We will figure out exactly what the combo plate will be at our tasting, but it's a good idea to ask about that if you are also the type of people who don't want to be sitting alot.
6.The only other thing we got added for free was an additional entree option- We had 3 options (a steak, chicken, and fish) but my dad really wanted a duck option because he thought it would be a little different from other weddings, so we added that as a fourth lol

That's all I can really think of! Just picture how you want your reception to be, and see how you can tweak what's in your contract to better suit your vision- most places are very accommodating, especially if it's just little touches you want

good luck!

Advice on booking a venue

Thanks!