Your best bet would be to call around to get prices on tents, permits, location rental (it's doubtful you can just show up somewhere with a tent), liquor laws, insurance riders, security if you need it for the alcohol and also find out how much deposits will be and how far out they are due. Don't forget to find out how much the officiant for your service will cost and any suggested donations related to that. Don't forget all the other costs involved with the wedding (that I'm sure someone who has done a wedding would know more than I).

Weddings are expensive. When money is tight, courthouses are cheap.

Like Alex asked though, wouldn't it best to watch the L&O marathon instead?

The problem with places like this is 1) they tend to be a little cheesier than other places, and 2) there are multiple rooms and there will probably be multiple events happening in that facility at the same time. There are a couple of places like that in OC to.

If the place in the link above is the one I am thinking of, I wasn't real impressed with it.

We got married in my parents back yard on May 29th - quite possibly the hottest day that year. We had about 100 people attend. We used tables and umbrellas. Had a rented dance floor with a - not a gazebo - but a upside U shaped trellis thing that we got married under. We put all the chairs on the dance floor and walked down the aisle then the same chairs just got moved over to the table area. Had the food inside on more rented tables. Worked out great and was reletively inexpensive. We had a keg and enough champagne to do a toast with.

My cousin got married in a park and had a reception in a hall. They had a small tent for the bride to "hide" in. I think they had a few string players for the music. There were no chairs and the ceremony was pretty short. Everyone just stood on either side of a roped off aisle that was strews with flowers. The reception was like no other I've been to though - very exgravagant.

If my parents still had the house we had when I was a teen, I'd almost certainly do a backyard wedding. But, alas, they don't. So I was kind of considering this place. Their pricing is actually pretty reasonable, I think.
Trick is, I think all they provide is the setting, so I have to compare doing this thing a la carte to the bundled services other places provide. But the advantage would be being able to choose my own catering, so I wouldn't be railroaded into using some place's contract caterer, which means I can shop around both for quality and price.

Wow, I totally didn't intend to go into this much detail. But yeah, I have some ideas and I'm just trying to get ideas of costs so I can weed out the better ideas from the not-so-great ones.

Just to clarify - our condo insurer, AAA, said they would not insure our party (at any price) if there was alcohol served at all, so we had to shop around. We don't think it cost us any more to have alcohol there, it's just that AAA sucks. Usually your homeowner/condo insurance will give you small event insurance for cheap.

Large events are another story I believe.

If we're talking weddings, I vouch for the pay-one-place-to-do-most-everything deal. I looked into the tent, outdoors, catering, dancefloor, piecemeal option, and it was WAY cheaper to go the country club route, not to mention WAY less stressful.

That's right. And my company said they wouldn't cover because it wasn't family.

Well, just so long as you have the ring in time that you can plan this thing so as to be able for us to attend.

Next April sounds nice.... :cheers:

Do they also charge for the hours of set-up and tear-down? That's where it can cost serious bucks, because figure you'll have 2 hours of set-up and at least 1 hour of tear-down on top of your event.

If your event is 4 hours long, plus 3, you're looking at $2,800 just for site rental fee, not including the security fees.

And, then, consider the rest in your ballpark figure:

Table/linen/chair rentals would be around $400-$500 or better.

Flowers run about $200 for a fresh bouquet.

Low-end catering at $20/pp, possibly more. (Figure $2,000+ for 100 people.)

Alcohol - $$$$

DJ - $600-$1,000

Dress - $200-$1,000

Tux Rentals - $125 each

Minister fees - $100+

Tips (caterer, DJ, minister, etc.) - $100-$200 minimum total

Centerpieces - $10+ each

Favors - $3 per guest ($300)

Cake - $300+

Photography - $1,000+

So, not including venue site fees/security/insurance, plan on at least $6,000 for the above, and that's pretty much serving very limited beer and wine, if any alcohol at all.

Pretty much, a "budget" wedding that still has some class runs around $8,000-$10,000 these days in SoCal.

Our final ticket ran just over $6,500, but that was with a some major things covered by friendly favors and making a LOT of the decor myself. Without the gifted components, ours would have run about $9,000+, and that was with a very affordable all-in-one venue.

Weddings ain't cheap.

The Vegas wedding I attended wasn't my cup of tea. If it's your lifelong dream to select chicken wings at the buffet while wearing your wedding gown, that's the place to do it.