The Complete Guide to a Barn Wedding – What You Need to Know

Planning a wedding is a complicated dance, involving multiple different considerations in different areas. Arguably one of the most important things, however, is the venue; increasingly, people are seeing the appeal of barn weddings, with their rustic charm and access to plenty of space. Here’s what you need to know about organising the perfect barn wedding.

Finding a barn

To find the perfect barn, you can take a look online and in wedding planning magazines. It’s also a good idea to ask your friends and family if they have any suggestions or connections. Try to find venues with a history of hosting weddings, and consider important details such as the capacity of the barn, accessibility, and any services that are available.

Visiting the barn

Once you’ve identified a potential barn, it’s important that you go and visit it. On your visit, you can see if the venue is as nice in person as it is in the pictures you’ve seen, and you can also see what kind of condition it’s in. Remember that you can also do a lot to change the place – if you want a blank canvas that you can completely personalise, then that’s definitely something to keep in mind.

Bad weather contingency plans

While you can control a lot of things to do with your wedding, some things you can’t, including the weather. It’s important to ensure that the barn can handle the rain – if it has open sites, then consider asking if it’s possible to have fabric coverings on standby, just in case.

If you’re having the wedding in the winter months, then make sure that you have heaters on hand so that people aren’t freezing. If you’re going for an outdoor wedding, then it’s a good idea to choose somewhere like Heaton House Farm with indoor facilities on hand as well.

Decor

While you can personalise the barn to a certain degree, it’s important to choose an option with a decor that you feel like you can embrace and enhance through your own personal embellishments. Things like string lights and flowers can make these kinds of spaces come alive, adding a wonderful vibrance to an already beautiful environment.

Location layout

You’ll likely have a certain kind of layout in mind – when you visit the barn, it’s important to make sure that the layout of the location will be able to accommodate the kind of experience you have planned. That being said, if it isn’t exactly what you had in mind but it’s still beautiful, it might be worth changing your plans slightly!

Other services

A wedding is much more than the wedding ceremony – most of the fun happens afterwards, during the meal and party. Check if the venue can provide caterers, or if they’ll let you bring your own. If they have their own in-house service, then make sure that you check the reviews to see if they’re up to scratch.

Obviously, everyone’s dream wedding is slightly different, and you’ll want to make sure that the barns you’re looking at are able to cater to your vision. Take your time – weddings aren’t something that you get to plan all the time, and there’s absolutely no rush.