The Wedding venue is a true reflection of the couple. There is no shortage of creatively awesome places to hold your reception. You can choose a barn, a winery, a resort, a cottage, a castle, a lavender farm, or even a bat cave.

Thinking outside the hall might increase your wedding budget, but at the end of the day, the area where you are spending most of this money is the place where you’ll be spending most of your time. Here are three important things to consider before locking in your wedding venue:

Site Visit – make sure you and your vendors (who haven’t been to this venue before) do a site visit to ensure that you are aware of all of the quirks of the place. Sometimes the success of their services can be impacted by space, elevations, or some other unforseen dilemma.

Accessibility – you may know of a guest or two in your family who can’t do stairs or require lots of room to move around. Make sure that when you’re doing your site visit you take note of where the washrooms are located in every space that you will be in on the wedding day. If there aren’t accessible options you might consider renting an outdoor comfort station to accommodate these people. Even if no one on the guest list currently needs any of the above you never know what can happen in the months leading up to your wedding day so it is worth noting just in case.

Weather Back-up Plan – you need one. We all want to think (and cross our fingers and toes) that the sun will shine and the weather will be glorious all day and all night long. But, of course, sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate. Make sure you really understand what your back-up options are should rain, wind, sleet, hail, snow, or soul-sucking humidity slam your venue on the day of your wedding. When you do your site visit, imagine what it would look like under any of these conditions and how you would be able to keep your guests safe and comfortable. If the venue doesn’t have adequate back-up options, you may want to reconsider the venue.