Make the Most of Your Wedding Venue with an Indoor/Outdoor Wedding

Make the Most of Your Wedding Venue with an Indoor/Outdoor Wedding

In the world of wedding articles, the debate between having an outdoor and indoor wedding is a truly classic one, with each weighing the benefits and negatives of outdoor and indoor weddings. But what about choosing a venue that has both extravagant indoor facilities that can easily make for an ideal wedding location and a patio area, rolling fields, and gardens in which to have the wedding itself or to celebrate it afterwards? The options are truly endless, but here are some of the best ways to take advantage of a wedding venue with indoor and outdoor capabilities. 

Work with the Weather

One of the most common arguments against having a fully outdoor wedding is that a single thunderstorm can upend months and even years of planning. Additionally, if you are set on having a winter wedding, you’ll likely be indoor much of the time but a wedding in early fall or late spring held entirely indoors can make your guests feel like they’re stuck inside, left to simply watch nature than to engage with it.  

While indoor/outdoor weddings work great most of the year, the proportion of time spent outside to inside will depend quite a bit on the time of year. After all, even during a mid-July wedding, the humidity can get a bit stifling so consider holding pre-wedding cocktails in the patio area followed by a brief garden reception and then move things inside to the ballroom where electricity is easily accessible and the AC is always pumping. Use the outdoor component of your wedding venue to accent the natural beauty of the season in which you are getting married and decide which part of the wedding will work best where. Lastly, since you have the benefit of having a backup plan should the weather spoil any part of your wedding, be sure that your decorations work both inside and outside in case you need to make a last-minute relocation.  

Prepare Each Setting Accordingly 

A major challenge of having a combination indoor/outdoor wedding is that you’ll have more space to keep track of, meaning you’ll be moving from the ceremony area to the reception area and much more. Of course, your venue likely has more than capable staff that can assist you throughout, but you’ll still want to make sure each area of the wedding is planned for accordingly. For instance, will you need a large tent to house all of your guests outdoors or simply a staging tent with bottled water and your wedding book for people to sign. If you’re holding the reception indoors, then make sure the temperature is just how you like it and if the weather allows for it, consider opening the windows and letting a cool breeze in to capture the magic of the outdoors. 

Allow the Areas to Flow 

Lastly, when hosting an indoors/outdoors wedding, set up your different areas so as to create a closed circuit for your guests to travel. By that we mean, the outdoors should feel like a natural extension of the celebration indoors and the wedding outdoors should easily move into the interior as needed for photos or to cut the cake. Choose a wedding venue that has large and easy-to-operate doors that can facilitate the ebb and flow of guests moving from indoors to out and back in again. This way those who just want to sit and take in the natural surrounding can do so while those who want to cut a rug on the dance floor can boogie under the disco ball all night.

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