After becoming engaged and the wedding planning began, I tried to start imaging what I would love for our wedding day to look like. Brendan and I had discussed a few times what type of wedding venue we would like, and where we would like to be married, so naturally the search began with looking for places in that area. We always knew we wanted to be married in Maine, or New Hampshire just because we love being up north so much.
Unfortunately, being engaged during the height of a pandemic has given us some issues with booking a venue. The venue that I initially had my heart set on, we had learned did not have the date(s) we were hoping for available due to so many couples postponing 2020 weddings to 2021. So the hunt began to find another venue. I was shocked at how many venues were in the state of Maine once I really began to start looking!
Not actually residing in the state of Maine, and with travel restrictions in place due to the pandemic definitely made searching and visiting venues more difficult. One of the best tools I have found with the wedding planning process is The Wedding Wire
The Wedding Wire has SO many vendors listed within it. You can search based on a particular area, a type of vendor, and save ones that you're interested in. So that's where I began - I started saving venues on that website (which is also an app - SUPER convenient) and you can also inquire with venues and vendors from the app directly. You can filter your search too based on the date you're looking to book for, types of vendors/venues, price, etc.
Brendan and I both liked the idea of a rustic-outdoor style wedding, preferably a barn setting because we felt that best fit both of our personalities well. So we narrowed our search to barn-styled wedding venues and our date we were looking for is Veteran's Day weekend of 2021, the Saturday, November 13, 2021. We came across 3-4 venues we really wanted to look at, so I started with reaching out to them to gain more information on the venue, what they offered, the pricing, and most importantly, if they had our date available.
We narrowed our search down to 2 venues. We visited the first one, which was so beautiful, and we both thought we would be head over heels for it prior to arriving. *As a piece of advice, definitely come up with a list of questions for each venue prior to visiting, that way you know exactly what to ask while on-site and not forget everything*. There were some answers to questions that we had received at that first visit that actually deterred us from choosing that venue. For instance, the barn which we had looked at online, was much smaller in person, and would not fit our estimated guest count. So I definitely would always recommend visiting a venue prior to booking! Or at least do a virtual tour.
Brendan and I both ultimately decided that we would not be moving forward with the first venue we toured, and that we would move onto the second venue in our list. This venue offered a virtual tour on their website where you could view the entire venue from the ceremony grounds to the barn and the farmhouse which is also included in the package! We both loved the look of the site so we arranged for a visit. During the visit we had a totally different feeling about this venue than the first one, and it was decided, this would be our spot!
The venue we chose is the Barn at Flanagan Farm, in Buxton, Maine. The venue is only about 15 minutes from Portland, which makes it a lot easier for our friends and family (most of which live out of state like us) to find a hotel or Airbnb to stay in.
We are beyond excited to celebrate our big day here! Some of the features of the venue that also drew us in are that we are able to stay in the farmhouse with 8-10 other guests for the entire wedding weekend (Thursday - Sunday). Something that we also wanted in a venue was the ability to choose all of our own vendors - I know, this may sound crazy to some of you - but we really wanted to ability to make this day totally customized to us and what we like.
Here are some final tips/words of advice I would give to any couple looking for their perfect venue:
- Do not listen to anyone else; this day is about you and your fiance, if you want to get married out of State, don't let other's opinions get you down!
- Focus in on your interests as a couple and narrow down your search from there (for example: Brendan and I both love the barn/rustic/farm house styled venues so we stuck to only searching for venues of that style).
- Do not get discouraged! I was so upset when the venue I had originally set my heart on booked the date we were looking at prior to us being able to visit. But because of that, I was able to find a venue that I fell 10x more in love with!
- Don't settle. It's okay to visit somewhere and not fall in love with it, it's okay to reach out to venues/vendors and then realize they may not fit into your vision of what you were looking for.
