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If you’ve just started wedding planning and you’re looking for the perfect venue for your wedding in Auckland, Waiheke Island, Bay of Islands or Coromandel you’re in the right place.
I hope you find this article useful – Please have a look at little white book wedding planner before you go.
I hope that you have a draft guest list in mind and you’ve started your wedding budget before you begin searching for your wedding ceremony and reception venues. They will probably be the biggest cost for your wedding, and will largely be determined by your number of guests, and how much you want to spend.
Whether you’re planning a small and intimate wedding or a big event for your ‘big day’, Auckland and its surrounding regions are home to many of .
We are just so spoiled for choices of wedding venues in New Zealand, and Aucklanders are some of the luckiest kiwis when it comes to picking a spot to get hitched. Whether you’re looking for a venue in Auckland city itself, want to head across the water for a beautiful Waiheke Island wedding, or you’re planning a wedding a little further afield in Coromandel or Bay of Islands, you’re inundated with options. Sea views, lush greenery, award-winning food and wine, or a centrally located city roof-top – it’s all on offer here.
To find a beautiful wedding venue that’s right for you, there’s a few ways to start, with wedding vendor directories such as Our Wedding. One of my favourite methods to find wedding venues is to browse some of our best wedding vendors’ websites and go from there. This gives you the ability to not only find a beautiful location, but also helps you to work out what style of photography, and perhaps even style of wedding you like.
Browse google, facebook, instagram, magazines and other blogs for wedding vendors: local wedding planners, photographers, florists, etc, and have a look at their portfolio.
Wedding photographers especially will feature their most beautiful weddings on their site, and you’re likely to come across wedding venues you’ve never seen before too. You’ll also potentially discover the best local photography spots and hideaways nearby those wedding venues – which can be huge drawcards too, and help you choose a venue.
P.S. Get a little stalker-ish: See if there are any pictures showing a wedding hashtag that you can creep on via Instagram (couples often put it onto a sign that ends up in the wedding photos) and get a more personal look at the wedding venue through the eyes of a guest.
Another way of finding Auckland wedding venues of course is to ‘google’, and you will also be able to find some ‘Auckland wedding venue directories’ – like those on Christchurch Weddings or Our Wedding directories. Wedding directories can be a great source of information, BUT, like magazines, they often only feature those venues and vendors which pay for their inclusion – so it’s not going to provide you with a complete picture.
If you’re looking to browse for venues in Auckland and surrounds, I suggest starting with The Official Photographers or Nardia Buist – two photographers I’ve personally worked with and can vouch for. Their photography is sure to inspire your choice of venue! Each of the photos in this article are The Official Photographers’ work, as was our wedding.
If you find it hard to actually choose between various locations, e.g. a great Auckland city venue and a great Bay of Islands venue, start by writing a list of the attributes of each. The same applies if you’re choosing between two great venues in the same location.
Create a table with the potential Auckland wedding venues or locations across the top, and all of their various favourable attributes in a list, then mark an X on whichever of the two is the best in each category. Not only will you have a table full of X marks (and hopefully more in one column than the other) but you’ll have given each venue a serious thought, and thought about all the elements that are important to you.
I also recommend you create a spreadsheet of the key attributes of each wedding venue you’re interested in, so that you can compare venues in terms of cost, available dates, restrictions, catering options, type, layout, and any other pros and cons which are relevant to you.
Still struggling? Plan a weekend getaway and explore! Take a road trip over to Bethells Beach Cottages, or a longer drive to Kauri Bay Boomrock. You could do a vineyard tour through one of the many wine regions near Auckland, stopping at each venue for a look around, (and a wine for the passenger), head out for a weekend away, and take your time to see where you fall in love with.
Waiheke Island is only 30 minutes’ ferry from Auckland and is one of the most beautiful spots in the country to get married. Mudbrick and Cable Bay are two of the most popular vineyard wedding venues on Waiheke, Lavender Hill is a stunning house available for hire, and Delamore Lodge is worth a look too. My Waiheke is another great place to start to begin planning your Waiheke Island wedding day once you’ve found a wedding venue too
Also a short distance from Auckland are the vineyards and wedding venues of Kumeu, where you’ll find Gracehill Vineyard Estate, a beautiful spot for both summer and winter weddings. There’s lovely accommodation nearby at Rosebud Cottage too, where Blair and I stayed last year, and the best cake-bakers in the business – PaulaJane Cakes – are nearby. Further north is Matakana (see Ascension Wine Estate), and beyond that, Bay of Islands, so hit the road and explore. A quick note though… Don’t arrive unannounced at wedding venues – especially on a Friday or Saturday – you might crash a wedding!.
Email their coordinator to enquire about package and pricing options. Set out an email with any preferred dates or at least the month and days of the week, and the approximate number of guests you intend to have, and then only make an appointment to view if you can afford it. This also avoids potential disappointment in visiting the venue only to find that your date is already booked. It also gives you an insight into how helpful they may be to communicate with over email – a valuable part of wedding planning.
Around 12 months prior to the wedding is the ideal time to do so, so that you can see how the venue will look on your wedding day, and it is also a key booking to have in place early, so that you can organise everything else.
When you’re looking at various venues on the internet, it can be hard to get a general feel for the wedding, without seeing actual wedding photos at the venue. Or, if you know the general location but you haven’t come across the right wedding venue yet, this technique is also effective, in which case just use the name of the location, or the name of a nearby venue.
For example, I was looking for a Bay of Islands wedding venue, and knew of the BOI wedding venue Eagles Nest, so I searched “Eagles Nest Wedding Photography” and found a wedding shot by Jess Burges. From there, I was able to explore Jess’s other weddings, and find other venues in her location, such as Kerikeri, Whangarei and Mangawhai.
For wedding photography of the specific venue, I’d head to both the venue’s Facebook page, and also type into Google “Wedding Photography [Venue Name]” to browse.
In Matakana, a popular wedding venue is Ascension Wine Estate, so I would search “Ascension Wine Estate Wedding Photography” and find a photographer’s website to browse, and see if there were any other nearby wedding venues that appealed.
After using these tools, I’m certain you’ll have identified plenty of wedding venues in Auckland and nearby! You can use the venue selection questions from the planning pack and make sure to take lots of notes in your wedding planner book.
Just before you breathe a sigh of relief that you’ve found your dream wedding venue, I suggest you take a step back and take a second look through the below list of considerations. Once you know everything you need to about the venue, revisit the budget and double-check that the wedding venue fits all your requirements. Though you might be willing to go slightly above the budget for your dream location, you need to know exactly how much above the budget that will be.
For more information, read How to Choose Wedding Venues: All-Inclusive, BYO or DIY
What else to consider:
This list is an excerpt from the wedding planning pack, which includes all the questions you need to know and ask of each of your wedding vendors.
Unique Auckland Wedding Venues for inspiration!
BYO Auckland Wedding Venues
Large Auckland Wedding Venues
Budget Auckland Wedding Venues
Auckland Vineyard Wedding Venues
All photos © The Official Photographers
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