Hosting Home Weddings: Turning Your Residence into a Dream Venue

Join us on the latest episode of Beyond Vows & Veils as host Brittany Ellis dives into the enchanting world of at-home wedding celebrations! 🌿✨ Brittany uncovers the unique benefits and potential challenges of saying "I do" in the comfort of your own space.

From the cozy intimacy and personal touch to the sentimental value of your own home, Brittany guides you through capturing your dream vision and creating an unforgettable guest experience.

But wait, there's more! 🏡💍 Get expert tips on essential infrastructural needs like parking, restrooms, catering prep areas, and garbage management. Learn about permits, noise ordinances, and the crucial staffing and coordination required for a seamless celebration.

Is hosting at home right for you? Brittany helps you honestly assess your ability to relax and enjoy your special day. Plus, don't be fooled by the cost-effectiveness myth—discover the variables that can impact your budget.

Tune in now and transform your home into the wedding venue of your dreams! 🌺❤️

For more Beyond Vows & Veils or Eventrics Indian Weddings, follow along at:

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ABOUT EVENTRICS INDIAN WEDDINGS

Eventrics Indian Weddings is an award-winning team of experienced wedding planning and management experts, specializing in large-scale Indian Weddings & Fusion Weddings in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach, and destinations worldwide.

The Eventrics Indian Weddings team offers complete and partial planning services with a personal and hands-on approach. We believe each couple deserves a fully invested wedding planner to be engaged throughout the entire process to ensure no detail is missed or overlooked!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Benefits and Challenges of Hosting Wedding Celebrations at Home
• 2:30 Capturing Your Dream Vision for a Home Function
• 7:38 Permits, Noise Ordinances, and Compliance
• 9:08 Staffing and Coordination for a Home Function
• 16:50 Assessing Your Ability to Relax and Enjoy a Home Event
• 19:36 Cost Considerations for Hosting a Home Function

Transcript

Brittany (00:00.676)
Hey everyone, welcome back to Beyond Vows & Veils. Thank you for joining me each week to listen, learn, and discover more ways that you can make more informed decisions on your wedding planning journey. I'm your host, Brittany Ellis, a seasoned wedding planner specializing in Indian weddings. Today we're diving into a truly unique and intimate way to celebrate your special day, which is hosting wedding celebrations right in the comfort of your own home. So house parties for me are a personal favorite. There's something truly magical about welcoming guests into your personal space.

and sharing that unique sense of hospitality with them. But at the same time, like let's be real, planning a home event isn't without its challenges. It's often not a cost saving option, as many may assume, and it requires meticulous planning and attention to detail. So if you're considering hosting some or all of your wedding functions at home, definitely this episode is going to be really supportive with you. It's going to have expert insight and practical advice to help you navigate the process, hopefully with a little

more ease and confidence. So before we dive into all the logistical, what I would consider maybe cons of hosting a home function, let's talk about the benefits, right? So obviously there's the personal touch, there's that intimate setting, and then in my opinion, there's also that sentimental value that comes into play. So a lot of times we have to think about how a home setting can be a little bit more meaningful for couples.

their families. So sometimes when I do an initial site visit with a family,

like to ask, are we looking at this from a cost saving angle? Are we looking at this because there's a sentimental value tied to it? And nine times out of 10, is the sentimental tie and I totally resonate with that. And so I do promise that I am home events and at the same time, I want to make sure that the clients I work with and also any listeners understand the challenges that they can face to ensure that they're kind of up for the task. So I'm going to walk you through some of the initial steps of planning a home function. And

Brittany (02:06.022)
that this is going to be really supportive for you. Again, if you are planning a home event and you're not going to be hiring a planner, just honestly, I don't think that it's the best idea just because you're in such a different perspective. Not only are you the host of this wedding function, but you're also the host of bringing people into your personal space. So we'll get into that a little bit later.

So one of the things that I really like to start out when you're thinking about hosting your events or a wedding event at your home is to really capture your dream vision. I always like to start really high, right? What is the goal? What is your plan dream scenario? Get super clear about what it is that you want to have the guest experience. So everything from when your attendee arrives, whether that be are they valet parking? Is there parking

suitable parking nearby. Maybe you own a lot of land and parking is not going to be an issue. Maybe you just have parking attendants. When people walk into your space, are they walking into the main front doors of your home or are they going around the side into maybe a tented area? So really give some thought as to what is important to you and what is this dream vision so that you can make sure that you queue in your planner and also your designer so that they can get feedback on, you know,

What is in alignment with reality pending the time of year that you're wanting to plan it, pending the amount of guests that are attending, all those things are really important. And I always say like have a dream, but also be willing to be a little flexible

You want to make sure that it is a sound function and that people are going to be comfortable. But sometimes what will happen is when I've done home visits in the past is we talk about what's logistically sound. And then what happens is that original dream that that client has starts to become completely altered or changed. And so you have to really think about what is the level of flexibility that you're willing to lose in order to obtain your dream.

Brittany (04:15.958)
because sometimes not all dreams are reality based if you don't have like the guest count or some of the other factors playing into your vision. So let's kind of break that down a little bit, okay? So you have to think about home functions from an infrastructural need and then of course planning logistics. overall understand that every item needs to be brought into your home. So I'm talking about tables,

and

and

for and what is out of the question. So what I mean by this is if I'm hosting an event at my home and I feel like I could comfortably fit without having to really move a lot around inside my home

let's say for like 30, 40 people. And that's what I feel comfortable with because I feel like I'm not having to like rent a bunch of tables and chairs. I feel like my food can naturally, you know, go on my island or other areas in my kitchen, whatever it is, right? But when we're talking about you're hosting an event for potentially hundreds of people, kind of that's the scale I'm talking about. Like, what are you up for and what are you not up for? Are you up for furniture being moved around your home?

Brittany (06:33.388)
I'm pausing there for a minute because...

Think about that for a second. Are you open to someone coming in, picking up the furniture in your living room and clearing it out so that we can make it logistically sound to host part of your function in? Okay. Are there enough basic just restrooms? Let's just say it's a one level or two story home, right? On the basic just one level, is there enough restrooms to...

realistically meet the amount of people that you're bringing.

nine times out of 10, if you're inviting hundreds of people to your home, your restrooms inside your home are not going to be adequate or efficient enough to really support that need. So you also have to think about, okay, I'm probably gonna have to make sure that I have enough bathrooms for my guests, right? And then in addition to that, you're also bringing someone in to cater this event at your home. So I'm just talking about,

the infrastructural needs, right? So we kind of talked a little bit about potentially having to move some furniture, clear some event space around, talking about restrooms. For catering prep area, most likely you're gonna have someone come in to cater your home function and they're gonna need some prep space. And a lot of times, if you have like a two or three car garage and you're willing to clear that out and put some matting down to protect your floors, then that does actually become a really great space.

Brittany (08:08.318)
if they're live cooking or frying items that usually needs to take place obviously outside of a covered area and like we need to figure out like how can we create kind of like a back -of -house look which we'll talk about a little bit further when we get into tenting. Okay, so next is also just how we're handling basic garbage. Okay, so when you're hosting an event at your home, you've got a couple hundred of your nearest and dearest there. You definitely need to make sure that you have someone maintaining and handling the garbage because

There is a lot of that going on, especially if you've got a food component tied to your event, right? You want to make sure that someone is staying on top of that because that's going to be obviously more influx and overflow than you're used to for a typical event at your home. And then lastly is, are you open to tenting? So I have a lot of clients that they're not open to necessarily clearing out their home, which is completely understandable of furniture because that's a big overhaul, right?

to store that furniture somewhere, make sure that it's not damaged during the move, and then moving it back after the event. Again, that's usually not what everybody's first pick would be, but again, just depends on your vision and what you anticipate. So in terms of tenting, first and foremost, do you have the footprint for a tent?

Sometimes you can go to your home and you can say, okay, well, I've got a caged pool area and then I've got how much footage of yard space behind that, right? Or on the side or whatever and you've got to kind of get creative with that. So first and foremost, you want to probably place a phone call. I would think if you're not working with a planner at this point, just to rule out if your home is going to be feasible or not, is just call them and say, hey, I've got, I don't know, 350 people coming to my function

to have, I'm assuming, a dance floor, maybe some bars, maybe some food stations if you're not doing a plated meal, and you know some little ancillary items like a photo booth or a DJ setup or things like that, and maybe ask their professional opinion in the size of the tent that would be required for what you're trying to make happen. Because obviously if the square footage isn't there, then it's sort of a null and void conversation to have unless you're literally going to

Brittany (10:26.912)
open up your entire house, which I wouldn't recommend and I don't think would probably be in alignment with what you're looking for either. So depending on the number of guests going and the overall decor vision will of course determine the size of the tent needed. But this would certainly be up to the designer and the planner and hopefully the family together to navigate that logistic. But I feel like that's a really easy way to rule out if your home is even going to be doable is asking yourself again, backing up to those questions. Are you willing to move furniture? Is there a catering prep area? Do we have enough restaurants?

Do we have an area that we could set up portable, nice restrooms? And then does my yard have enough space for a tent? Right? So those are just things that I would just ask yourself right away before you kind of go down the rabbit hole of actually planning an event at your home. So backing up again.

To guest arrival and things like that You also want to logistically think if you're in a residential neighborhood like most clients would mostly valet, right? And you want to figure out not just with valet But usually you can't just park up and down the streets Especially if you're in a nice neighborhood unless you know your neighbors and I was actually sidebar if you're gonna have a house party Definitely let your neighbors know right like hey, we're gonna be party late on Friday and Saturday night Please don't call the cops but in all

like usually if you're pretty tight with your neighbors, they'll actually even offer up their driveways. I've had a lot of scenarios where it's like a whole community event and it's really great. So appreciate that support. And sometimes it's not feasible, right? So you have to get with valet and we have to figure out what is the closest off -site parking that valet can then be designated in these cars. How far is that drive or golf carts needed so that guests aren't waiting obviously forever to get their car when it is time. And so those types of logistics are really important to be asking

Again, just for guest experience and overall.

Brittany (12:18.616)
Another infrastructural item and just planning item that I like to mention is power and lighting So you want to make sure most homes are gonna have sufficient power. But when we're bringing an event outside such as tenting a lot of times We do have to get into renting generators or things like that to make sure we have sufficient power for Outdoor lighting, know production lighting the DJ or live band setup the catering equipment So there is a lot of power that is required to make sure that this

is sound and so making sure that once you sort of figure out the infrastructure of things are going to be laid out I always think it's important that we kind of also talk about the amount of power that's going to be just basically required for the event. For the restroom set up, where's the nearest water supply, like all those things are definitely going to make that sort of shape take place when it comes to hosting your event.

and what have you. another thing to think about, which often is not thought about is permits and just general regulations that are permitted. So depending on the neighborhood that you live in, you'll obviously want to make sure that there's not going to be any issues with you hosting a large gathering. I know sometimes there's, you know, more prestigious and private neighborhoods that they are a little bit more particular about those items. So just making sure you check in on that. And then also, depending on the county that you're hosting,

event, you're going to want to check in on your noise ordinances to ensure that you're in compliance with that like local law, if you will. So in the state of Florida, usually the outdoors, outdoor noise ordinance is around 10pm. Or you have to lower the decibel and sometimes depending on the decibel level, you can go a little bit later, but it just depends on the location that you're at. So the last thing again, you want to do is you go through all this work and you're like, okay, well, I don't want my reception to end at 10, you know, like everyone's

party and have a good good time. So you to think maybe like, is this a better idea for our singy night? Is this a better idea to have just the wedding ceremony and post ceremony lunch and then kick it on somewhere else? So those are things that you have to think about too is like you're in time to your functions. Because if

Brittany (14:29.282)
you know, the noise ordinance to your county isn't making sense for you, then it might not make sense to go through all this headache essentially to plan this function that it's, you know, not in alignment with what your vision is. Another item to consider is just overall staffing and coordination. So it is definitely going to take a small army to make sure that your event is logistically sound. So unlike if you went to a hotel,

And we talk about this in previous episodes where we talk about that per person cost, right? That per person cost is including your outside catering fee or your service staff cost. That means that they're gonna be supplying you with food runners and a banquet captain, china, cutlery, tables, chairs, in -house linen. So there's a lot that comes with that fee, right? So when you build the event at your home, you logistically obviously have to think about the number of banquet captains that you're gonna require.

because I'm a wedding planner. I definitely have a lot of knowledge when it comes to staffing and logistics and coordination. But I'm not in the catering industry and I absolutely would rely on those professionals to make sure that we're clear about how many banquet captains do we need? How much service staff do we require? How much of the cleanup crew do we require? If you're hosting a bar, how many bartenders, how many bar backs to support them? If you're having actual China at your event, who's the dishwasher? Because those things need to be racked and restacked and ready

be picked up for the next function. And so it's really important that you understand that you're going to have what we call like rotational crews. So if you're hosting both the morning and evening function at the same location, which is at your home, it's going to require a lot of staffing and it's going to make sure that you're coordinating with your planner and the catering in terms of what all that looks like. Right. And you want to make sure that you coordinate with the vendors to also talk about like their rentals, their equipment, because you're a lot more that goes into a side from just tables.

and chairs and a dance floor. There's a lot of catering equipment that has to be brought in and things to that end. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, guest experience. If you are hosting a home function and you went through all the infrastructural details, you asked yourselves all the questions, your dream vision is within grasp, and now we want to create that really amazing experience for your guests that they're just going to...

Brittany (16:50.408)
Completely not forget this experience right so creating a comfortable and enjoyable atmosphere for guests I feel is really key because if you're hosting a home function you literally want them to be feeling at home, right so if you're unrelaxed and tense I don't feel like this message is gonna come across so it doesn't matter how much energy effort or money has been spent if you're unrelaxed

and you're stressed out, I don't think that message is gonna translate well. So let me give an example. If I host a small event at my home and, you I don't know, it's 30 people coming over, but I know how I am. I'm very OCD. Like my chairs have to be a certain way around my dining table. My sofa happens to

White and so people are sitting on my items and like it's getting messed up and kids are jumping everywhere Like am I really enjoying that experience am I really present with that experience? And I think that's something you really have to ask yourself So let's again back to that dream vision back to that intention If hosting a home function is the intention of having something sentimental to take away from your wedding weekend completely understandable But you know yourself better than anyone, you know your parents better than

anyone, if you don't feel like they're going to be able to just like let go, trust the pros, relax if something sort of gets a spill on it that they're going to manage it. If you can't sort of let go to a certain extent, I don't know that a home function would be necessarily something for you to consider.

And I mean that wholeheartedly because why do we go through all of these months and time and energy of planning these events? Why does anybody do that? Why would anybody hire a wedding planner or make this type of investment on a weekend? It's so that they can enjoy the experience themselves. They can be guests at their own occasion. They can enjoy and be present with family members that they probably don't get the opportunity with to hang out and enjoy their company.

Brittany (19:00.182)
really encourage you to ask yourself honestly that question because I know as a very type A control like person.

I don't know that I would be up for that challenge. My son's only seven, but if I was hosting a home event, I don't know that I would enjoy the experience. And some of my clients absolutely can let go and their friends are family to them and they're just not worried about it. And that's great. And then you are a fantastic candidate for hosting a home function. A couple of things I also wanna talk about is just cost considerations because I think that there is sort of this.

false understanding that you're going to save so much money because you're hosting a home function. So let's talk about the variables that you obviously are going to save it. Okay. Number one is alcohol. If you were hosting a bar and you decide to host a home party and you're not paying those per person bar costs over at the, know,

venue or what have you, absolutely that's gonna be a huge cost saver, right? So we talked about in our last budget breakdown, let's say the average bar, depending on tier, so don't quote me to this, ranges between, I don't know.

$60 to $98 plus plus per person, right? For a bar package that's between four and five hours, depending on the tier of alcohol that you go with. And you decide that you're gonna partner with a local bartending company, again, that has the license and insurance, very important because you have people coming and going from your personal home, you wanna make sure everything's on the up and up and that you're not liable. And so, you know, that cost is gonna be significantly lower.

Brittany (20:42.5)
And so that's probably the one variable to be honest with you that you're going to certainly save in. I don't feel in my opinion...

At least whenever i've run the numbers that between the time that we hire the staffing we build the off -site kitchen we hire the valet which you know is nominal But then like if we have to work with a local business to rent like their parking lots to be able to secure parking That's close enough to your property Tenting subflooring air conditioning everything that you need to make sure that your guests are comfortable And that the event is sound a lot of times it just ends up being more

Again, this is all relative to the tier of property that you would otherwise be comparing it to. But pull out your calculator and maybe do a little bit of that research for yourself. Listen to the previous episode where we broke down literally how to structure and

Whiteboard out what a potential budget would be at a venue right compare that to this episode today and maybe get some costs from a local tent company and just and just see where those costs are coming in at right ultimately, that's gonna really help you to determine what route is best for you because Home functions are not for the faint of heart, but they really do make for incredible celebrations

Also, you know, lot of this advice and information that I'm giving is I promise it's because I've definitely have messed it up in the past. 100 % we all have as a hospitality pros. Where do we learn our experience? It's hands on. It's in the trenches. You're there. You're experiencing it. So like,

Brittany (22:21.124)
you some examples of things that I've done in the past. mean, I've done home functions for literally 500 plus people where we brought in a massive tent. We had flipped clues throughout literally the morning and evening. This was a two to three day function. And one of the challenges that I overcame, which was such a minute detail, but I'll never forget, right? You mess it up once and you never forget. I made the assumption, which is dangerous. You should never make assumptions in this industry that, you know, children

would sit on their parents laps if they were like three and under they really wouldn't require a chair you know like I wasn't really factoring that in well there was a lot of kids at this event and rest assured that some of them did decide that they wanted to sit in a seat

One of the things that home functions that you can't do is you can't like go in the back of the inventory closet and pull a couple more chairs and pop them down where you need them to go or call your designer and have him work his magic. At the end of the day, if you didn't account for the right amount of seats or you didn't factor in children or just a little bit of extra inventory or have guests show up that you weren't anticipating, then you're out of luck, right? So thankfully we were able to figure that situation out. So it wasn't like I had

standing, thank God. But those are real situations, right? Like at the end of the day, the last thing you want is to host a home function, have guests show up that you weren't expecting. And guess what? You don't have any extra tables or chairs or centerpieces or anything factored in. So I'm not saying you have to go to excess on that. But what I'm saying is even professionals who plan this day in and day out, things happen, right? I mean, I have full Excel spreadsheets of all the inventory that needs to be brought in for each day, how things are going to be flipped and turned

but

Brittany (24:11.876)
One of the biggest sort of factors you have to consider is, you know, home functions, there's only so much that you can plan for and you aren't at a resort where things are just easily readily on standby. You know, do you have a first aid kit available in case a guest injures themselves like random things like that? Just think about if you were at a resort, obviously those things kind of come naturally. But if not, you have to think about what are the things that you feel like that you're going to ultimately need and obviously partner with your planner who's going to help you run through a million other

of things to think about, I'm sure. in closing, really just, hopefully I didn't scare you away from hosting a home event. I promise you, I love a good house party, but ultimately I wanted to put a podcast together that erased the stigma that house parties were essentially more affordable and also that supported you with really understanding if hosting a home function for your wedding celebrations based on just some of the basic criteria, is your dream gonna be met and is it gonna

sound, meaning do we have enough of a footprint to even host this function in the first place? And then obviously just compare costs and think about what's the most important with you. So I do encourage you to ask yourself the hard questions and ultimately you're going to land on what's best for you and your family. And as always, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us. We're here for you. We're an advocate for your journey and making sure it's successful. So thank you so much again for tuning in. I really appreciate your time.