Country Club Weddings

Is a country club a good choice for your wedding? The answer to this question is not as simple as whether country clubs are good or bad. It is a matter of the couple's priorities. As a result a country club wedding might be a horrible choice for one couple and a great choice for another.

Advantages:

• Manicured landscape
• Well maintained facilities
• Specially designed facilities – gazebos, banquet rooms
• Adequate parking and restroom facilities
• Convenience / Lower stress levels - This is because, often country clubs offer packages that include catering and cake at least and often many or all of the traditional wedding elements. This saves you time and stress arranging everything yourself.
  

Disadvantages:

• The chance of hearing someone nearby yell, “Fore!” just as the pastor asks, “Do you take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife?” during the ceremony. I've seen it happen.
• Elevated prices / low quality elements. The country club that offers package deals including catering, wedding cake, photography, DJ services, or any other element of your wedding either has to serve as a middle man, which means you are paying them to put everything together. It could work a number of ways; they might pay their suppliers a retainer to be available when they need their services. Or they have suppliers who give them a volume discount, but often these types of arrangements result in less than exemplary workmanship. In any case, the standards are that of the coordinator, not yours.
• It is never wise to let someone else choose your wedding photographer. He or she not only has to be able to work a camera, they also have to be able to set you and your party at ease and that is a personality thing that only you can decide.
• Due to the institutional nature of using a big venue that hosts special events for a lot of groups, if something like your crystal wedding cake jewelry is not claimed at the right place and time, it could easily get lost in the shuffle - and the bride is out an important keepsake.
• The problem is that unless you have recently attended a wedding at that country club set up in the exact same way as yours is, then you have no idea how good or bad any of the elements are. The cake might look nice but taste like sawdust plastered with sweetened lard. The DJ might not do anything more than play his or her standard wedding music – even if it’s thirty years old!
• Furthermore, the country club is going to employ a waitstaff that does not necessarily specialize in wedding events. For example, I once attended a wedding that, when the wedding cake was brought out to be served it was obvious that the staff had received zero instruction in how to cut a wedding cake.
• There are often hidden charges like janitorial, bar tending, parking, etc.
• There may well be other wedding parties bouncing around and with potentially competing sound levels or space issues.
• Doesn't maintain a particularly strong religious or ethnic theme if that is important.

These are just a few of the issues that any bride needs to consider before choosing a country club as their wedding venue. All in all getting married at a country club can be a beautiful event, if the couple has considered the challenges before hand and decided what is important to them.