Picking the right venue for your wedding can be one of the bigger obstacles you face when diving into the act of planning. While there is no shortage of available venues in the world, a vast majority of them book years in advance. This means you might have to get a little bit creative with the way you pick your ideal location. If you need a little help along your way, there are a bunch of straightforward tips you can consider to make your decision as simple as possible. From your budget to your personality, selecting a venue requires dipping into a few different areas. Look over these ideas and see how you can discover the right place to get married without wanting to call the whole thing off from stress.

What Do You See?

The first trick to selecting the perfect venue is simple: Close your eyes and imagine your wedding. What do you see? Get specific with what you are picturing. Are you inside surrounded by mood lighting and soft candles? Are you outdoors on a beach with the sun cascading off of the smiling faces of your friends and family at dusk? What you are seeing in your mind might not be entirely possible to set into motion. It can, however, be a great place to begin planning. What you see when you think about your marriage is most likely what you want.

After you’ve gotten some solid mental images, grab a pen or open up a handy app for taking notes on your phone and start to put down some ideas. If you pictured a lot of pink and red floral arrangements at your wedding, make note of that. Maybe you can incorporate the colors into the décor of your event in a meaningful way. You don’t have to write down everything that comes to mind. Just write down the images that stuck with you and really helped to tie together the big picture.

What Can You Afford?

You’ve gotten to have a little bit of fun with imagining your dream wedding and writing out your details; now comes the unfortunate blow of reality to knock sense back into you. Specifically, you need to think about what you can actually afford to spend on your venue. Since your budget needs to take into account a wide range of services and fees, you can’t blow it all on the location of the reception. This means you want to start creating a list of potential venues within your price range that also fit some of your mental image.

For example, you might have pictured an outdoor wedding. When your budget keeps you away from venues that offer spectacular garden areas and verandas, you have to get creative. Is there a nearby park that might be able to provide ample space? If so, start researching permits and regulations on the park. It might turn out you can book an outdoor reception for a fraction of the cost when you opt for a more practical solution based on your budget.

Can You Picture That?

Mental picturing has already been discussed, but you also want to think about the literal pictures involved with your wedding. Picking a venue means selecting a destination that offers you the chance to capture powerful images for both your physical wedding album or Facebook wedding album(s). When stuck between a few choices, use photography as your way of finalizing your decision. If one choice seems to lend itself to photos, you’ve got your venue.

The process of selecting a spot to host your wedding is going to be a journey. Luckily, the end of this trip will see you walking down the aisle toward your partner and the future you will share together in marriage.