Nashville weddings

Nashville Brides Seek Bridal Portrait Venues, Budget Venue Options

Monday, October 25, 2010

We like to share questions from Nashville brides to help you plan your wedding.  We've recently received several wedding venue questions.  We turned to a few local wedding pros for their ideas.

Question: Hi Ashley, can you suggest some great bridal portrait session locations in the Nashville, Hendersonville or Gallatin areas please??

No one knows the best bridal portrait venues better than a Nashville wedding photographer.  So, I reached out to a few local photographers to get their thoughts. 

Answer Amber Vongsamphanh of Lotus Blossom Photography:

1) Benton Chapel - vanderbilt.edu/religiouslife/facilities.html

2) Scaritt Bennett - ScarrittBennett.org/wedding/default.aspx

3) Two Rivers Mansion - nashville.gov/parks/historic/two_rivers.asp

Beautiful rooms provide some really cool backdrops for portraits.

Photography courtesy of Jonathon Campbell Photography

4) Belmont Mansion - belmontmansion.com

Photograph courtesy of ThePhotographix.com

5) Riverwood Mansion - riverwoodmansion.com

Photograph courtesy of The Collection

Photo courtesy of Lotus Blossom Photography

6) Downtown Presbyterian Church - dpchurch.com

Other community responses were Historic Rock Castle, in the Gallatin area, as suggested by Mike Cowart of Myrick Studios and Fairview Plantation.

Question: I was curious if you had any advice for me and other brides that have found themselves dealing with planning a wedding the weekend of the marathon. Our wedding date is April 30th of next year and we are having extreme difficulty finding hotel accomodations. Most places are either ridiculously expensive or not allowing us to block rooms. They switched the marathon from the third weekend in April like they have been doing in the past to the fourth, so when we picked the date we thought we'd be fine. Any suggestions?

Answer: I checked with Sarah of Regalo Design and here's what she suggested...

Answer from Sarah: I have found a great tool through Embassy Suites. It is called e-Events. This programs allows you to book your hotel room (up to 25) with no obligation! I have already check the dates for the marathon weekend and there are rooms available at the following Embassy Suites: Vanderbilt, Airport, Cool Springs & Murfreesboro so you are in luck! This program is really easy to use and I highly recommend it.

When you book guest rooms through e-Events, you reserve a specific number of rooms for each night of your group’s stay. The number of rooms you request will be set aside for your group until the reservation cut-off date specified in your online contract. On or before the reservation cut-off date, you or your guests must “confirm” each reservation within your group by providing necessary information about who will occupy each room. You can easily confirm rooms for your group using Guest List Manager, or our Personalized Group Web Page service. You will be provided with more information about these options at the end of the booking process. Alternatively, your guests may confirm their own rooms on the Web, via telephone, or directly with the hotel using your property code, group code and event dates. This information will be provided to you on your event confirmation page. Any rooms not confirmed by the reservation release date will be removed from your event guest room inventory for reservation by others. Your credit card may be charged an initial fee depending on the type of event you plan. Please review the terms and conditions of your contract prior to acceptance."

Question: Hi Ashley. I am having the hardest time trying to plan my wedding. I am so fed up I am thinking about going to justice of the peace. Our budget is very small at $5000 which is for EVERYTHING, excpt maybe the photos. I know that i would like something industrial but I cannot find anything that I want. Marathon Villlage would have been awesome if there was an elevator. I don't know what to do, I want to cry but my tears will not pay for our wedding. April 30, 2011 is right around the corner and I cannot find anything that will meet our needs. We have a guest list of about 130 people (which includes us and the wedding party). Do you have any suggestions?

I posed the question to the bridal community and here are a few responses... 

Answer from Sarah of Regalo Design: Your wedding day is supposed to be one of the most memorable moments in your life. I hope my response to your question on Ashley’s Bride Guide helps you hold back the tears. Believe me, I know how stressful it is. You can have a beautiful wedding on a $5,000 budget. My suggestion for a venue is to look into the Journey Church located in the Factory in Franklin, Building 8. It is a wonderful “industrial” location and I believe it is fairly inexpensive. You could have your wedding & reception there to save on the cost of the evening. If you haven’t seen this space before, you have to check it out! I know the cost of the room includes the cost of chairs and tables. Here is their website building8leasing.co.

If this will not work in your budget, I would suggest a community park or if you are a member of a church…check their prices. If those options don’t work…ask your friends who live on a great lot if you can use their backyard.

Both of these pictures were from the wedding of Becoming Mrs. Dial.

For other budget wedding options, Latrice of Opulent Couturier suggested WO Smith School of Music and Twitter user @Tadara suggested Durego in Brentwood.

Have any other bridal portrait or budget wedding venue options?  Let us know!

About the Author:

Tabitha

Blogging is something I’ve enjoyed doing for years. My interests lie mostly in lifestyle related topics like fashion, style, design, food and weddings. When I heard Ashley was looking to bring on new members to the ABG team, I jumped at the opportunity - I can’t think of a better way to stay involved in weddings than to write about them and to stay in touch with the trends and new ideas. Lucky for me, Ashley likes my blog and trusts my experience to bring me on and so far, it’s been a blast.

See more posts by Tabitha »

send   Posted on October 25, 2010 | Filed under: Advice & Planning, Wedding Venues and Locations