Case Study 2: Four Venues, Priced Properly

🔬 Deep Dive. Four venues, one wedding, priced through the seven-step method — with the ranking inverting twice as the analysis deepens. The purpose is to show that a venue comparison is not a comparison of prices; it is a comparison of four different bundles of work.

Tier 3 — Illustrative. All venues and figures are constructed for teaching at a mid-cost US market level. Re-derive locally.

The Constant

150 guests. $72,000 total budget. Second Saturday in October. A couple whose Chapter 4 ranking is: 1. Food · 2. Design · 3. Guest comfort. Most relaxed about: stationery.

Vision document sentence: "An autumn evening that feels like the inside of a warm room, wherever it happens to be."

Vetoes: no receiving line, no formal seating chart after dinner, nothing that looks rented.

The Four

Round One: the site fees

The naive ranking, which is how most couples first see it:

Bellmark looks like it saves $21,000 against the Aldwych.

Round Two: the loaded minimum

The Aldwych's $24,000 is a food-and-beverage minimum, not a fee, and Chapter 8 §8.5 established what that means.

💰 Run the Numbers: what the Aldwych minimum actually costs

Aldwych terms: 22% service charge (not distributed), 8.5% tax on the SC-inclusive base.

F&B minimum	$24,000
Service charge, 22%	$5,280
Taxable subtotal	$29,280
Tax, 8.5%	$2,489
Gratuity, 18% (service charge not distributed)	$4,320
Actual spend to satisfy the minimum	$36,089

The $24,000 minimum costs $36,089, and it buys catering, bar, staff, tables, chairs, linens, tableware, restrooms, power, basic lighting, parking, setup, strike, and the rain plan.

The other three venues' site fees buy none of that and their catering has not yet been counted.

This is where the comparison starts to become honest, and it is also where it becomes harder: the Aldwych figure now includes food, and the others do not. To compare, everything must be brought to the same basis.

Round Three: all-in, everything counted

💰 Run the Numbers: the full seven-step comparison, 150 guests

Catering assumed at a $92 menu price at B, C, and D, loaded per Chapter 6 at their respective terms. Aldwych catering is inside the minimum.

Line	A: Aldwych	B: Marrow	C: Fennel	D: Bellmark
Site fee	—	$12,500 | $9,500	$3,000
Catering, loaded	(in minimum)	$18,860 | $18,860	$21,300¹
Bar	(in minimum)	$4,500 | **$6,800**²	$4,500
Minimum shortfall / spend	$36,089	—	—	—
Tables, chairs	incl.	incl.	incl.	$3,600
Linens, china, glass, flatware	incl.	$2,100 | $2,100	$2,100
Tent (40 × 80)	—	—	—	$7,900
Tent flooring	—	—	—	$5,200
Restrooms	incl.	+$1,400³ | +$1,400³	$2,900
Power / generator	incl.	incl.	incl.	$2,400
Water	incl.	incl.	incl.	$750
Lighting	incl.	$2,800 | $900	$3,900
Setup / strike labour	incl.	$900 | $700	$3,400
Parking / shuttle	incl.	$1,600⁴ | $600	$1,900
Permits and insurance	$0 | $300	$300 | $2,100
CLIENT ALL-IN	$36,089** | **$44,960	$41,160** | **$64,950
Per guest	$241** | **$300	$274** | **$433
Additional planner hours	0	+14	+10	+42

¹ Bellmark catering carries a $14/head off-site production and field-kitchen premium. ² Fennel & Vine requires their own wine at a fixed markup — a constraint cost of roughly $2,300. ³ Both B and C have inadequate fixture counts for 150 over a six-hour event; a small trailer is prudent. ⁴ Marrow House has street parking only; a shuttle from a lot is required.

The ranking has inverted completely:

Round one (site fee)	Round three (all-in)
1. Bellmark $3,000 | 1. **Aldwych $36,089**
2. Fennel $9,500 | 2. Fennel $41,160
3. Marrow $12,500 | 3. Marrow $44,960
4. Aldwych $24,000 | 4. **Bellmark $64,950**

The cheapest venue by site fee is the most expensive all-in, by $28,861. The most expensive by site fee is the cheapest all-in.

Round Four: the ranking inverts again

All-in cost is not the decision. It is one criterion of ten.

⚡ The weighted scorecard

Weights set with the couple from their Chapter 4 ranking: food 1st, design 2nd, guest comfort 3rd, stationery last.

Criterion	Weight	A	B	C	D
All-in cost against $72,000 budget	5	5	4	4	1
Food quality and flexibility (ranked 1st)	5	2¹	5	3²	5
Design potential (ranked 2nd)	4	1	4	4	5
Guest comfort (ranked 3rd)	4	5	3	4	2
Rain contingency	4	5	5	2	4
Capacity for 150	3	5	4	4	5
Access window	3	5	3	2	5
Curfew	2	5	2	1	5
Contract terms	3	4	4	3	2
Planner hours	2	5	4	4	1
Weighted total		139	142	117	135

¹ In-house catering only, at a hotel whose food the couple described as "fine." ² Three approved caterers, none outstanding.

Marrow House wins on the scorecard while placing third on cost.

Why: it is the only venue that scores well on both of the couple's top two priorities. The Aldwych is cheapest and scores 2 on food and 1 on design — the two things ranked first and second. Bellmark scores 5 on both and is $28,861 more expensive and consumes 42 additional planner hours.

What the Analysis Actually Produced

Three findings, none of which was available before the arithmetic.

1. The naive ranking was exactly backwards. A couple choosing on site fee would have picked the venue that costs nearly twice as much all-in.

2. The cheapest venue is the worst fit. The Aldwych wins on cost by $5,000 and loses on the couple's two highest-weighted criteria. This is the most common outcome of a proper venue analysis and the one clients find hardest — because "it's cheaper and it's what you want" almost never happens.

3. The most exciting venue is affordable only by sacrifice. Bellmark at $64,950 leaves $7,050 of a $72,000 budget for photography, music, floral, attire, stationery, cake, and transport. It is not affordable. Not "expensive" — arithmetically not possible, and that is a finding rather than an opinion.

🔍 Why Does This Work? Why does the scorecard reorder the cost ranking rather than confirming it?

Because cost is one criterion and the ranking has ten. A venue that is $5,000 cheaper has bought five weighted points on one line and may have lost fifteen across three others.

The instinct to treat cost as dominant comes from the fact that it is the only criterion measured in an unambiguous unit. Everything else is a judgment on a 1–5 scale, which feels softer and therefore less real.

It is not less real. It is less precise, which is a different thing. A couple who ranked food first and design second and then books the venue that scores 2 and 1 on those has made a $5,000 saving against the entire point of their wedding.

The scorecard's contribution is to make the soft criteria count — literally, in a weighted total — so that they can compete with the number that arrives pre-weighted by feeling important.

The Recommendation

📋 The Planner's Script: presenting a four-venue analysis

Do not lead with the table. Lead with the finding.

"I've priced all four properly and I want to tell you three things before I show you the numbers.

First: the cheapest one by site fee is the most expensive by a long way. Bellmark's three thousand dollars becomes about sixty-five thousand once you've built a wedding on an empty field. That's not a criticism of the field — it's what an empty field costs.

Second: Bellmark isn't affordable. At sixty-five thousand you'd have seven thousand left for photography, music, flowers, clothes, and everything else. That's not tight, it's arithmetically impossible, and I'd rather say so now.

Third, and this is the awkward one: the cheapest venue all-in is the Aldwych, and it's the one that scores worst on the two things you told me matter most. Their food is fine and their room is a hotel ballroom. You ranked food first and design second.

So the real choice is between the Aldwych, which saves you money and gives you the least of what you said you wanted, and Marrow House, which costs about nine thousand more and scores well on both.

Nine thousand dollars, for food you'll actually like and a room that looks like something. That's the trade. What do you think?"

Key principles: - Three findings, then the table. A table presented cold gets argued with line by line; a table presented after its conclusions gets read for evidence. - Kill the impossible option explicitly, with the arithmetic, before anyone falls further in love. - Name the awkward finding as awkward. "This is the awkward one" makes a client receptive to something they would otherwise resist. - Reduce to a two-way trade with a number. Ten criteria and four venues is not a decision anyone can make; "nine thousand dollars for the two things you said mattered most" is. - End with a question.

Discussion Questions

1. Bellmark was declared "not affordable" rather than "expensive." Is that a planner's call to make? What would you do if the couple said they would find the extra money?

2. The Aldwych is cheapest and scores 2 on food and 1 on design. Construct the case for recommending it anyway — that a couple with a $72,000 budget who saves $9,000 on the venue can spend it on things that will matter more.

3. The scorecard weights came from the Chapter 4 ranking, which was elicited in month two. Should venue weights be set separately, since venue criteria (access, curfew, rain plan, planner hours) do not appear in a priority ranking at all? Design the alternative.

4. Fennel & Vine scored 117 — clearly last — largely on a 10 p.m. amplified-music curfew and a wine exclusivity. Both are constraints, not qualities. Is the scorecard double-counting them, since their costs already appear in the all-in figure?

5. The analysis took roughly six hours across four site visits, four contracts, and the pricing. At a $6,400 fee over 200 hours, that is 3% of the engagement. Is it worth it? What would you cut if a client bought partial planning and this was outside scope?

Mini-Project

Run this on your own market.

Pick four real venues of genuinely different types — an all-inclusive, an à la carte, a specialist site with a constraint (winery, museum, historic house), and a raw site. For one realistic wedding in your market:

1. Price all four all-in, using the seven steps and real local rental figures. Show your assumptions.
2. Build the scorecard, weighting from a plausible client ranking.
3. Note where the ranking inverts — between site fee and all-in, and between all-in and weighted score.
4. Write the three-finding opening you would deliver.

Then do the part that makes it an asset rather than an exercise: keep it. A planner who has priced four venues in their own market all-in has something almost nobody has, it takes six hours once, and it makes every subsequent venue conversation faster and more credible.

Add one venue a quarter. Within two years you will be the person in your market who can answer "what does that actually cost?" without going away to work it out.

References

Tier 3 — Illustrative. The Aldwych, Marrow House, Fennel & Vine, Bellmark Field, and all figures are constructed for teaching at a mid-cost US market level. Re-derive every number locally.

Tier 2 — Attributed practice. F&B minimums exclusive of service charge and tax, winery wine-exclusivity markups, tent flooring at roughly $2–$4 per sq ft installed, and off-site catering production premiums all reflect commonly reported industry patterns and vary substantially.

Related chapters: The seven-step all-in method — Chapter 10 §10.2. The scorecard — Chapter 10 §10.5. The loaded rate — Chapter 6 §6.4. F&B minimums — Chapter 8 §8.5. Tents, flooring, and generators — Chapter 13. The forced ranking that set the weights — Chapter 4 §4.4. Presenting a decision as a two-way trade — Chapter 4 §4.7.