Why I built Before You Book
Hi, I'm the founder of Before You Book, Em :)
I recently planned my own DIY wedding without a professional planner, and like many couples, I started with what I thought was a clear venue budget. But as the planning went on, I realised how many extra costs, unclear terms and important details were easy to miss before booking.
Ours was a DIY wedding: a dry-hire style space with an outside caterer, a bar we organised ourselves, hired furniture and glassware, and friends and family helping with setup the day before and clear-down the morning after. We had no planner and no all-inclusive package, so every element had to be booked, timed and paid for separately. That meant most of my venue research was comparing things that were not really comparable.
What surprised me most was that friends who did have wedding planners had still run into similar issues. Venue quotes can be really difficult to understand, especially when each venue presents packages, fees and terms in a slightly different way.
I first created Before You Book as a simple Google Form and shared it around my friends. To my surprise, so many people commented on how helpful it was which encouraged me to spend time building it out properly, and I created Before You Book!
As we all know, planning a wedding is a super exciting but also equally super stressful time. I want to help couples alleviate some of this stress by by helping them to spot any areas that may need clarifying before paying a deposit, so they can feel more prepared, ask better questions and make their venue decision with more confidence.
I hope that this helps you in a little way throughout your planning processes, and love hearing from you, so if you have any feedback or notes, please just drop me an email! :)