Getting started as a wedding venue

As a venue, you’re often the central organiser of a wedding day. Multiple vendors come onto your premises, you may handle billing on behalf of the couple, and your team needs to know exactly what’s happening and when. Getting set up properly means your couples have a professional coordination hub from the moment they book with you — and you have a day-of operations sheet that stays current instead of going stale the moment the schedule changes.

Step 1 — Complete your venue profile

Go to Settings → Profile and fill in:

Business name — your venue name as couples know it
Category — select Venue
Location — your full address (this is used for weather forecasts and shared with vendors in the workspace)
Timezone — your local timezone
Bio and description — what makes your venue distinctive; this appears on your public directory listing
Website and Instagram — linked from your profile

Why: Every vendor invited into your wedding workspaces will see your venue profile. A complete venue profile — name, address, photos — is the context other vendors use when planning their arrival, logistics, and setup. Your photographer needs to know where to be; your florist needs to know the setup window. A clear profile reduces vendor questions before the day.

Step 2 — Build your enquiry form

Open Forms → Enquiry and customise the questions couples answer when they contact you about a booking.

For a venue, useful questions include:

Wedding date (or date range they’re considering)
Estimated guest count (ceremony and reception separately if they differ)
Ceremony and reception in the same space, or split across areas?
Catering preference: in-house, external, or flexible?
Accommodation requirements (if your venue has rooms)
How they heard about you

Why: Your enquiry form is the first stage of your booking pipeline. The answers tell you immediately whether the couple fits your capacity, whether their date is available, and what package conversations to have. A well-designed form is worth more than a long back-and-forth email chain.

Step 3 — Set up your email inbox

Go to Settings → Email and claim an email handle — this becomes yourhandle@wedding.computer. Once it’s set, use Emails in the sidebar for your inbox: Inbox and Sent tabs, a Compose button, and reply threading on every message.

Why: Enquiries and vendor conversations often end up scattered across a personal inbox, making it hard to remember what was agreed with a particular couple weeks later. Every email sent or received through your Wedding Computer address logs itself automatically onto the relevant contact’s activity timeline — so the conversation history is attached to the booking, not buried in a mailbox search. Couples and vendors reply to a normal email address; nothing changes on their end.

Step 4 — Configure your availability — this one is critical

Open Calendar → Availability and:

Block dates you’re already booked — add every confirmed wedding date. Unlike other vendor types, venues usually have a hard one-booking-per-day limit (or per space), so this needs to be accurate.
Set days of the week you hold weddings — typically Friday through Sunday; mark other days as unavailable
Under Settings → Availability sharing, choose Public — so couples can check your calendar before enquiring

If you have multiple ceremony or reception spaces that can run simultaneously, make a note in your enquiry form — Wedding Computer doesn’t currently model multiple-space availability natively, so you’ll need to manage that manually.

Why: A venue that has an accurate availability calendar stops receiving enquiries for dates it’s already booked. More importantly, your booked couples’ workspaces will show the wedding event in their shared calendar feed — and their vendors will see it. The accuracy of that calendar matters.

Step 5 — Set up invoicing and payment schedules

Go to Settings → Payments → Connect Stripe and connect your Stripe account. If you prefer bank transfer or direct invoice, set your payment method to Bank transfer — invoices will include your banking details.

Add the payment schedule to each invoice for your standard hire:

Deposit (typically 20–30%) at booking
Mid-payment (if applicable) several months before the wedding
Final balance 4–6 weeks prior

Why: Couples are managing multiple payment schedules across all their vendors. Sending invoices through Wedding Computer puts your payments alongside all the others in one view — the couple can see everything they owe, pay online, and both parties have a clear record.

Step 6 — Configure your default hire contract

Go to Settings → Contracts and write your standard venue hire agreement. Wedding Computer keeps one default service contract and copies it onto each new invoice. You can edit that invoice’s copy when a booking needs different terms without changing earlier invoices. Include:

Venue hire scope (spaces, hours, included equipment)
Catering arrangements and restrictions
Noise limits and end times
Cancellation and postponement policy
Security deposit and bond conditions
Setup and bump-out times
What happens if the wedding date changes

Why: On the booking page, the couple types their full name and email address and confirms that they agree. Wedding Computer records that acceptance against the invoice. This is not a drawn signature, and it does not create a downloadable signed PDF; the confirmation email includes a text copy of the accepted contract.

Step 7 — Set up checklist templates

Go to Checklists in the sidebar and create one or more templates — for example, “Standard venue hire checklist” with items like final guest count confirmed, floorplan approved, security deposit received, insurance certificate on file, final walkthrough booked, vendor arrival times confirmed, and bump-out signed off.

Mark one template Default so it deploys automatically the moment a wedding is booked. Keep any others as optional templates you deploy manually to a specific wedding from that wedding’s checklist section.

Why: A checklist template turns your standard pre-wedding process into something the system enforces instead of something you have to remember. Once a template is set as default, every new booking gets the same to-do list attached with no extra step on your part — nothing gets missed because you were busy the week a booking came in. The list lives on the wedding itself, so you and your team can tick items off as the date approaches.

Step 8 — Create your first wedding workspace

When a couple books, open their contact record and click Promote to wedding. Fill in the wedding details:

The date
Your venue as the general wedding location
Ceremony type

Then:

Set yourself as managing vendor — go to People → your name → enable Can manage. This makes you the timeline lead. Other members can propose additions, edits, or removals to shared rows; you can approve them as submitted, adjust them before approving, or decline them.
Invite the couple — Add people → Invite couple.
Build the venue-side run sheet — add separate timeline rows for getting ready (if used), the ceremony, reception, bump-in, room setup, vendor arrival windows, cocktail hour, dinner, speeches, dancing, and bump-out. Put the relevant time and location on each row. Set operational rows to vendors visibility and rows the couple should also see to couple.
Invite the vendor team as they’re confirmed — add each vendor when they’re booked. As members they can propose shared timeline changes and manage their own private rows.

Why: The managing vendor flag gives the schedule one clear lead. When caterers, florists, or entertainment propose timeline changes, you see the before-and-after details and can approve, adjust, or decline them without duplicating ceremony and reception logistics in the wedding settings.

Available workspace members, vendors, and business team members assigned to the wedding appear under each row as direct add buttons. Select a name once and it saves immediately — there is no separate plus-button step. Use the custom label only for someone outside the roster. Assignments are shared read/write operations: every collaborator who can see a shared row sees its assignees and can add or remove them directly; only the owner can manage assignees on a private row.

Step 9 — Build the operational packet (BEO) for the day

Once the workspace exists, open the wedding and go to Operational packet. This is a single living document that pulls together the shared run sheet, wedding team, guest counts and dietary needs, seating and layout, and shared files into one place — no retyping the schedule into a separate BEO template. Fill in:

Service and catering — service style and sequence, menu and supplier notes, beverage plan
Day-of operations — staffing notes, setup and pack-down access times, accessibility considerations
Operational guest count — leave blank to use confirmed RSVPs (falling back to the wedding’s guest estimate, then the current guest list), or set a manual override
Status — Draft while you’re still filling it in, Final once it’s locked

Only the managing vendor can edit the packet — as the venue, you’re usually the one holding that role for your own wedding day.

When it’s ready to hand to people who don’t have Wedding Computer accounts — bar staff, security, a runner — turn on Share packet to generate a public link. It shows the shared schedule, guest and dietary summary, the vendor team, and your operational notes. Any seating/layout schematic you’ve built (see Step 10) appears too, but the private floorplan reference image stays restricted to signed-in wedding members even when the packet link is public. You can also Print / save PDF at any time.

Why: A BEO is the document every venue already runs the day from. Wedding Computer’s version stays wired to the same schedule, team, and guest data everyone else on the wedding is updating, so it can’t quietly go stale the way a printed BEO does when the run sheet changes and nobody remembers to reissue it. The public-link option means you can put the packet in front of casual, on-site-only staff without giving them accounts or exposing your private floorplan file.

Step 10 — Set up the Guests app for seating and room layout

Ask the couple (or add it yourself if you have workspace access) to turn on the Guests app for the wedding, with visibility set to at least Couple + planners/venues so your team can see it. Once the guest list and RSVPs are coming in:

Open Seating chart and drag guests from the waiting bench onto tables (round, rectangle, kids, couple, or other). Seat the bench auto-fills tables while keeping existing placements stable, benching anyone who’s declined, and auto-detecting a kids’ table. It flags unseated guests, keep-away conflicts, a declined guest still seated, or a table over capacity.
Open Room layout and upload your actual venue floorplan — a JPG, PNG, or PDF — as the canvas background. Drag the same tables from the seating chart into position on it, and add operational zones (bar, dance floor) or ceremony seating rows as needed. Use Print / save PDF when it’s ready to hand to your floor team.

Why: This is where a seating plan stops being a spreadsheet and becomes an actual diagram of your actual room. Because the tables placed on the layout are the same tables from the seating chart, moving a table or reseating a guest updates both views — you’re not keeping a seating spreadsheet and a separate floorplan sketch in sync by hand. Your floorplan image stays private to signed-in wedding members; only the derived layout schematic is visible if the operational packet is later shared publicly.

Step 11 — Understand the financial party role (if applicable)

If your venue handles coordinating payments to other vendors on the couple’s behalf — routing the couple’s money to a caterer, entertainment, or florist — go to Settings → Profile and enable Is organiser (sometimes visible as the financial party setting).

When enabled, your venue account is marked as the financial party for weddings where you’re the organiser. This is relevant for how invoicing flows are displayed and for accounting purposes.

Why: Not all venues operate this way. If you simply sell venue hire and the couple manages everything else independently, you don’t need this. If you’re a full-service venue that the couple pays once and you pay all vendors, this flag is how the system represents that arrangement.

Step 12 — Add team members (if you have event staff)

For event coordinators, floor managers, and booking administrators, open Team in the sidebar and add them to your business roster. The roster is available on both plans. A team-member record does not create a login or grant account access. Assign the person to the relevant wedding, then select them directly on timeline rows.

Why: The roster records who is staffing each wedding and lets the timeline show who owns each operational task. If someone needs to sign in and work in the workspace, invite them separately with the appropriate workspace membership.

Step 13 — Connect your calendar safely

Open Your profile → Your wedding calendar to create your private personal feed. Choose Subscribe in Apple Calendar, or copy the link into Google Calendar or Outlook.

With Pro, open Settings → Calendar & contacts → Create calendar connection for a business-calendar feed or CalDAV account. Create a separate connection for each staff app or device instead of sharing one credential; you can revoke one without disconnecting the others.

Why: These connections show upcoming weddings and permitted timeline rows in the connected calendar. They are read-only: changes made in the calendar app do not flow back to Wedding Computer. Treat every feed link or credential like a password and revoke it if it is shared accidentally.

You’re ready when:

Your venue profile is complete (name, address, description)
Your email handle is claimed and you’re working from the built-in inbox
Your enquiry form is asking the right questions
All booked dates are blocked in availability
Stripe is connected and payment schedule structure is decided
Your default service contract is configured
At least one checklist template is set as default
You know how to create a workspace and set yourself as managing vendor
You’ve started an operational packet for your next booked wedding
The Guests app is enabled and you know where seating chart and room layout live
Key staff are added as team members

What to do right now

Take your nearest upcoming booked wedding and create a workspace for it. Set yourself as the managing vendor, invite the couple, and add your venue schedule (bump-in, setup windows, end times) to the timeline. Then invite the confirmed vendors, open Operational packet and start filling in service, staffing, and setup notes, and — once guests are on the list — build out the seating chart and drop it onto your real floorplan in Room layout.

When vendors start proposing their service timings — the florist’s setup, the DJ’s soundcheck — you’ll see exactly how the coordination flow works. The planners & venues guide covers managing vendor approvals in depth.

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