What Should Be in a Wedding Venue Contract?

The venue contract is usually the first big document you sign after you get engaged, and it is the easiest one to skim. It shouldn’t be. Most of what makes a wedding day feel easy or stressful gets decided on those pages, months before anyone sets a chair on the lawn.

Here is what to look for, what to ask, and how we handle each piece at Highland Oaks in Palmyra, so you can read any venue’s agreement with a clear head.

Your date, your hours, and the fine print around them

Your contract should name your date and your rental window in writing, with a start time and an end time. Then read the rules that live inside that window. When can your vendors arrive? When do the getting-ready spaces open? When does the music stop, and when is last call? When does everything need to be off the property?

At Highland Oaks, every rental includes a full twelve hour rental window and a one hour rehearsal. Our staff has the barn set by noon, and the Bridal Cottage and Groom’s Suite are ready at nine in the morning. If you are planning a morning ceremony, we agree on a time together. Inside your window, music ends thirty minutes before your event hours close and last call is one hour before. Knowing those times now lets you build a timeline that ends with a last dance instead of a scramble. For more on the morning side, see what time you can get into your wedding venue.

What the rental actually includes

“Venue rental” can mean an empty room or a fully set space, and two venues can use the same words for very different things. Your contract, or the package it points to, should spell it out. Look for:

• Tables and chairs, and who sets them up and breaks them down
• Getting-ready spaces and when you can use them
• Rehearsal time
• Upgrades that cost extra, like a different chair style
• Add-ons such as coordination, a rehearsal dinner space, or an overnight stay

Our rentals include table and chair setup and breakdown, the twelve hour window, the rehearsal, and both getting-ready spaces. White wooden chairs, a wedding coordinator, a rehearsal dinner space, and a cottage stay are add-ons, and you will find current numbers on our pricing page. A good rule anywhere: if something you are counting on was promised on the tour, ask for it to be written down.

Payments, deposits, and cancellation

This is the section couples most often wish they had read slowly. Before you sign anywhere, make sure you can answer each of these from the page in front of you:

• How much is due to hold your date, and is any of it refundable?
• When is the final balance due?
• Does the way you pay (card, check, cash) change the total?
• What happens if you need to move your date, or cancel?
• What happens if the venue has to cancel?

Every venue handles these differently, and none of them are questions to be shy about. We would much rather walk you through ours across the table on a tour than have you guessing at home.

Insurance, for you and for your vendors

More venues now ask couples to carry a one-day event liability policy, and we do. At Highland Oaks you will need a special event policy of at least one million dollars per occurrence, with Highland Oaks named as an additional insured, and the certificate in our hands at least thirty days before your wedding. Your contract names exactly where and how to buy it, and our event insurance page walks through it.

Your vendors carry their own coverage too. Each one (caterer, DJ, photographer) needs a general liability policy naming the venue, delivered thirty days out, and it is on you to make sure they have it. The easy fix is to mention it in the first email to every vendor you book. Our longer post on wedding insurance for your venue covers the why.

Food, drinks, and vendor rules

Some venues require you to choose from their list. Others let you bring in almost anyone. Your contract should say which, along with what an outside vendor has to provide and what they are expected to clean up.

We have an open catering policy. Food comes from a licensed caterer (desserts and pre-packaged snacks are the exception), and Highland Oaks has final approval. Your caterer stays through dinner service, cleans the kitchen and service areas, and hauls away the trash. Alcohol is the one place we are not flexible: every drink is purchased through Highland Oaks and poured by our licensed bartenders, with no outside alcohol. If you are weighing caterers now, read can you bring your own caterer.

Weather and the backup plan

If your ceremony is outdoors, the contract should answer three things: who decides when it moves inside, where it goes, and whether weather changes anything about your payment.

Here, if weather makes the ceremony site under the oaks unusable, the ceremony moves into the barn with an indoor setup, and we make that call. Weather is not grounds for a refund or a cancellation. That is standard for outdoor venues, and it is far better to know it the day you sign than the week of. Our post on what happens if it rains goes deeper.

Decor, damage, and the morning after

Decor rules are where contracts quietly save you money, because they tell you what not to buy. At Highland Oaks, nothing that leaves a hole (nails, screws, other fasteners) and no duct tape or paint. Removable decorative tape is welcome as long as it all comes down. Open flame in the barn has to be fully enclosed in glass or floating in water, and glitter and confetti stay outside. Sparklers need advance written approval and the right county permits.

Read the damage language too. Most venues, ours included, hold the couple responsible for damage caused by guests and vendors, and vehicles stay in the designated parking areas. Every car needs to be off the property by noon the day after your wedding. See wedding venue decor rules before you start shopping.

Questions to ask before you sign

• Is everything we talked about on the tour written into this agreement?
• If the website and the contract ever disagree, which one governs? (It should be the signed contract.)
• What deadlines do I have between now and the wedding, and when?
• Who is my contact between signing and the day itself?
• Can I take this home and read it before I sign?

The answer to that last one should always be yes. A contract worth signing is one you have read at your own kitchen table, not in a parking lot.

Read it with us on the property

Highland Oaks sits on thirty-six acres at 4175 US-150 in Palmyra, about twenty-five minutes from Louisville and about ninety minutes from Indianapolis, with hotels in Corydon and New Albany fifteen to twenty-five minutes away. We host up to three hundred guests. Tours run forty-five minutes. Walk the field, stand in the barn, see the cottage porch in the late afternoon light, and bring your questions about the agreement. We will go through it line by line with you, before you ever pick up a pen.