Options aplenty: Venues cater to personalised weddings for all budgets

When planning a wedding, choosing a venue ranks right up there with picking the engagement ring and the bride’s dress.

Whether you choose a city, beach or Swan Valley location or go further afield to Rottnest or Margaret River, factors to consider include budget, guest numbers and the time of year.

Arnya Tait, group sales and business development manager of Fraser’s Restaurant Group, has been involved with more than 1000 weddings during her career.

“The biggest I have done is up to 800 and the smallest is two,” she said.

Tait, who has been with Fraser’s for 15 years, said September used to be the most popular month for weddings but now they rolled through November to May.

“May is quite stunning. And more and more winter weddings are starting to happen, as more people realise it is really hot (in summer) and quite frankly in June you can snag really good days and December rains more than June does sometimes.”

The Fraser’s group includes Fraser’s, the State Reception Centre and Botanical Cafe at Kings Park, Indiana in Cottesloe, BWG Functions in Applecross and The Old Brewery — all offering views of the city, Swan River or the beach.

Tait said they would rarely do a cocktail wedding at Fraser’s but they were common at BWG and Indiana. She strives to personalise all weddings, unlike 10-20 years ago where people would “eat, eat, eat, get up and dance and be gone”.

“What we try to do is really personalise it ... we have had people dancing at the beginning, then we had the other day an oyster station in the room for the duration of the event because they loved oysters.

“And more and more people are doing stand-up desserts at the end rather than sitting down all the time. We do amazing cheese grazing stations and have the chef firing off the brulees or finishing desserts there and it gets everyone up and mingling again too, rather than sitting at their table.”

Tait said shared platters for entrees were popular because it was a good way to get everyone at the table to mix. For mains, her venues generally still offer a choice rather than doing an alternate drop. They can also offer authentic Indian and Chinese menus.

She said the first question she always asked was “what’s the wedding budget”.

“If someone really, really wants to be at a venue, they can’t necessarily think if their budget is a little bit low they are going to get a Saturday night in peak wedding season,” she said.

“However where we can then start talking to them is, I have done breakfast weddings for people, lunch weddings — you can then go home and have a barbecue with your friends and family and you can still get that experience that you wanted. Do you look at a winter wedding? Do you look at a Sunday so I can manipulate the budget to work for you on a Sunday?”

Fraser’s group also recently officially launched its catering division.