Choosing Your Rural Property

Don't have a piece of property yet but know you want to have a rural wedding business? Amee discusses her opinions and ideas on how to search for the perfect property and how to make sure the wedding venue rental business will be allowed. She also touches on starting with an outdoor venue versus a barn venue and why one is better than the other.

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Additional Resources

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to wedding, then you business radio. I am a me queer, Coney. Um, I am going to, uh, today answer a question that I got, um, it was an email sent to me, uh, this summer, and it was from a couple that bought the book, uh, turn your rural property into a wedding venue business, and they touch on a topic that I've actually been asked a couple of times and, um, have consulted with people many times. And that is what happens if you don't have your rural property already. Um, what is it that you should be looking for? And admittedly, I don't go into a lot of detail on that in the book. And so I think it's a fantastic question. And so I'd like to, uh, to answer that, so the email, hi mommy. I want to start off and say thank you for taking the time to write your book on starting your own wedding venue. My husband and I just finished it and it is encouraging to see a success story from the inside out. Your book answered so many questions we had, but one thing it did not cover was what to do. If you do not already own a rural property to turn into a venue. We currently live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and want to get a business plan started, but can't until we have the property, we are not sure if we should start with land from scratch or with an existing structure, I would hate to quit our jobs, sell our house, buy land only to find out the property will not work for a venue. Thank you very much to me. And we look forward to hearing from you Bree and Dave. So again, fantastic question. Um, and I feel foolish for not really going into details in the book. Um, I guess I assumed that by the time you pick the book up, you're already at your property and honestly just didn't have the imagination to see that there'd be a lot of people out there, um, looking to get into it and wanting to, um, uh, you know, that don't even have the property. So shame on me for that. Um, but now I know that you all are out there. Um, I'm gonna give you my 2 cents on kind of how to break into the industry and do it in a way that, um, is going to cost less upfront to you. Um, and so I reached back out to, uh, to Brie and Dave and, um, and I told them that in my opinion, um, that the easiest and the fastest path to earning wedding rental revenue, um, is to start off as an outdoor location and, um, for ceremony and reception, um, Woodleigh meadow farms, um, our property here that John started and I came in a year later and joined, um, is that it's, uh, it's a backyard of an old, you know, uh, turn of the century home on two and a half acres. There are no buildings to rent out. The changing spaces are, um, inserted into small existing structures that are already on the property. Um, new bathrooms did have to be built in order to satisfy the County health district requirements for toilets. Um, and, uh, but other than that, uh, we bought a tent, uh, probably I think he'd started buying it the year before and, uh, we bought it outright and then we added a tent liner and we added tables and chairs and stuff like that. Um, one thing that you have to understand about buildings and putting people in them is that you have to be able to, um, get a certificate of occupancy. And this is where I say in chapter two, that you need to go talk to somebody in the building department to find out what your requirements are going to be in your area, because, um, getting your CEO certificate a certificate of occupancy for a building is no easy feat. Um, just because you have a building and it looks like it's, well-built doesn't necessarily mean you can go rolling in there day one and actually start putting people in there. And so, um, if you're wanting to ease yourself into this, like I said, starting out doors attend to something that you can get relatively inexpensively. Um, we bought the one for like 2,500 bucks. It was used. John had a friend who, um, did haunted houses out in the Seattle area and he was buying a new tent. So the tents 20 feet by 60 feet, and it fits like 150 people underneath the tent. So, um, and then a couple years later we bought a beautiful tent liner and we spent, you know, paid 2,500 bucks for that as well. So for$5,000, we have this gorgeous cover that we used June through September to keep 150 people out of the sun. And if it happens to rain since we are in the Northwest, um, it keeps them dry. So what you're looking for then is if this is, you know, the step one that you want to take is look for property that has lots of land. And as I point out in the book, ideally you need something. That's got like two to three acres of land because you need to be able to find a way to get parking in there, enough room for a ceremony site, um, a place for people to then wander over to a location, to have the reception. And, um, and you don't need to have a big barn that looks awesome and photographs in order to be able to generate, you know, good revenue in the summertime. Um, this isn't a big mystery, um, because our pricing and our calendar is online. You can do math by just, you know, multiplying the number of days we have by, um, how much we charge. And you can see that without having all the barn and all that stuff provided, you've got really a nice looking property in it's landscaped, you know, lovely and, you know, lays out really cool. You can still make six figures on your summer, um, in the summer, I'm sorry, I'm just doing the, uh, the backyard, you know, business plan like Woodlawn meadow farms. Um, if you take that path one and you have some property that actually has barns on it already, or you have a lot of land on it, um, you can ease yourself up into level two, which is what, you know, for us dairy land is, which is, you know, Barnesville built in the 1940s. They required work to be able to again, get certificate of occupancy and things like that. Um, and, and that's an investment and, but it is not by any means necessary. Your first step in your first step in can actually be, um, with a outdoor property path, one still have work involved. So, um, when you're looking for properties, um, there's a lot of things that you have to think about. And so, um, I outlined them in the book and I'll go ahead and, um, and outline a few of them here. You need to be able to have space for parking. You need to have an understanding of what is your drinking water supply. And so is it a rural property that's actually connected to a municipal water supply? Dairyland actually is believe it or not, but with Lynn meadow farms is on a well. And so checking in with the state on what their requirements are, um, because each area, again, like I say, I can't get into details in the book because everybody is different. So, you know, call up the state or call up the County and find out who is in charge of drinking water and to find out what the testing and requirements might be. Um, you are probably going to have to do something with toilets, and you're going to have to figure out how to integrate changing rooms, um, into the venue. Some venues actually provide really awesome tents for their changing spaces and it's possible to make anything work. And then it would limit a farm's. Like I said, we had a couple of small existing spaces that we converted into to changing spaces. And so those are kind of your, your basic things that you'll need. Um, the water is a big deal and the toilets are a big deal. And so that's where, um, knowing ahead of time, what the septic requirements might be, or if you have a, um, if again, you're connected to, um, a sewer system.

Speaker 2: 7:19

So I go back to my book,

Speaker 1: 7:20

Look, check with your local planning department in the areas that you're interested and make a few phone calls and ask them about what their rules and regulations are, um, regarding rural wedding venue. So you're doing this homework as you're looking for property, you don't find the property, buy it, and then go do all this later. If you're really in these early stages, you do them at the same time, figure out what you like, where you want to go, and then make the phone calls, um, to the building departments. Um, tell them you're thinking of buying property and that you want to live there, and that you'd want to be able to rent out the pastures, the lawns, um, for weddings. And they should be able to let you know what those requirements are. Um, you know, don't be afraid to make that phone call. And, um, you know, my experience is, is that people that work in building departments are super friendly and very knowledgeable, and they'll be able to let you know, before you make a huge investment that it's going to actually work. Um, they'll talk to you about what your water supply is. They're going to want to ask you some questions about your septic and sewage system. So if you have a few properties you're interested in trying to ask the real estate agent about those things. Um, and they'll, uh, they'll ask you about, you know, how much traffic you think you'll end up generating. Um, that might be an early, you know, they might not care early on, but that might be something you will have to address later. Um, and then, um, they'll let you know whether or not you can actually use something like a Royal restroom is what they're called. Um, that's one brand name, but basically they are glorified porta-potties that are on these trailers that you can rent for a summer, stick out there on the property. And maybe those are actually suitable instead of you having to go in there and build permanent bathrooms for your summer wedding venue. So I can't answer that for you. That's something that, because local jurisdictions have different regulations on those kinds of things. Um, they'll be able to tell you what zones, um, a wedding, a rental property would be allowed in and which ones they won't be, and that will help you narrow down your property hunting. And then you can start looking. Um, I definitely wouldn't want Brie and David or anybody else to go buy the property first. And, um, and then find out that it's not gonna work. And I do get those questions from readers and, and I'm happy to answer them from people, uh, because they do vary from property to property. Um, so you go and you find something that's great. It's got a lot of good land because you're going in step one, which is we're going to be an outdoor venue to start off with, but it happens to have some Barnes with potential. Um, and you have a budget again, don't jump into the barns right away. Um, focus on your bathrooms, your changing rooms, um, find a place for caters to do their setup and food. Um, you know, as the city or County may requirement, they may want them to have hand washing sinks, that kinds of stuff. And then as your money starts to come in, use the proceeds to start to fix up and permit all those barns later. So, um, again, you, you have a little bit of homework to do, do it both at the same time, contact the County, look at the properties. Um, and like I said, I think that, you know, my advice to Bree and David is start outdoors and then worry about turning it into a big giant operation later. So thank you guys for that question. And, um, I'm looking forward to hearing from everybody else.

Speaker 3: 10:23

Hi.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So this has been another episode of wedding than you business radio podcast. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer on the show, please go to the website at wedding, then you biz.com find the contact form there and type in your question or comment that you have for me. And I'm happy to answer it on the podcast. Again, my name is Amie queer Kony, and I am as always extremely grateful for your time. Have a great day.