You will walk three or four venues before you choose one. They will all look beautiful, because venues are photographed for a living, and you will leave each one having mostly talked about chairs, colours and the view.
Then, four months later, a question you never asked turns into a problem you cannot solve.
Here are the twelve that matter on this coast. Ask them everywhere, including here.
1. Who actually cooks the food?
This is the first question, not the last. Many venues around Richards Bay and Empangeni outsource catering to a contractor. It means the food arrives from somewhere else, on somebody else's schedule, and the venue cannot fix it if it goes wrong.
Ask plainly: is the kitchen yours, and is the food cooked on site? If the answer is no, ask who the caterer is and whether you can meet them before you sign anything.
2. Can you do a traditional ceremony and a white wedding?
Many families on this coast hold both. Some run them on the same day, more often across two.
A venue that says "yes" quickly and a venue that says "yes, and here is how we have done it" are not the same venue. Ask for specifics: where each part happens, how the kitchen handles two different menus, what changes overnight if you use two days.
3. What is the real guest maximum, seated, with a dance floor?
Venues quote a capacity. Then you discover it assumes standing, or no band, or no top table.
Ask for the seated number with everything you actually want in the room.
4. Is there a minimum?
Weekday minimums are common and reasonable. You just need to know before you fall in love with the place. Ask what the minimum is on the day of the week you want, and whether Saturdays differ from Sundays.
5. Where do guests sleep?
At a Richards Bay or Empangeni wedding, a real share of your guest list is travelling. Some will fly into Richards Bay Airport, some will drive up from Durban.
Ask what is on the property, how many it holds, and what is nearby. Then ask the question underneath it: how do people get home at the end of the night?
6. Can we bring our own photographer, videographer and DJ?
Most venues are relaxed about sound and photography. Fewer are relaxed about catering and decor, and they usually have good reasons.
The point is to know before you book the photographer, not after.
7. What happens if it rains?
You are marrying on a subtropical coast. From November to March, a thunderstorm at four in the afternoon is not unusual and is often over by six.
Ask what the wet-weather plan is, in detail, and ask when the decision gets made and who makes it.
8. What time can the ceremony start?
This sounds like a formality. It is actually about light. Sunset here moves by nearly two hours across the year, and your photographs live or die on it. We wrote a month-by-month guide to that in when to marry on this coast.
9. How long do we have the venue?
Access from what time, out by what time, and what does overtime cost. Also: when can suppliers get in to set up, and does setup eat into your hours?
10. What is the deposit, and what holds the date?
Ask what secures the date, how long a hold lasts, and what happens to your deposit if you move the date rather than cancel.
11. Who will actually be there on the day?
Not the salesperson. The person running your wedding. Ask whether you will meet them before the day, and whether they will still be there at eleven at night.
12. Can we see the venue set up?
A photograph of an empty hall tells you very little. If there is a function on, ask whether you can put your head in for five minutes. Most venues will say yes, and what you learn in those five minutes is worth more than the whole brochure.
If you are working through this list around Richards Bay and Empangeni, we are happy to answer all twelve in writing before you drive out. Our answers to the most common ones are on the questions page, and the spaces are set out with their real guest numbers.
And if you would rather just come and walk it, tell us your date.