Venues fall roughly into two camps. There are places that hand you a per person price covering most of what you need, and places that give you a beautiful empty space and a list of things you now have to arrange.
Couples often assume the second is cheaper because the headline number is smaller. Sometimes it is. Frequently it is not, and the difference only becomes visible once everything is added up.
Here is how to compare them properly.
What each one actually is
All-inclusive. One supplier, usually the venue, provides the space plus catering, staff, furniture, linen, crockery, glassware and often basic décor and coordination. You get a per person price and a shorter list of decisions.
DIY or blank space. You hire the venue, then bring in everything else yourself: caterer, furniture, crockery, linen, bar, sound, lighting, sometimes even bathrooms and power. This includes farms, halls, private properties and any beautiful empty space.
Most venues sit somewhere between the two. The useful exercise is working out where on that line yours falls, and what that means for your budget and your time.
The money comparison people get wrong
The mistake is comparing venue hire against venue hire. A blank space at R20,000 looks obviously cheaper than an inclusive venue at R1,100 per head.
It is not a like for like comparison. For 100 guests, that inclusive venue is R110,000 covering the space, the food, the staff and the equipment. To match it at the blank space you now need to add:
- Catering, at roughly R800 to R1,800 per person
- Bar and bar staff
- Waiting staff
- Tables, chairs and linen hire
- Crockery, cutlery and glassware hire
- Delivery, collection, setup and breakdown for all of it
- Sound and lighting
- Possibly generators, marquees, mobile bathrooms and refuse removal
- Coordination, because someone has to run all these suppliers By the time that list is priced, the gap frequently narrows to very little, and sometimes reverses.
Where blank spaces genuinely win is when the space is free or very cheap, such as family land, or when you are having a small wedding where hire quantities are low, or when you have real access to equipment and labour without paying market rates.
The hidden cost of DIY: your time
The financial comparison is only half of it.
An inclusive venue might involve five or six supplier relationships in total. A blank space wedding can easily involve fifteen, each with its own quote, contract, deposit, delivery window and contact person.
That is not just admin. It is coordination risk. Every additional supplier is another thing that can arrive late, deliver the wrong item or fail to appear. Someone has to manage all of it, and on the day, someone has to be their contact point.
If that someone is you, understand what you are choosing. If it is a coordinator, add their fee to your DIY comparison, because it belongs there.
What all-inclusive gets you beyond the price
Predictability. One number that scales with your guest count. Much easier to budget and much harder to blow.
Fewer decisions. Genuinely valuable if you are busy or if the volume of choices is what you find draining.
Experience. A venue that runs weddings every weekend has solved the problems yours will produce. That knowledge is worth something on the day.
Less to coordinate. Fewer arrivals, fewer contracts, fewer things to chase.
What all-inclusive costs you
Flexibility. You are typically eating their menu, using their furniture and working within their design. Some couples do not mind at all. Others find it constraining.
Supplier choice. Many inclusive venues require in house catering and have preferred lists. If you had a specific caterer in mind, ask early.
Distinctiveness. If a venue hosts a hundred weddings a year with the same setup, yours may resemble the others. How much that matters is personal.
Line item visibility. A single per person price is convenient and makes it harder to see where your money is going, or to trim one area.
What DIY gets you
Total control. Your caterer, your look, your structure, your timeline. If you have a strong vision, this is the route that delivers it.
Character. Family land, an unusual building, a place that means something to you. These weddings often feel more personal because they are.
Real savings in specific situations. Small guest counts, cheap or free space, genuine access to equipment.
The ability to prioritise. With everything itemised, you can spend heavily on food and cut hard on décor, which a bundled price does not easily allow.
What DIY costs you
Time, in significant quantities.
Risk. More suppliers means more that can go wrong, and no single party responsible for the whole.
Surprises. Blank spaces have hidden requirements: power capacity, bathroom ratios, kitchen facilities, refuse, parking, noise permissions. These emerge as you go and each one costs money.
Coordination you will probably have to pay for anyway.
How to compare them honestly
Do this before choosing.
Build both budgets fully. Take your two shortlisted venues and price them completely, including every hire item, delivery fee and staff cost the blank space needs. Compare the totals, not the hire fees.
Add coordination to the DIY column. Either a coordinator fee or an honest estimate of your own hours.
Ask the blank space what it does not have. Specifically: kitchen facilities, power capacity, bathrooms, refuse removal, parking, wet weather space. The answers determine your real cost.
Ask the inclusive venue what is excluded. Bar, service charges, coordination, cake, corkage, overtime. Inclusive rarely means everything.
A middle option worth knowing about
Many venues offer partial packages: the space plus catering and basic furniture, with décor, flowers and entertainment left to you.
This is often the best value on the table. It bundles the heavy logistics, meaning food, staff and equipment, while leaving you control over the elements that make the wedding feel like yours. If you like the idea of DIY but not the reality of hiring cutlery, ask specifically whether venues offer this.
The honest answer
If your priority is a predictable budget and a manageable process, choose inclusive. It is usually the lower stress option and frequently no more expensive once everything is counted.
If you have a strong vision, a genuinely cheap space, a smaller guest list or real appetite for the work, DIY can produce something more distinctive and occasionally cheaper.
What does not work is choosing a blank space because the hire fee looked low, without pricing the rest. That is the version that ends with a budget spreadsheet nobody wants to open.
Neither route is more authentic than the other. A wedding is not more yours because you sourced the chairs personally.
Madly helps you build out the full cost of any venue option, so you can compare like for like instead of guessing. Sign up free and start planning.