Plain English
Every wedding word a venue will use on you.
Service charge, F&B minimum, corkage, force majeure. None of it is complicated once somebody defines it honestly, and several of these terms exist mainly to make a quote look smaller than it is.
4.9 · 1,400+ Google reviews Three venues, one estate Booking 2026 & 2027
Why this page exists
Most of these words are doing a job.
A venue fee sounds like the price of a wedding and is usually a third of it. A service charge sounds like a tip and generally is not one. A deposit sounds refundable and almost never is. None of that is dishonest exactly, but it is not neutral either, and a couple booking their first and only wedding is negotiating against people who do this every Saturday.
So here is the vocabulary, defined the way we would define it standing in the barn with you.
The terms
A to Z, more or less.
- All-inclusive all-in, full-service package
- One contract that carries the venue and the vendors together — ceremony, reception, catering, bar, photographer, DJ, cake, officiant, flowers and coordination in a single price. The word is not regulated, so two venues can both call themselves all-inclusive and include very different things. Ask for the list in writing.
- À la carte venue-only, bring your own vendors
- You rent the space and hire every vendor yourself. It looks cheaper on the first quote because most of the wedding is not in it yet. It is the right choice if you want unusual vendors or total control, and the wrong one if you were hoping not to become a project manager.
- Venue fee site fee, rental fee, facility fee
- The charge for the space and the hours — nothing else. On an à la carte quote this is the number couples remember, and it is usually a third or less of what the day ends up costing.
- Food and beverage minimum F&B minimum, catering minimum
- The amount you must spend on food and drink regardless of how many people come. If you fall short you pay the difference anyway. A low venue fee attached to a high minimum is the most common way a quote looks cheaper than it is.
- Buyout exclusive use, private buyout
- Paying to be the only event on the property. At venues that run two or three weddings at once it is an extra line; at a single-event venue it is simply how the day works and there is nothing to buy.
- Service charge administrative fee, banquet fee
- A percentage added to the food and beverage total, commonly 18 to 24 percent. It is not a tip. It usually covers staffing and overhead, it is often taxable, and in most states none of it is required to reach the servers.
- Gratuity tip
- Money that goes to the staff. It is a separate thing from the service charge, and a contract that lists both is asking you for both. Read the two lines together before you budget for either.
- Corkage fee BYO fee
- A per-bottle charge for serving alcohol you supplied. Venues with their own liquor license often ban outside alcohol outright rather than charging corkage, so the question to ask first is whether you may bring it at all.
- Outside vendor fee non-preferred vendor fee, buyout fee
- A charge for using a vendor who is not on the venue’s list. Sometimes it reflects real cost, such as insurance checks or extra supervision. Sometimes it exists to make the preferred list look free.
- Preferred vendor list approved vendors, in-house team
- The photographers, DJs, florists and caterers a venue will work with, or requires you to work with. Ask whether it is a recommendation or a rule, and whether the venue is paid to be on it.
- Day-of coordinator day-of coordination, wedding-day manager
- The person who runs the day itself: the timeline, the vendors, the processional, and the problems you never hear about. The name is misleading — a good one starts weeks earlier, because a timeline cannot be built on the morning of.
- Wedding planner full-service planner
- Hired by you, usually for the whole engagement, to design the wedding and choose the vendors. Different job from a venue coordinator, who works for the venue and runs the venue’s side of the day. A venue that includes coordination is covering the second, not the first.
- Rain plan weather backup, plan B
- Where the ceremony goes when the forecast turns. A real rain plan is a specific room, a stated decision deadline and a person who makes the call. “We have a tent option” is a quote, not a plan.
- Ceremony flip room flip, turnaround
- Resetting one room from ceremony to reception while your guests are at cocktail hour, usually in about an hour. Venues with separate ceremony and reception spaces never flip, which is why cocktail hour length is really a question about the floor plan.
- Cocktail hour drinks reception
- The hour between the ceremony and the reception, while photographs are taken and, at some venues, the room is flipped. It is the part of the day guests most often remember being either well fed or forgotten.
- Micro wedding intimate wedding, small wedding
- A full wedding at a small guest count, usually under about fifty. Everything a large wedding has — ceremony, dinner, cake, dancing — sized down rather than cut. Not the same as an elopement.
- Elopement just the two of us
- Marrying with no guest list to speak of, sometimes with two witnesses and an officiant only. The distinction from a micro wedding is reception, not romance: an elopement generally does not have one.
- Bridal suite getting-ready room, bridal cottage
- The room the wedding party gets ready in. What matters is not whether it exists but whether it has daylight, mirrors, power, a door that closes and a bathroom — and whether there is an equivalent room for the other half of the party.
- First look pre-ceremony reveal
- A private moment where the couple see each other before the ceremony, photographed. Its real function is scheduling: doing portraits beforehand can hand you back most of cocktail hour.
- Golden hour magic hour
- The hour or so before sunset, when the light is warm and low and outdoor photographs look their best. In Florida it moves by roughly three hours across the year, which is why a ceremony time that works in June does not in December.
- Sweetheart table couple’s table
- A table for two at the reception, instead of the couple sitting at a head table with the wedding party. Cheaper to decorate, easier to photograph, and it lets the wedding party sit with their own partners.
- Head table top table, bridal table
- A long table seating the couple with the wedding party. Takes more floor space than a sweetheart table and needs a wall to sit against, so it is a floor-plan decision as much as a social one.
- Plated service sit-down dinner
- Each guest is served a chosen course at the table. Needs a final count of who ordered what, needs place cards to match, and needs the most staff of any service style.
- Buffet service self-service
- Guests serve themselves from stations. Usually fewer staff and more choice per guest, but it needs floor space and a plan for the order tables are released, or one table waits forty minutes.
- Family style shared platters
- Large platters placed on each table for guests to pass. Feels generous and gets everyone eating at once, but it uses a lot of table surface, which competes with the centerpieces.
- Final count guaranteed count, final headcount
- The guest number you commit to, usually seven to fourteen days out. You pay for that number whether or not everyone comes, and it can generally go up after the deadline but not down.
- Room block hotel block
- Rooms a hotel holds for your guests at an agreed rate. Read whether it is courtesy (unbooked rooms simply release) or guaranteed (you are liable for what is not booked). Only one of those can cost you money.
- Retainer deposit, booking fee
- The payment that takes your date off the market. The word “deposit” implies it might come back; “retainer” is usually the honest word, because it is almost always non-refundable. What matters is what the contract says, not which word is used.
- Force majeure act of God clause
- The contract clause covering events nobody controls — hurricanes, mandated closures. Read whether it offers a refund, a credit or a reschedule, who decides, and what happens if only one of you wants to invoke it.
- Certificate of insurance COI
- Proof that a vendor carries liability insurance, naming the venue as additionally insured. Most venues require one from every outside vendor. It is routine paperwork and a vendor who cannot produce one is telling you something.
- Noise ordinance sound curfew, amplified sound limit
- The local rule on how loud, and how late, amplified music may run outdoors. It sets your real end time regardless of what the rental hours say, and it is set by the county, not by the venue.
- Marriage license the paperwork
- The document you get before the wedding that permits it. Different from the marriage certificate, which is the record you get after. Florida issues licenses through the county clerk, and the rules on waiting periods and residency are worth reading before you set a date.
- Officiant celebrant, minister
- The person who performs the ceremony and signs the license. Florida is comparatively open about who may do it, but the signature has to be valid, so confirm eligibility before asking a friend.
- Load-in setup window, load-out
- The hours vendors may arrive to set up and must be gone by afterwards. If your rental block is eight hours and load-in eats two of them, you have six. Ask which hours are yours and which are the vendors’.
- Vendor meal crew meal
- A meal for the photographer, DJ, planner and anyone else working a long day. Most contracts require it, it is usually cheaper than a guest plate, and it is a line couples routinely forget until the final invoice.
Put it to use
The pages where these words show up.
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