Wedding Venue Hunting In Nerja

If you haven't heard me mention it a million times already, Dean surprised me with a trip to Nerja for my 30th birthday, which you can read about - here. Not only was the holiday a lovely getaway for us but also a chance for us to meet with a wedding planner and look at potential wedding venues.

Going back a few months, not long after we had gotten engaged, I got in contact with Nerja Weddings By Sonya (after many, many recommendations) to take the first step in planning our Spanish wedding. Sonya and her team sent me some information on venues and prices etc and told me to get in touch again when I knew we'd be going to Nerja. As we weren't planning on going to Spain anytime soon all plans were put on hold. That was until Dean arranged the surprise holiday and a meeting with Sonya and her colleagues.

Our first meeting was with Sonya's husband Matt who took us around to have a look at six different venues. Some venues were hotels, some were bars/restaurants and one private villa. Each venue had its pro's and con's, some indoors, some outdoors, some local, some further away and of course different prices.

I'll get the con's out of the way first: A few of the places were quite old fashioned, venue wise and decor wise. It is all down to taste but for us we could strike two or three venues off the list straight away. Another thing that surprised me was that nearly all venues need to know each guests food order at least 10 days before the wedding. I can understand the reason for it, but asking someone if they want meat or fish weeks or months in advance is a bit odd. Also most sample menu's were very similar to the Irish meat or fish, potato and veg. If we wanted an Irish wedding we'd stay in Ireland. Look, all very trivial I know, but still important to share.

Also one of the main things is that you can't have live music playing outdoors after 11.30pm so if you want to continue partying you will have to move indoors or to a completely different spot if your venue doesn't offer a suitable indoor dance floor.

But not all bad, the prices per person are extremely good. For approx €75 per guest the venue will serve reception drinks, which is wine, sangria, beer and soft drinks. This price also includes canapes for an hour and a two course dinner, with free flowing drinks over the course of the dinner. They also include a wedding cake for this price which is usually the dessert. But most venues do have a minimum spend of maybe €6k/€7k to ensure private use of the venue. And as they are laying on a lot of drink as part of the meal there is a separate minimum spend of about €1,500 at the bar (which hopefully your guests will cover!)

Two venues that stood out to me were Cochran's and Mar Bella. They are both right in the center of Nerja and both venues have stunning balcony's overlooking the sea. We're after a low key venue so the sea views from Cochran's and the leafy terrace at Mar Bella were just what we had in mind. Although it was hard to visualise these places done up for weddings as they were just normal bars when we looked.

The private villa we looked at was also amazing but the cost of that racked up pretty fast with the rent, transport, catering, furniture and staff.

Mar Bella

Mar Bella

Cochran's

Cochran's

The day after viewing the venues we met with Sonya herself to talk about what we liked, didn't like and ask any questions we had. She also did up a budget for us based on different venues as well as a timeline of the day and what costs need to be considered. As of yet nothing is decided at all, we are still weighing up the options for different venues and not rushing into deciding on anything.

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