Choosing a wedding venue can be overwhelming! Your wedding location and venue sets the tone for the day of your event.   Fortunately, the Lone Star state has lots of options, each region has its own unique vibe. The State of Texas is enormous. Honestly, it could be broken up into five different regions that all have their own flair and unique elements that make them special. Even the urban centers have their own unique styles. Boho chic weddings in Austin feel much different than the grand over the top weddings of Dallas. Fortunately for us, Gruene Estate and the town of New Braunfels is located in the middle of the Texas Hill Country. Offering history and quaint charm that can’t be found anywhere else in the state, we are uniquely positioned to take advantage all that Texas has to offer! There isn’t a better place in Texas to have a gorgeous wedding under the Texas stars. Here’s a few tips from Gruene Estate on how to choose your wedding venue, and just a few things to consider before doing so!

First things first, decide where you are going to have that dream wedding day. Traditionally, the wedding ceremony is held in bride’s hometown. This is no longer the case. In fact, many brides look for   destination weddings, their favorite vacation spot, or just a fun place where people would like to gather. While the state is large and diverse, and we realize we are bit biased, the Texas Hill Country and New Braunfels in particular, is the best of all the regions. Whether you are local, or auslander as we say around here, New Braunfels and Gruene have lots to offer would be wedding guests and couples. Not only are we ideally located between two major metropolitan cities, Austin and San Antonio, making them easy destinations for guests to travel to, but we also have gorgeous rivers to float, a world class music scene, and of course lots of bars and nightlife. Gruene Estate has created a venue that takes advantage of the natural beauty of Gruene’s geography. Rolling Hay fields, pecan trees, and century old live oaks are the perfect setting for our original open-air chapel! Just enough elegance with some rustic touches brings authenticity and beauty to your wedding day. It is a boho bride’s dream come true! Accommodating up to 250 guests, the chapel has been featured in People magazine, Brit + Co., and several music videos. Our grounds are so gorgeous, you don’t have to spend money on making it beautiful, and you can spend those dollars on other vendors to elevate your wedding day!

After you choose your location, your next consideration will be choosing a wedding budget. We are often asked how much a typical wedding cost. There are many factors that dictate how much money is spent on weddings. Typically, urban venues cost more than rural ones. As a general rule of thumb, you can usually calculate what you will spend on your venue as half of what your total wedding cost will be. Gruene Estate is naturally beautiful, so you don’t need a ton of décor to make the venue look atheistically pleasing. That being said, we do provide hand made wooden farm tables, a wide arrange of in-house décor at no extra charge, and a in-house wedding coordinator that creates a day of time line for you, and can assist brides with vendor recommendations. These extras would usually cost a bride and groom thousands of dollars. Our wedding day extras all you to save money on these items and spend those funds on other services like beer burros, a wedding photo booth, or live wedding painting. All services and vendors that can elevate your wedding day and guests wedding experience.

What is your wedding style? That is a good question, and if you feel nervous when you ask yourself that, then Pinterest might be a good place to start to gather some ideas and direction. We would best describe Gruene Estate’s vibe as the perfect amount of rustic elegance. As we mentioned earlier, we created a venue that used the natural beauty of the surrounding Gruene family farm. Gruene Estate is an open-air wedding venue, which allows the event to flow from the comfort of a fully covered space with huge circulating fans and water-cooling system to the comfort and beauty of nature. Rustic touches like our handmade wooden farm tables sit in perfect juxtaposition with our white washed pavilion and silver patinaed chandeliers and light fixtures. In short, the space is versatile. Boho, rustic, elegant, casual, or formal, the venue fits a wide range of styles! What strikes us most about Gruene Estate versus other venues is, our uniquely authentic feel: combining history and one of a kind buildings. The original Gruene family home is our spacious three-bedroom two bath bridal suite that is a Texas State Historic Landmark. You will not find another bridal suite like it!

The last step to choosing your venue is take a tour of the property and see the space for yourself. This is the most fun part of the entire process, and you should enjoy the wedding journey. Take a day with you and your significant other and do some venue tours. Have a nice lunch in Gruene at the Grist Mill, and take in all that the historic towns of Gruene and New Braunfels have to offer. Don’t forget to swing by Gruene Hall, Texas’ oldest dance hall, it will bring the history to life. H.D. Gruene, who grew up in Gruene Estate’s historic farm house and bridal suite, built the dance hall and town of Gruene. Seeing the venue space is important, and it allows you picture what your day will be like. Due to Covid-19 we were doing tours virtually, but have transitioned to doing in person tours on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday while practicing responsible social distancing. Contact the office and we’d love to show you around!

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Photos 1,2,& 3 Allison Jeffers Photography

Photos 4 & 5 Dark Room Foto