Nowhere to Hide: Why We Made Our Calendar Public in 2018
Britany Moser Photography } Summer Wedding at Legacy Hill Farm
What if a wedding venue was as easy to book as a hotel?
What if it had an online booking calendar where it showed real-time availability and someone could reserve their date online without having to inquire or even talk to someone?
Why hadn’t this been done already?
What were we missing?
It was 2018 and we had been in business since 2015, so we were a little unsure of what we didn’t know about the wedding industry. Yet, we knew that what inspired us most about running this wedding venue was to keep seeing how we could serve our couples and guests better. Hospitality was the point. Creating a space for families and friends to come together and celebrate love. This is what Legacy Hill Farm was all about.
So, if there was a way we could do this better, to make it easier for our couples to plan their wedding, to remove stress from the process, we were going to see if we could do it.
We couldn’t remember the last time we called a hotel to book a room or an airline to get a ticket. We didn’t miss that either. Going online to book a vacation was now the norm, but it didn’t used to be.
What if we could take this concept to wedding venues? Wouldn’t a couple want to be able to shop online for their venue just like they do when picking a resort?
We thought they just might.
Wedding venues, hotels, resorts, restaurants, airlines, and cruises all fall within the broader category of hospitality.
The rest of the hospitality industry had figured out how to let people book with ease. But wedding venues still hadn’t figured it out.
Here is the standard for the wedding venue booking process that we were set on disrupting:
Wait for couples to inquire about pricing and availability for a specific day(s)
Respond with a brochure
Tell them their date was available or not
Email back and forth about more information about what is or isn’t included
Tour the venue
Email back to re-confirm the availability hadn’t changed
Couple emails back and forth until deciding they want the date
Send the contract and invoice to the couple
Couple signs the contract and pays
Couple receives confirmation the date is FINALLY theirs
There is no way that couples enjoy this process, and there’s no way they ever did. Especially when you multiply this by the 3-5 other venues they are communicating with.
The solution was already here. The rest of the hospitality industry already proved it could be done. We just had to build it out for wedding venues and then be brave enough to share it.
Yeah, brave enough. It’s scary showing your calendar. Not anymore, but the first day we shared that calendar was scary.
There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to pretend that almost all of our dates were booked.
Nobody wants to get married at a venue that nobody else wants to get married at. If our calendar didn’t have many bookings, it could lead to fewer and fewer bookings.
We decided that a big part of hospitality was how well we cared for the people we served. If we would want to book a wedding this way, then we knew other people would too.
We decided to believe that being transparent just might lead to trust. When there is nothing to hide, there is nothing to hide.
And how did it turn out? 2026 is our most booked season yet. 92 weddings!
We’re not done finding ways to hand power over to our couples and guests and serve them better.
Transparency turned out to be good business.
Traditional setups often rely on holding onto as much leverage and power as possible. We believe that good business is treating our couples the way we want to be treated. Transparent. Caring.
We think the Ritz got it right when they said, “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”
Here’s to serving you at Legacy Hill Farm!
Curious what venue booking should feel like? See our live booking calendar here with every available date, every price, in plain sight.
