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Renting vs. Owning Chairs for New Wedding Venues

Make the Best Decision for your Venue’s Future Success

Written by: Marcelo Flores

Starting a wedding venue involves countless decisions, each crucial to its success. Among these, deciding whether to rent or own chairs for your events is a key consideration, especially when working with a tight budget.

In this article, we explore the pros and cons of both renting and owning chairs, providing you with the insights needed to make the best choice for your venue.

1. Financial Considerations: Owning vs. Renting Chairs

Choosing between owning and renting chairs for your wedding venue involves important financial considerations. On the surface, renting may appear cost-effective. However, owning your chairs often leads to greater financial benefits over time. By purchasing chairs, you eliminate ongoing rental costs, allowing for the potential to increase your venue’s package prices, thereby enhancing revenue.

By owning your chairs, you also have the flexibility to offer them as part of your standard venue package. Additionally, you can provide clients the option to rent different chairs if they prefer, perhaps at an additional cost.

2. Pros and Cons of Renting Chairs

Pros

  • Financial Flexibility and Lower Initial Costs: Renting chairs can significantly reduce your initial capital outlay, allowing you to allocate funds to other aspects of your venue that may need immediate investment.
  • Access to a Wide Range of Styles: Chair rental companies usually offer a vast selection of chair styles and colors, making it easier to accommodate the specific tastes and themes of different weddings. This variety enables venues to customize event spaces without committing to a single chair design.
  • Hassle-Free Maintenance and Storage: When you rent chairs, the responsibility for maintenance, cleaning, and storage falls to the rental company.

Cons

  • More Expensive in the Long Term: Although renting offers lower upfront costs, it can become significantly more expensive over time. Continuous rental fees, especially for venues that host a large number of events, can accumulate and surpass the cost of purchasing chairs outright.
  • Unexpected Costs: There might be hidden fees, such as delivery charges or late fees, that can increase costs unexpectedly.
  • Potential Availability Issues: Depending on the season and your location, you might face challenges securing the exact chairs you want due to high demand.

3. Pros and Cons of Owning Chairs

Pros

  • Consistent Brand Image: Owning your chairs ensures a uniform look and feel for all events, reinforcing your venue’s brand and aesthetic. This consistency can enhance your venue’s reputation for quality and reliability.
  • Long-Term Savings: Although purchasing chairs requires an upfront investment, owning them can lead to considerable savings over time, especially if your venue hosts a high volume of events. You eliminate recurring rental fees, which can accumulate to exceed the cost of purchasing chairs outright.
  • Readiness for Any Event: Having your chair inventory ensures that you are always prepared for last-minute bookings or unexpected increases in guest numbers. This readiness can give you a competitive edge in the wedding venue market.

Cons

  • Upfront Investment: The initial cost of purchasing chairs can be significant, particularly for high-quality or designer options. This investment may be challenging for new venues or those with limited capital.
  • Ongoing Maintenance Requirements: Owning chairs means you are responsible for their maintenance, cleaning, and repair. This is why having low-maintenance chairs is key for your venue’s health and success.
  • Storage Space Challenges: Chairs take up considerable space, and owning them means you need to have enough storage area.

4. Financial Options for Chair Purchasing

Financing could be a great option for your venue if you decide to purchase chairs but don’t want to break the bank at the beginning.

Just think about it. If you’re renting out chairs week after week you’re paying for the chairs plus the profits of your vendor. If you purchase your chairs through financing, you’ll likely make weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payments (depending on the setup) and pay some interest.

But those interests will definitely be much lower than the profits plus operational costs of renting each week.

In addition, you’ll be building assets once you conclude the payment and you could even sell them when you feel it is necessary and see additional return.

5. Tools for Making the Right Decision

There are two key aspects for making the right choice here. We have developed tools for both.

The first one is a ROI Calculator, which will help you assess the expected ROI of any product you’re looking to purchase. It’s very user-friendly and you only need a few data to get your numbers.

Expert tip: Do this exercise with the different chairs you’re quoting and select the ones that will leave you the highest returns.

The second tool is an amortization calculator that will help you understand how many events you need to have to pay your loan. Your finance company will surely provide you with a calculator, but this one includes an extra feature to calculate how many events you’ll need to repay the loan.

As simple as the previous calculator, you’ll only need to enter the data provided by your bank and some additional information about your venue’s rental rates and frequency of events.


Choosing between renting and owning chairs involves balancing your venue’s current budget with its long-term goals. While renting offers flexibility for emerging venues, owning through smart financing means investing in your future.

Evaluate your financial situation, consider the benefits of each option, and use the tools provided to make informed decisions that will set your wedding venue up for success.

Author

  • Marcelo Flores Villarreal

    Marcelo Flores is a business and marketing enthusiast with a special focus on the events industry. He’s dedicated to sharing simple, effective strategies to help readers boost their success. An avid learner and reader, Marcelo believes that small insights can lead to big changes.

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