I like the idea; actually I like it better than the RV park idea where the buildings were going to look primitive. Looking at expansion possibilities before you build anything is very wise.
Suggestions:
1. Look at total possible annual revenue. There are only so many weekends in the year during "wedding season". All of your costs and your income has to come out of this. In fact, the costs come first, your personal income is the last item paid.
2. Your areas need to be far enough away from each other and the highway so that each can have their ceremony unspoiled by road noise or a loud band at an adjacent ceremony.
3. Look at wedding trends both in your area and in the US as a whole. Where we live, the trend is for couples to not get married any more, just live together. In 15 years, revenue might be lower.
4. Costs & Security. Weddings will always have extra costs. As many of these should be put on the wedding party as possible. For instance, security. Some percentage of weddings end up with serious fights and sometime general brawls. Doesn't seem like it should be that way, but when people add alcohol, family feuds, and possible thug friends of the wedding party it happens. Not always, but enough times that you should have a plan. Require 2 or 3 uniformed guards to direct parking and prevent fights. Whatever happens, you should never go out yourself to deal with a disturbance.
5. Work with some wedding planners before you build anything. What would be the way they want facilities laid out? This also gives you free publicity before you open.
6. Same with caterers for food before you build. What layout of roads would give good service access, while letting the actual wedding party not see any of the behind the scenes, nuts and bolts stuff of how it happened. The garbage truck and dumpsters need to be there, but the guests don't need to see them.
7. Liquor license. Do you need one? How long does it take to get one?
8. Clean up crew. Who is going to clean up after each use? They need to be absolutely reliable. The team that arrives to decorate for an expensive Saturday ceremony does not want the old stuff from the previous, low cost Friday night party there when they arrive.
9. Shift work. You will need Friday night cleanup and setup for Saturday, same for Saturday night cleanup and setup for Sunday. Who does this in your area?
10. Garbage removal. Do you want larger dumpsters or more garbage trucks? Think hard about this, there will be a lot of food prep and cleanup. Dumpsters will smell in hot weather, even "empty" ones. How do you handle this?
11. I think you said you had a sewer system which pumped to a public facility of some sort. This is good, but the surge capacity might have to be greater than for an RV park. All of the food prep will have to be done at once.
12. I presume you will start with one facility and then more as you have success. Plan out the siting and construction now. No one is going to want to have a wedding right next to a construction site, so visual screening during construction will be important.
13. Janitorial Service. Grounds, restrooms and food prep areas have to be cleaned before each ceremony. Who does this, and when? Do you need enough outdoor lighting to clean the grounds at night? Even a small amount of litter makes the place look trashy, and many of the previous guests were drunk and not on their best manners the night before.
Good luck, and I think you will come up with a lot more questions. None of them are show-stoppers, but a little planning ahead will keep things elegant and desirable for quite a while.
Dave
