A backyard wedding doesn’t have a venue fee. That’s the whole pitch, and it’s a good one: the average couple in The Knot’s 2026 Real Weddings Study spent $12,900 on the venue alone.
But a yard isn’t a venue. A venue comes with a roof, chairs, tables, bathrooms and lights, and it hides all of them inside one number on the quote. A yard comes with grass. Everything else is a line item you now rent, haul home and return.
So I priced it. I built the spreadsheet below for a 60-guest reception, using one real rental shop’s own weekend prices (Grand Rental Station in Hudson, New Hampshire, read in October 2026). Your shop will be a little higher or a little lower. The lines won’t change.
The tally for 60 guests
| Line item | What I’d rent | Weekend price | Line total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tent | one 20 x 40 canopy | $375 | $375 |
| Tables | 8 round 60-inch tables | $11.75 each | $94 |
| Chairs | 60 white folding chairs | $2.40 each | $144 |
| Tablecloths | 8 round 90-inch cloths | $13.50 each | $108 |
| Napkins | 60 cloth napkins | $1.25 each | $75 |
| Toilets | 2 standard units and 1 ADA unit | $300 and $385 | $985 |
| Handwashing | 1 station | $160 | $160 |
| String lights | 3 LED strands, 50 feet each | $50 each | $150 |
| Damage waiver | 13% of the rentals | $272 | |
| The tally | $2,363 |
That’s about $2,363 before food, drinks or a single flower. Compare it with the $12,900 venue average and the yard still wins by a mile. It just doesn’t win by $12,900, and that’s the number I’d want a couple to see before they sign up for a summer of lawn care.
For what it’s worth, The Knot puts the average rentals line at $2,000. So this tally isn’t padded. It’s pretty much normal.
The tent is the line that sets everything else
Grand Rental’s chart says its 20 x 30 tent seats 60 at a sit-down dinner. That’s exactly our count, which sounds perfect until you remember the buffet table, the cake table and the bar also want to stand somewhere. Sixty is the number of chairs it holds with nothing else inside.
The 20 x 40 seats 80 for $375, only $80 more than the 20 x 30 at $295. I’d take the bigger one every time. That extra 10 feet is where the food goes.
Two things on the shop’s page are easy to miss, and both belong in a column of their own:
- The 20 x 40 is pickup and self setup only. The shop says it takes 2 to 3 people about 75 to 90 minutes.
- You need a flat setup area of about 30 by 50 feet, bigger than the tent itself, since the ropes and stakes reach past its edges.
Measure the yard before you book anything.
Honestly? Measure it twice. If you can’t fit a 30 by 50 rectangle on level ground, the tent decides your guest count, not you.
Tables and chairs: count by the table, not the guest
Round 60-inch tables seat 6 to 8 people, according to Columbus Parties’ own listing. I plan at 8 per table, so 60 guests means 8 tables (7.5, rounded up, because nobody wants to be the half).
The chairs are the cheap line. At $2.40 each, 60 chairs are $144, and there’s no point hunting for a deal there.
Spend the hunting time on the toilets.
The toilets are the line everybody skips
Here’s the part most backyard lists leave out. ZTERS, a portable toilet company, says most planners recommend one toilet per 25 guests, plus at least one accessible unit. For 60 guests that’s 2.4 toilets, so 3.
My take: rent all 3, and make one of them the ADA unit. A house bathroom can count as one, but then 60 people are walking through somebody’s hallway for 5 hours, and the line forms right where the cake is. At $985 for the trio plus $160 for a handwashing station, it’s the biggest rental on the sheet. It’s also the one guests notice if it’s missing.
Light it, or the party ends at sunset
A yard gets dark fast, and a tent gets dark faster. Grand Rental lists a 50-foot LED strand for $50, so 3 strands are $150. That’s my favorite line on the whole spreadsheet.
It’s the one that makes the photos.
If the night will be cool, the same page lists a propane patio heater at $65 and a tent heater at $300. I’d add a heater line only after checking last year’s weather for that weekend, not before.
The line that hides at the bottom
Every rental here carries a 13% damage waiver. On $2,091 of rentals that’s $272. It isn’t optional at this shop, so it goes in the tally from day one, not as a surprise on the final invoice.
What I’d skip in a backyard
- Chair covers. They’re $6.75 each at the same shop, which is $405 for 60 chairs. White folding chairs on grass already look like a wedding.
- Floor-length cloths. A 120-inch round costs $21.50 against $13.50 for the 90-inch, and the extra fabric mostly drags in the grass.
- A second tent for the ceremony. Stand under the trees and save the $375.
Setup day is a real day
Your venue would have had a crew. Here, the crew is you and whoever you can bribe with pizza. Put setup day on the calendar like it’s part of the wedding, because it is. There’s the tent pickup, then the tent going up (75 to 90 minutes, says the shop), then every table and cloth and strand of lights. And on Sunday it all happens again in reverse.
When I worked Saturdays for a florist, setting reception tables was the easy part of the job. Loading the van and getting everything back was the hard part. That hasn’t changed.
So yes, a backyard wedding can cost a lot less. Just give it its own spreadsheet, put every rental on its own line, and let the tally tell you the truth before the tent shop does.