Venue or Marquee?

It depends really...i've bought my marquees which cost £480 altogether. we have bought marquee carpet which cost £340 altogether and includes the underlay stuff, hammer and all the nails needed too.

our tables and chairs are free because OH is a mechanic and does favours all the time for someone who runs the Scouts and can do these for us for free.. probably chuck them some money after the wedding though!

Bought throw away plates and cutlery (both plastic ones) to avoid anyone having to clean them afterwards. same with the glasses too.

we still have to buy our lights but have budgeted £100 for lights indoors. we have bought tealights for outside and will have to buy some sand too but the plan is to put sand and a tealight in all our jam jars, etc. that we are saving up and then put holes in the tops of the lids and put them everywhere outside.. hopefully make it look really romantic but so it will light up quite a large area

then got material to drape where it needs to go in purple as that is our colour ?

so it depends how you do it. we are doing it as cheap as possible but trying to make it still look good. you will have to think about if you want a caterer in or what you would do for your food too though. when we started looking with profesional companies at marquees and then started looking at what caterers needed in terms of space to set up, etc. they wanted us to have literally a whole marquee for themselves!!!

which are you more swaying towards? Do you have somewhere where you can put the marquee because if not companies can also charge for this. also, we dont need toilets as the place we are having our reception has houses we can use so we are going to open one of the houses up to everyone (its a holiday cottage...huge and LUSH!) and they can use the 3 toilets on that level that they will walk into as the toilet facilties for the evening. there is a lot to think about but we wanted this all along so we're having it!! ?

I personally dont see there being much difference in the cost, orgianally I thought we were going to save a fortune having a marquee but if I'm truthfully its costing the same as a middle of the road venue.

Oh and its so much more work, toilet, generator, lightening, catering, bar, crockery, glassware etc etc all I have to sort on top of everything else... its hard work.

Thanks for your insights. It has really helped me think about what is involved. I think I might not have the marquee now!!

x

I think Venues usually comes out cheaper but depends what your marquee includes (i know some venues have fixed marquees within their grounds that have everything you would expect from a fixed venue) if you have to higher in furniture, crockery, toilets etc the price soon mounts up. I personally think Marquees also take quite a lot of dressing to make them look nice otherwise they are just a big tent which all costs money, where as some venues already have nice features so do not require much dressing.

We also thought we would save a fortune, but like far2calm, ours has worked out as much as a venue. Just with a lot more stuff to organise.

We are able to have as many people as we can fit (130) for sit down meal, whereas we would have been pushed for numbers in some venues.

There is a lot of organising that goes with it. Portaloos, lining, furniture, catering, crockery and cutlery, booze to provide, keeping everything cold, where will everyone park, who clears up? A lot of things that I didn't even contemplate.

Still... I'm looking forward to it and praying it doesn't rain.

Good luck with your planning xx

When we costed everything up, a marquee reception was actually more expensive than our venue package.

My friend opted for a marquee as for her it was a cheaper option and meant she could get married in a field overlooking the sea.

Unfortunately though the week before the wedding the weather was terrible and the marquee people insisted she got a wooden flooring for the marquee. It cost her £750 the week before the wedding. So I guess the problem with marquees is the pricing is not as easy to calculate. However her wedding was amazing - completely different to how I have planned mine but perfect for her.