Sopwell house

Hi and welcome. I just googled it, no where near me so cant help but just to say welcome and that venue does look very nice! (Liked the fork buffet menus I always check the food!) Have you read the reviews on tripadvisor for it at all that might help?

Hey. We are in Watford so it was on our possible list but we didn't go for it in the end. We did get a brochures, and I'm pretty sure it would fit the amount of guests you need as it was a bit big for us (we have 75 day guests).

The mother in law goes there for a spa day with her friend every couple of months and she absolutely loves it, she always says how nice the food is and never heard her complain about staff.

Hi Tiz,

Ahhh, good idea, I' never thought of trip advisor! I'll have a look now. I guess we should really visit ,but with so many venues to look at, you can't visit them all?!

Have you booked your venue?

Hi

It is near me and we contemplated it but were put off by the fact that there are 3 weddings at a time there ! I am not 20 something and didnt want to bump into a young beauty lol ! The grounds are lovely for photos and the registrar said that one time she did all 3 weddings there but saw a fourth bride, when she enquired some cheeky bride had just pitched up for her photos lol ! We got married at Harpenden house hotel and the staff were fantastic ! The ceremony room was lovely but too small for you with only 75 guests. The reception room was a tad ugly but by the time we dressed it , it looked fabulous !

Hi Gabbance,

That's good to know. Maybe I'll book an extra day with the girls and go for a Spa the day before too!

It's sounding better all the time :-)

Hi Oldgal,

Must be a bit of a delay with the responses here! Hmmm, with 3 weddings how did you fit in the photo's outside etc? Didn't each wedding end up trying to get to the same place?

What I did after beign let down by our first choice was get broucheres decided which venues we could a. afford and b. could provide what we want so decided whats important to you - like I deffo wanted accomodation for some guests and I deffo didn't want other randomers milling around on the day etc etc so then we visited 3 places - unfortuntaly I'd not done my sums right (well they didnt put all the costs in their brouchere) and we couldn't afford the place I fell in love with. So we're getting married there anyway lol coz I love it sooo much!! So let that be a lesson to you - make sure you can afford somewhere BEFORE you visit lolz

I've worked at Sopwell House many times on brides and they've all seemed really happy with the venue and the service they received.

Juliet x

I went to a work's ball here a few years ago and it worked great for that! I know it's not the same but they put on a champagne reception on the lawn which was lovely then we all went in for a sit down dinner. Food was fantastic and the layout of the room was brilliant for that sort of event! They had a band on and a decent sized dancefloor. My hubby and i still say that the bed we had there was the comfiest we have ever slept in! haha! We stayed in one of the cottages outside of the main building it was fantastic! Good luck!

I photographed around 3-4 of the first weddings ever done at this venue and it rained each time so nearly got banned by the management!!!! The lake leaked and the water level was always too low for decent lake photographs. They did though revamp the place a couple of years later and fixed the leak.

For the photography, if there is more than one wedding, you are given a time slot to use the lake and bridge area. This is a common technique used in places like Tewinbury Farm. If you are having the ceremony elsewhere and it runs late, this could compromise your timeslot on the lake.

Generally the venue is well run, although I dislike the new hotel reception area which "lost" a fantastic arch photograph location. I did have one brides hair "collapse" and she had to revisit the hotel salon to have it fixed which lost me photography time, although that was around 5 years ago and I haven't had similar issues with brides there since.

As long as you don't mind sharing the venue, its worth considering.

Peter