Would our choice of venue be too far to travel?

Our venue was 80 minutes away, we are in Southampton and we married at Wardour Castle in Wiltshire and all our guests were fine with it. I think people expect to travel for weddings now.


Just be mindful or timings and that people could have long gaps between food, we gave snack packs to our guests for after the ceremony as they had an hour at the venue after ceremony and then came back to Southampton for our reception at Ageas Bowl, so not a dissimilar situation to you.
Your partner is right, people will come if they want to. I would do what you want, send the invites and see what they say, I wouldn't put options for attending parts of the day, have that conversation on case by case basis as people RSVP

I guess that for the local people, they aren't driving very far to get to the ceremony, so it's less of an issue that there is a long distance between the ceremony and reception. And people coming from a long way away will probably need to book overnight accommodation anyway. Are there many reasonably priced accommodation options near your reception venue? I probably wouldn't mind too much having an hour's drive between ceremony and reception, but it would bug me if the nearest affordable accommodation was another hour from the reception!

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We are looking at Rhinefield house hotel in Brockenhurst, we have looked around a few places near us and nothing really fit either we didn't like one aspect or the other or we couldn't agree on certain parts. This is the only one so far that we've both ticked so many boxes.

We are in the earlier stages of planning so timings etc... are nowhere near confirmed yet but the church don't have any bookings for our dates we have in mind so we were thinking ceremony around midday, looking at around 1hr (i'm sure thats what we were told before its usually about this) then I've accounted for around 20-30mins for photo's and everyone to start heading to their cars. getting from Basingstoke to Brockenhurst is around 1hr give or take the traffic so would be looking at arriving 2:30pm. I don't know the plans with the venue, my partner was thinking wedding breakfast around 3pm but i would think we were looking closer to 3:30-4pm to allow guests staying at the venue time to get their things to their room and stretch their legs.

Thats a good shout about speaking to them rather than putting in the invites

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The venue has hotel rooms, the prices are quite high i believe BUT we do get 5 rooms that we pay a huge discount on as long as we can fill it, which wouldn't be a problem as they would be used by my mother-in-law to be, a close family friend, our children who would be staying with someone then we were going to choose 2 guests at random from further away to get the other 2 rooms. We do get a discounted rate for guests for i believe either 10 or 15 rooms so was thinking of offering the discounted rate to anyone else that want to stay, altough some live 15-30mins away we understand some may prefer to stay especially if they are driving, if the cost is too much there are plenty of places around to suit anyone on a tighter budget, we were planning on telling anyone that doesnt want to stay that there are other places around

View quoted message My friend got married there last weekend! I think distance wise you are fine. If ceremony is at 12 then allow allow 1.5 to 2 hours for that and then meeting your guests and photos etc, takes longer than you would think. We asked guests to leave 20 mins before us so that they would be at reception before us. So you could say have your drinks reception at 3 to allow travel time and then meal would be at 4-4.30. give that 2 hours and then you will have a gap of 45 mims to an hour for your guests to check in and for them and you to freshen up and chill a bit before your evening reception starts. I would honestly ask your venue about timings as they will know what is needed for set up etc.

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Hi Charlotte, what did you think of it as a venue? it's hard to find opinions and we don't want to choose somewhere that isn't well run etc

View quoted message I didn't attend but they say dnot was really good and venue staff were attentive.

I can totally see why you are thinking about the distance it can feel tricky when guests are traveling from different places. One thing that sometimes helps is looking into transport options or shuttle services for those coming from further away as it makes the journey much easier and stress free. You could even check out reliable limo or travel services that specialize in making group travel smooth. Have you thought about where most of your guests will be coming from? That might help you get a clearer idea of whether the venue will feel too far for them.