Inexpensive wedding venue ideas?!

dani_girly

Hi everyone,

This is my first post EVER on any forum so I'm hoping you can help!

We got enagaged in November 2010 :j!! And are looking to get hitched in April/May 20103. We are paying for the day ourselves and so have a small budget (around £5k) to cover everything (dress, venue, food etc) Luckily we have quite a few creative people in the family to help with decorations, invites etc.

Our ideal venue is a rustic barn with lots of land. We'd like an almost 'blank canvas' as we'll be calling on friends and family for help with catering etc. We're not fussy about whereabouts in the country it is as we're planning on making it a bit of a staycation for friends and family!

Had a brief look, and everywhere seems SO expensive!:(

Can anyone help?

Dani

sammy_wheeler

woo congrats and welcome

can you let us know where in the country you are- so we can help more

defo can do it with £5grand so you will be ok

fawny

Hi Congratulations,

Not sure on the price of these but a quick google brought this up:-
http://www.weddingvenues.com/reception-venues-Barn-0.html
http://www.hitched.co.uk/barn-wedding-venues/

Idiophreak

Have you decided what day of the week you want to get married on? On your budget, doing things mid-week will make life much easier...

zcrat41

Just be a little aware of how much it can all add up.
I'm getting married in our local village church and marquee on my parents farm (which obv we don't have to pay for!) Marquee alone is 3.5k and that's not a fancy one (just big, fits 160 people). Catering quotes - for 130 sit down buffet, cheapest I had was 5k but they looked awful. MOst exensive was 11k. I've gone for in the middle.
Flowers and decorations don't come cheap even if you make them yourselves.
Depending on where you are in the world have a chat with local farmers - I'd rent you a grass field!

Good luck
ZC

Bride2be24

not sure on prices but you could try here http://www.south-farm.co.uk/weddings/
http://www.wedding-venues.co.uk/article.asp?id=1871

dani_girly

We live in Cambridge but are more than happy to travel pretty much anywhere as we're hoping to make a bit of a 'staycation' of things for our friends and family!

Definitely not adverse to a mid-week wedding at all, especially if it helps with the costings!

Thanks very much for the links, there are definitely some possibilities but I think in order to get what we want (and within our budget) we're going to have to go for somewhere that doesn't necessarily advertise or get a late deal? We're hoping to get married end of April 2013 as we love the spring but also I've done some research and this should fall outside of the peak times for most venues??

Dani

TheSeventh

Hi!

My boyfriend and I are having all the legalities done very privately at the local town hall (Less than £150, on a Saturday, cheaper mid-week) and then we've hired a local village hall for pretty much two whole days (Friday evening to midday on Sunday) where we're going to have a big blessing ceremony with all our guests and so on. Then we'll stay there for the even bigger reception party! Hire of the hall was £400, but this was quite pricey compared with many of the others we looked at (some as little as £100 or £150!).

Hiring a venue with a wedding licence is very expensive. We found that even by getting a little legal wedding, unlicensed venue hire, the cost of celebrant to perform the blessing and even things like the cost of an event licence (to be allowed to serve alcohol) we're still spending less than half of the cheapest licensed venue cost. Definitely worth thinking about if budget is a big factor! Not to mention that we're totally in control of the whole day, with no professional venue trying to tell us how to do things.

Search county council websites for lists of village and town halls available for events, see how big they are and what facilities they offer (ours has a stage, PA-system, all the chairs and tables we could want, a bar, a kitchen, all the cutlery and crockery). Some are really pretty and full of character, we looked at several black-and-white timber halls and so on that would be lovely venues.