Planning a Wedding reception at home (Garden)

Berger_3

Hi everyone,

me and my WTB are in the early stages of planning our wedding for this time next year. We plan to hold the reception in the garden of a family members house. They have a very beautiful large garden in the middle of nowhere, and we plan to hold the reception in a tent/tipi, the house could be used for catering and for toilet purposes, but wouldnt be involved in any other way. We anticipate inviting bewteen 80-100 guests.

Has anybody done anything similar, and if so do you have any tips or considerations to bare in mind?

We have an idea that we would be hiring in the tipi, plus alongside that tables/chairs/flooring etc etc, then catering to provide the food and drink (or potentially look at this seperately) We would probably then look to do most of the 'decorating' ourselves.

I know its fairly early days, but its difficult to know where to start, so any tips, or indeed any idea on any pitfalls we may not have anticipated, would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks in advance

sheeppappar

Sounds wonderful!
the only thing I can think of it - how will your guests get there / where will they stay? If it's in the middle of nowhere will you need to bus them in from somewhere else.. if you're leaving them to sort it themselves will there be enough taxis available locally to bring them / if they need to park will there be enough parking? Just that kind of thing x

Congratulations on your wedding by the way ! Have a fabulous day and enjoy your year looking forward to it

Berger_3

sheeppappar wrote: »

Sounds wonderful!
the only thing I can think of it - how will your guests get there / where will they stay? If it's in the middle of nowhere will you need to bus them in from somewhere else.. if you're leaving them to sort it themselves will there be enough taxis available locally to bring them / if they need to park will there be enough parking? Just that kind of thing x

Congratulations on your wedding by the way ! Have a fabulous day and enjoy your year looking forward to it

This is something we had been thinking about, when I say in the middle of nowhere, it is for the purposes of noise etc (no neighbours to annoy etc) but various Towns etc are not too far away. Parking would definitely be an issue, so we were thinking of laying on a bus (we know somebody who can arrange an old double decker one at a discount) I guess the problem is we would have the ceromony somewhere not too far away (but potentially not that close either) we would need to get guests from there to the venue (which could be done via the bus) but then if they wanted to stay in a hotel local to the venue there cars would be there initally, I guess we could arrange a bus from a local pickup point close to any recommended hotels, the the place where we have the cermony, then onto the venue.

I think this is the part that causes the most headaches!

lettice

Congratulations!

Presumably your family member has only one or maybe two (if there is a downstairs loo and a family bathroom) toilets he is happy for guests to use. Even there, you have to question whether he would want guests traipsing through his house, possibly with muddy shoes if the reception is in a garden, to use the loo upstairs. Personally, I don't think that's ideal for 100 guests so I would definitely want to hire a port-a-loo!

Just to say as well -- if you're doing this to save money it's unlikely to be very cheap! Marquee/tipi/tent hire is £££.

Only_a_ginger

Sorry to hijack your thread, congrats though!

We really wanted a party at the house for our wedding but neither ours or our parents houses are big enough!

We love the idea of a very relaxed, chilled out afternoon party leading into the night...if anyone has ideas how we can still have this it would be ace...and kind of in keeping with the thread (sorry if not).

Also, apparently Aldi, and Tesco will do sale or buy back on alcohol if you're planning on providing your own!

Mrs_Huggett

A great idea, you get the whole thing done just how you want!! Try looking around on sites like ebay or gumtree for marquees or tipis that are second hand, you have enough time to research what the prices are like as opposed to hiring, and then you can sell it on, likewise keep an eye on auction sites for chairs tables and other bits you could use, of course you woulod need to store it all but you could end up really saving some money with a lot of forward planning.

BugglyB

We did this and it was fantastic, one thing I will say is unless you are willing to compromise it will not be cheap!

Here is what we did:

- bought a marquee/gazebo and attached it to a barn
- my father in law (bar manager by trade) 'made' us a bar with barrels of beer and fridges for wine, cider and lager
- we bought 50 wine glasses from wilkos and blagged some pint glasses off a local pub
- we hired the chairs and tables from a friend
- borrowed table cloths from auntie who had previously used them for her wedding
- we booked a hog roast and made our own salads and deserts
- we borrowed a trailer for the band and ran it from electric from the house with back up generator - we paid less for the band as they are mates
- we allowed people to camp on the land (others stayed in local hotel) - generally speaking I think people can get themselves to and from your venue from a local hotel without too much input from you, by taxi or car?
- decorated with home grown flowers, home made bunting and tea lights
- hired 3 portaloos (cheaper than you think)

I looked into teepees and marquee hire but it was very expensive and all in all would have been much more than hiring a hotel venue. If you are hiring a marquee and outside catering you will need the 'catering tent' in the marquee too. If you are doing your own catering you will need to consider cutlery, plates, clearing up, sauces, someone to serve, someone to heat and replenish the food, someone to clear it all up. Its totally doable but again you need to look at the cost vs the benefit.

Our wedding party looked cheap and cheerful, but we all had a fantastic time, it was relaxed and a great atmosphere. We all danced into the night. We were lucky with the weather which was a huge factor!

I should add that we didn't actually get married on that day, I'm pleased for that because the whole day was completely exhausting, and I dont think I would have coped with setting up the house and garden for the party, getting ready, the emotion of the ceremony, travelling back to their house, setting up and running the party. Don't underestimate how much work it will be!

Berger_3

BugglyB wrote: »

We did this and it was fantastic, one thing I will say is unless you are willing to compromise it will not be cheap!

Here is what we did:

- bought a marquee/gazebo and attached it to a barn
- my father in law (bar manager by trade) 'made' us a bar with barrels of beer and fridges for wine, cider and lager
- we bought 50 wine glasses from wilkos and blagged some pint glasses off a local pub
- we hired the chairs and tables from a friend
- borrowed table cloths from auntie who had previously used them for her wedding
- we booked a hog roast and made our own salads and deserts
- we borrowed a trailer for the band and ran it from electric from the house with back up generator - we paid less for the band as they are mates
- we allowed people to camp on the land (others stayed in local hotel) - generally speaking I think people can get themselves to and from your venue from a local hotel without too much input from you, by taxi or car?
- decorated with home grown flowers, home made bunting and tea lights
- hired 3 portaloos (cheaper than you think)

I looked into teepees and marquee hire but it was very expensive and all in all would have been much more than hiring a hotel venue. If you are hiring a marquee and outside catering you will need the 'catering tent' in the marquee too. If you are doing your own catering you will need to consider cutlery, plates, clearing up, sauces, someone to serve, someone to heat and replenish the food, someone to clear it all up. Its totally doable but again you need to look at the cost vs the benefit.

Our wedding party looked cheap and cheerful, but we all had a fantastic time, it was relaxed and a great atmosphere. We all danced into the night. We were lucky with the weather which was a huge factor!

I should add that we didn't actually get married on that day, I'm pleased for that because the whole day was completely exhausting, and I dont think I would have coped with setting up the house and garden for the party, getting ready, the emotion of the ceremony, travelling back to their house, setting up and running the party. Don't underestimate how much work it will be!

Thank you so much for your help, this is exactly what i was looking for, somebody that has already gone through it!

We have made a bit of progress, The family member who's garden we planned to have it in, has asked the Farmer who has a field adjoing their garden if we can use that instead and he has said we can free of charge. The benefit of this is its massive in comparison, plus we will have the option of people being able to camp there as well, like you suggested.

The other bit of progress we have made is with regards to the ceromony itself, this was proving a bit of a headache as the logisitcs of getting people from place to place were adding a lot of potential hassle and cost to the process. The other problem we had found was that any hotel licensed for a ceromony in the local area hasnt been willing to let us just have the ceremony thee without the reception.

We both hadnt been that keen to get married in a Church, we arent overly religious and liked the idea of a getting married somwhere different, possibly outside, well this has proven almost impossible - there just arent that many options unless you hold the reception in the same place. It just so happens that there is a church about 100 metres down the road from the planned reception venue, we have decided overall this will be the best couse of action as it solves a major headache, and will save us and our guests money too.

The choice to hold our wedding in a tipi isnt really with a view to saving money, we just like the idea of having complete control over everything, and having something that we have created ourselves down to the very last detail. We love the idea of being able to party with our friends on our own terms, until whatever time we want (weather permitting!) We have had our hearts set on a tipi from day one, we know we would save a fair bit by having a marquee (a tipi will be between 4-5k with lighting and furnishing) but its an extra cost we are willing to pay.

for the actual reception part (tipi, catering, band/dj decoration etc) we reckon we will have about 10k, which I think if we are carfull, and follow some of your tips above, should be sufficient.

sharnad

Are you ordering a couple of portacabins if your having It in a field

Berger_3

sharnad wrote: »

Are you ordering a couple of portacabins if your having It in a field

More than likely yes, there are a couple of Toilets in the house which could be used, the owner held a birthday party for 90 people in a marquee a few years back and that is all they did, used the toilets in the house and they said it worked fine.

Having said that for the overall experience for the guests and to save people traipsing through their house we will rpobably order some portaloos.

I have seen a trailor type one with sinks and a his and hers, it can be rented for about £300 so probably wirh it when all is said and done.

sharnad

That's not bad and the ones with sinks can look quite nice and save proper the walk to the house