So I am trying to decide on a venue & date for our wedding - all I know is I want to be fairly local to where we live (i.e. Deal / Dover / Canterbury / Folkestone area of Kent) and in approximately September / October 2013.
We thought about having our wedding reception in the grounds of a friend's home - but we would need to hire a marquee and these are sooooo expensive - it made it cost a lot more than we expected and took up most of our budget. My parents have offered to give us £4k for the wedding - and as we are trying to save up to move house and start a family, we want to do everything within this budget.
We are looking at having approx 35 guests at the ceremony & wedding breakfast, and then up to 60-70 people for the evening, with buffet and DJ.
So, I was hoping people could help me out with either: - 1) Suggestions of venues that would come in at around £2-2.5k all in - as most of the nice ones charge this just for venue hire. 2) Suggestions for nice places to hold our wedding reception only if we chose to get married in the church just round the corner
Thanks everyone, and look forward to some suggestions Laura x
CommentAuthorLinzi-jo
If you are looking at marrying in a church you are looking at around £700 for the ceremony, which is almost a quarter of your budget. And with registry fees you are probably looking between £500 and £700 for a ceremony elsewhere so you need to take this into account too. Unfortunately I dont think you will find a beautiful looking venue for the amount of money you want to spend. If you got rid of the sit down meal and replaced it with a buffet it may be a bit more realistic. However, if you are set on a sit down meal then you are probably going to be looking at either a room in a hotel somewhere, a village hall or a social club. I dont live near you so I cant suggest any precise places but hopefully you will find somewhere you are happy with that is affordable xxx
Got together 14.02.2008
Got engaged 31.12.2010
Will become a Mrs on 30.08.2014 xxxxxx
CommentAuthorJoannaS
I live in Kent as well have you looked on line at all the local venues to you most of them do wedding packages and some have prices on line or you can email to ask x
CommentAuthorTori
A lot of places are doing package deals these days, you just need to shop around. Also having a midweek wedding could bring the price down considerably x
CommentAuthorJules81
Hi,
I don't live in the area so can't offer an specific suggestions, but I would say it's definitely worth asking around at different venues, I think you'll be quite surprised.
We're having our reception at a local hotel at a local marina (not a cheap area at all). It's a 3 star hotel and we feel really comfortable there and it has a great reputation. Our total price for a sit down meal for 65, drinks package and evening reception of about 80 which includes buffet and dj until 1am is costing us £3.8k. So I know for a fact there are nice hotels out there which will be able to offer you what you want for your numbers within your budget. We reduced our numbers a little and ended up saving £1k.
My main point is we got a great deal for our number of guests because our wedding is out of season. But we did have to hunt around a little and found a lot of venues were offering the same for £6k+ which we just don't have!!
Also remember that hotels will charge less because often they offer room hire for free because they are proving the catering.
I would really play on the fact your wedding is out of season. Get emailing - many venues will be grateful of an October wedding!!!
I don't know the area but worth looking at whether you an get a deal on a full package. Check the local group of on for this as well as they sometimes do that.
Our wedding day - 6 October 2012
CommentAuthorKatherineR45
we're on a budget so have gone for a village hall and a carvery as it was cheaper than a sit down meal but everyone can still sit down at a proper place setting x
CommentAuthorDawnK21
I live in Kent and grew up in Dover. You have a number of choices. There is a particular deal website that sells GROUPs of deals ONline and I know they do a fab deal for Port Lympne Zoo Manor House for about 2300 -2500. It's been up more than once and it's a stunning venue.
CommentAuthorDawnK21
Oh just thinking about it, a friend of mine had her reception at the Dover Marina Hotel (or White Cliffs Hotel, or Best Western, I forget what it's currently called). It's right on the seafront so you can get some cool beach photos. I'm sure she did it on a budget, and they had a good size function room. Make some enquiries there as it could be worth it. I'll keep thinking.
CommentAuthorDawnK21
Potentially spamming now so I'll leave you with this one. Farthingloe Farm has a gorgeous revamped barn on the road out of Dover towards Folkestone and I think that's reasonable. It's all wooden and gorgeous inside. Another one to have a look at!
CommentAuthorCrawf
Holiday *nn have a great deal on for hire, sit down meal, buffet, dj, ceremony - practically everything for 1000!! I think it was for 40 people! I just went to a friends wedding at H inn and it was fab and she says they hotel bent over backwards for her
Xxxxx
CommentAuthorShazk
It is so hard to find a decnt venue for a decent price.
Im struggling we have found some lovely venue that look with in budget but by the time u add on the registra, the food, the this, the that its the whole of our wedding budget so Now Im finding it really hard.
Away with the flutterbys xxx
CommentAuthorAmyP7
We really struggled to find one and even ours isn't really cheap compared to others. Our venue is over an hour away from where we live as all the nice ones in the area were way out of budget x x
CommentAuthorbridalmiss
look at a restaurant or wine bar for your reception, if there's only 35 guests then just pay for a meal for them, then sometimes they can section off a section for your evening without any room hire - we had a meal the night before our wedding, and we had a private party for 70 people in a sectioned off part of the restaurant without any room hire, and also we could bring in our own drinks. No disco though -if you want one then look into a church hall, and hire in a DJ (about 250 hire, hall would be about 100 for the day) - get a buffet in for a meal etc :-)
