- Hello and welcome to this week's episode
of the Wedding Lounge Podcast.
This week we are talking about
Marke's verses, venues, quite a meaty subject.
- Yes.
- One of the first things you have to think about
is where you're going to get married
or have your wedding reception following ceremony somewhere.
If you're in the fortunate position
where you can have a Marke at home,
those ones for you and you're trying to decide
between the two options
or if you're looking at venues
that we've potentially had Marke's verses, venues,
that don't hit their friend of mine,
so not victim to this, that didn't understand this
when they got married.
It's obviously if you're having a Marke at a venue,
you will need to hire the venue under the Marke
unless it's got a semi-permanent Marke up
where it is included, but check that
because they had a bit of a,
when they thought they were just paying for the Marke
and then obviously the venue also is just community.
- It's quite a costly way to do it, really.
- Yes, it is.
It's better if you have the lounge,
just for free and then you do have a Marke.
But when we talk about venue,
there's obviously a huge range in venues
which can be hotel, down to a dry higher venue.
Every venue is going to be different.
These are just some key differences to think about, really,
between the Marke and the venue.
When it comes to your ceremony,
obviously, as we mentioned, either a venue or a Marke,
you can have a ceremony off-site at a religious ceremony
where to start a ceremony and then come back
and have your reception there.
If you want to legally get married,
that's your reception venue.
Then that's going to be highly unlikely at a Marke
on private property.
As we said before, when discussing ceremony options,
the moment with celebrant wedding,
you obviously need to go legally get married elsewhere,
but that is an option.
So if you want to do the legal bit all in one,
you'll have to go to like a licensed venue.
And you want to just license your home.
No, I have had a couple of couples ask me about this,
it's funnily enough, this year, I've been ready.
They all want their ceremonies at home.
You need to be a venue that is doing regular events
in order to be able to license your space.
So that is a really key difference.
If you want to get married at home,
and it being a legal service is important to you,
you won't be able to do that at home at your Marke.
You're going to have to go elsewhere,
whereas a venue is going to have licensed areas.
There are a few that are reception only, yes, venues,
and don't have a licensed space.
So it's worth knowing and asking the question.
Well, it's definitely something to think about
when choosing between your venue or Marke
for your ceremony.
My favourite subject, food.
Moaning in the wedding food.
We're just having caterers come and do tastings
every week for us.
No, don't, we should do that.
Most venues will have either a recommended
caterer list, or they will have in-house caterers.
Again, when you are looking at your venues,
and you're looking at the cost of hiring the venue,
make sure you are looking up whether or not
that venue hire costs includes the food,
or excludes the food.
Because it's quite tricky to work out
which venue is going to be best for you
if you're budgeting for different things.
Some that have an on-site chef within their fee
is essentially a different wedding package
for a food allowance.
So you kind of know roughly what you're spending,
but some dry hire ones more often than not,
you can bring in a caterer for your choice.
And something to note about dry hire venues
is they have a recommended list of who you can bring in.
Sometimes it is recommended, or sometimes it is,
you must choose one of these four or five.
If you want to bring in another caterer,
they might charge an extra cost,
and that's not just for the benefit of it.
So that then you can run checks, you know,
just mess out the pages beforehand.
'Cause it's a big thing, you know,
if they've got a kitchen on site,
and they're letting, later in team,
they've never worked with come in,
they want to maybe have a meeting of them,
run through the kitchen so that they know what's what.
So there are extra costs involved.
But also, don't max yourself out on your venue budget
and then realise that the suppliers
you have to choose from aren't affordable for you.
A lot of venues will have a range,
so there's a lovely venue,
I've got a client getting married at next year in Kent,
and they have a list of four caterers they can use from.
And therefore, caterers offer a range of different types
of food, a range of different types of services,
and cover a range of budgets.
Make sure that you're not sort of splurging on the venue,
and they're not able to afford the suppliers
that you need to have with them,
especially when it comes to food and drink,
'cause you can't scrimple on that.
You can't say, "Oh, actually, you won't just give someone."
You know, only it serves half the people
at the wedding breakfast, right?
Yeah. And then on the flip side, you've got a marquee
where you've got your options are endless.
They're obviously caterers that work better within marquees
than other ones that you're starting from scratch.
Yeah.
So the world is your oyster,
you couldn't go down whichever avenue you want,
which you might find a bit too overwhelming.
Yes, yeah.
And again, the costs can be a little bit airy-fairy with that,
'cause you've got a higher-in or you're catering equipment,
you've got a higher-in or you're staff,
you've got a higher-in, you're tables, you're chairs,
all of those sort of things,
a cost that you need to make sure are included
within either your marquee high cost or your catering
when you're breaking it down.
You made a really good point, though.
And this isn't insulting later as,
but some caterers have worked in marquees and others haven't.
And it's very different working in a fully equipped kitchen
in a hotel where you have everything
that you possibly need to working in a field
where you haven't even got running water or power.
You don't want something going wrong with your food.
No, no, you do not.
They're really looking to which caterer you'd like to use
if you're getting married in a marquee.
And similarly, with drinks,
quite often venues, you'll probably have a bar there
where you have to have their staff choose their wines
for the wedding breakfast and their bar team
would run a fully stocked bar in the evening.
If you want to bring in your own drinks,
there's often a corkage fee.
So make sure you're aware of that beforehand.
If there's a specific champagne or a specific drink
that you want to serve during the drinks reception,
make sure you understand the corkage fee beforehand.
So corkage fee is a fee basically charged by venue
for the chilling, the serving, sort of the use of glassware
and things like that for drinks that they've not been paid for.
Yeah, so all the added bits that come next
are just buying in the bottle of wine.
Yeah.
And then with a marquee, again,
you've got the option of bringing in your own alcohol
and having people serve it, having an open bar
where we could just go and get themselves drinks.
Or having a bar company come in and run your bar
and do the full service for you.
So totally depends on how far down you want to go.
Again, something to consider
as you're building the bar from scratch.
If you want, I'm so bad with beers.
If you want lager on tap, treasurised system,
you've got to bring that in.
- Yeah, it's not draft. - It's not draft.
- Yes, I don't think so. - I agree, yeah.
- So it just doesn't affect me, I've no.
- Also, I think we have mentioned this before
when we go to Laura from wild bobs.
But is obviously cheaper to buy your own alcohol,
go on a booze or onto france,
have people help themselves.
But you've got to think about all the loxtras
if you're in a marquee.
If you're not having a bar team come in
and provide a full service,
you're going to have to think about ice,
glassware, darnishes, how many glasses you need per person.
Is there going to be someone to wash up
if you've suddenly run out?
All of these things.
- And the clearing? - Yes, clearing.
- Clearing of the glass as well,
because it's my pet cave or bedding that I work.
- He's when this glass is all over the table,
all over the bar, it is my instant.
Let's get on it and hide it up.
- I don't get it, it's washed.
Don't need that.
So, then you will most likely have a ready made service
there for you, which if you're overwhelmed
by decisions, drinks are the drinks
you're not too worried, well, effects.
But if you're having a marquee,
either go for a full service bar or do a DIY,
but just make sure you've thought of every single thing
that is involved with certain drinks.
- Yeah, I think the biggest difference between a venue
and a marquee is your guest numbers.
In a marquee, you could, you know,
you could have a rather than waiting for 10 people.
- Yeah. - Or 500 people.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- It just depends on the size of your tent.
Whereas venues, they're building and they're typically
limited on the space they have available,
or their insurance or what their choices are.
Sometimes you even have a minimum number.
- Yes, yeah.
- And then sometimes you have a maximum number,
so you just need to consider those things as well.
- I think the fact that you get given
a maximum number in a venue,
because it means that you can't invite too many people.
- Yeah, it's an automatic call as it is.
- Yeah. - Or our venue can't accommodate.
- Yes, it is.
- And it kind of just gives you that easy.
- Now. - Easy way out of inviting your mother's
cousin's girlfriend. - Best friend.
- Yeah.
- But it's worth looking at and worth considering.
So when you pull your guest list together,
when you've got 200 guests,
when you're looking at a venue,
you need to work out which venues kind of accommodate you,
or whether or not you're gonna need to look into
dry, high space, or hiring a marquee.
Or do you put a guest list in half?
- Another key difference between a venue and a marquee
is that when you choose a venue,
you obviously choose a venue because you love the aesthetic,
you love the feel, you go well with the staff,
but it doesn't always mean that the carpet,
curtains, the paint on the walls,
is going to go with the color scheme,
or the style that you want for your wedding.
You think it would, you know,
obviously it would match to some extent
otherwise you wouldn't pick that venue.
With a marquee, it's blank canvas.
And I love that you can literally put,
when you color in there and it works,
you can have a hot pink carpet if you want to.
- Yeah. - Exactly.
You can make it and design it,
exactly how you want.
Whereas, you know, I used to work in a venue years ago,
and it's a beautiful, large in a matter of house,
it's with beautiful decor,
but sometimes people's kind of seem mashed,
and I was like, you know, that color carpet,
you brought in this decoration,
and it just doesn't always work.
So, you know, be very mindful about that with your venue.
Obviously you've got venues like Barnes,
where that is also like a blank canvas venue,
where you can add any color goes
if sort of a natural gridlit.
So, but it's just something to consider
with your decor, and if you've got a vision in place,
don't fall in love with the grounds of a hotel, for example,
but then whether you're a hot pink decor
is going to go with their red patterned carpet.
- Something else that venues often have in place
that the marquee doesn't necessarily have is sound limitations.
- Oh, yeah.
- When you have a marquee,
you obviously want to consider your neighbours,
and the people around you,
but it's not a regular venue
where you're going to be disrupting the surrounding area
on a regular basis, it's a one-off event, and usually,
most people are friendly with their neighbours
and can go around and have a normal conversation
and be like, really sorry.
So, I'll just wedding.
We're going to be making some noise
until one o'clock in the morning.
- Or invite them, like we said, in an episode
many moons ago.
- Yes.
- And pollinate it.
- Yeah.
- They'll invite your neighbours, and then they're complaining.
- Yes, whereas in a venue,
they tend to have a sound limiter
so that they don't upset their neighbours.
- Which is fair enough.
- And it's part of their licence thing,
and it that they can't have certain levels of music,
otherwise they wouldn't necessarily have the licence
to run that many events a year.
- So, when you are then choosing your entertainment
in the evening, it's worth noting
what the sound limitation means
and how high it can go.
It's usually 90 decibels, I want to say.
- Yeah, that's quite a high, actually, I think.
I think I've seen something,
it was more like in the 80s,
but it's really good to find out early on,
like you say, and let your musicians, your DJ,
whoever knows that that is not a shock on the day.
I had, it was my second little client, I think,
possibly the first, I remember.
And the bar one had a sound limiter,
and I kept saying to the bride, I said,
she was liaising with the band, I can't remember why,
but she was liaising with the bands,
and I was like, it was a family friend,
and I said, have you told them
that there's a sound limiter?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
On the night, they turned up,
and I was like, so, you know, the sound limiter,
and they were like, sorry.
And they had no idea that there was a sound limiter.
Luckily, the groom jumped in, was like,
yeah, she was meant to actually tell them
that there's a sound limiter, but she hadn't.
That's wow, last time you sort of,
even if it's a family friend supplier,
last time you rely on someone to pass on information like that,
but they actually said they wouldn't have fun
if they'd known there was a sound limiter,
because they were there.
They weren't there, and it was fine,
but I was a bit like, oh my goodness.
So, that was a big learning curve for me now,
and I'm like, sound limiter.
Yeah, you know, I'm sort of,
there's one person you that have no,
I was thinking about, give me some park gardens,
which has within, they've got a semi-permanent marquee,
and they've got a roof.
Yeah, so it absorbs some of the sound,
which is quite an interesting way to do it.
So, some venues have that.
They're not there to obviously make it a bad time for you.
It's just, this is something that they have to stick to,
and it will still be lovely evening with loud music,
but it just, it's just something to be aware of.
That's what it's the best, isn't it?
It's a bit too over.
It's not necessarily the actual volume of the music,
it's the base that something to consider.
So, if you're a big drum and bass fan or a big house fan,
maybe opt for a marquee at home.
On the flip side, though, you need to think about,
in a marquee, you need to think about your power requirements.
Yes.
And, you know, potentially, if you've got evening food going on,
as your band are playing,
you need to make sure you've got enough power
that both can, in case everything cuts out there, too.
Yeah, because a venue would have enough power to do both of those,
and you wouldn't have to think about
bringing in some of the basic, like,
electrical equipment that a venue would already have.
Yeah.
When it comes to venues,
they quite often have a list of recommended suppliers,
which is amazing for people who maybe don't have the time
to do a lot of research.
They don't have the budget for a wedding planner.
A venue having a plused supplier list is a great way
to help couples pick suppliers that suit them,
but also know the venue well.
Obviously, when it comes to a marquee,
you'd have total free reign.
Your planner, your marquee company,
you would be able to recommend people.
Obviously, they've not necessarily worked in that exact scenario,
because every marquee set up every card
and every field is slightly different.
So that is one benefit of a venue is that, obviously,
you have those suppliers who've maybe been there before
and know how everything runs.
Then you also comes with a team.
Yes.
So you've got your venue coordinators,
you've got your bar team,
you've got teams in there that do this.
Week in, week out,
and know the space back to front, like the back of their hand.
Yeah.
Whereas with a marquee at home,
it's a green space.
It's brand new to everyone coming in.
Unless, you know, you've had parties there before.
I've got one this summer,
where the sister got married the last year,
and it's same marquee company, same marquee,
different caterer, but some things
it's quite nice because like,
the marquee company know what they're doing.
They've been there, they, yeah.
But that's not, that's, that's Gold Dust.
Well, it's not Gold Dust.
Hopefully, it happens more often,
but it's, it's a, you don't have as many events going on there.
And you also haven't got one specific person
that's in charge of the day.
Unless you're hiring a wedding planner,
or a coordinator, or a coordinator for the day,
you've got to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
So that is worth wearing in mind.
I think Plan B, you know, is, we do find,
is an offer pressure on families who are hosting
to have house looking its best,
the gardens that they're best,
whereas obviously when you go to venue,
other people are worrying about that.
Yeah.
Your family, your mum isn't worrying about whether the roses
are going to be in bloom
or whether the lavender's just finished before you're wedding.
You know, other people are worrying about that.
They're checking that the lawns are mowed.
They're checking that the patio
has been pressure washed and all clean.
You're not having that extra pressure for your family
who really, you just want to enjoy the day
with you without that pressure.
Exactly.
With the venue, obviously, they do do multiple events.
Yes.
So you tend to be limited on your time.
I happen to be within the space.
So it's worth knowing how much time you have.
So you can plan accordingly.
So if you're only allowed in on the Saturday morning
in the wedding Saturday afternoon,
you need to ensure that your suppliers are hot on it
to get in the venue and whether it's set up and get it ready
without you being there.
Yeah.
Whereas a marquee, marquee could go up on the Tuesday.
You can have someone coming on the Wednesday.
Yeah.
It's a bit more of a relaxed build.
And you can be on top of everything
and see almost everything in place.
And especially if it's at your home
where you're getting ready.
Yeah.
You can even sit down to the tent on the morning.
Yeah.
If you want to.
If you want to stay well clear, I don't blame you.
But being able to just pop in and out is quite nice
without the pressure of it.
Needing to all be done on that morning
is quite a relaxing feeling.
That's right, mate.
And with the marquee, obviously,
you're probably only going to have one wedding
in your marquee at your home at the time.
Some venues don't offer exclusive use.
A lot to do.
It's good to make sure you're aware of sort of restrictions.
If it's at a historical public venue,
it might be that the venue is open to the public till 5 p.m.
So you might have guests wondering
and out of the gardens, obviously,
not where your actual drinks reception is.
And then after five, it's just for your guests.
Or it could be that it's a venue
where they can hold more than one wedding in a day.
And so if you don't want to have other people's guests there,
there might be a chance to hire exclusively.
But you've got to find out these things.
Don't wait until your day to suddenly be like,
oh, hang on, there's a bride over there getting married
and glad and an hour to perform me.
And then her guests are going to a different room
for the banquet and we're going over here.
You've just got to be aware that, obviously,
venues will have multiple weddings,
possibly semi-canned, possibly same day.
Yeah.
I think if you pull it all together and sum it up,
a venue is a ready-made space, but it's got a decor,
it's got a style, it's got an aesthetic,
it's got its features that benefit what it is
that you could potentially be looking for.
It's got its own catering team,
it's got its staff, it's got its bar.
Whereas a marquee, you've got to create all those things.
You know, your tables, your chairs.
You lose.
Yes, your power.
Your water supply.
It's lighting.
And lighting, everything with a marquee,
which we've spoken about in previous episodes.
And a venue, it's there for you.
So you can just turn up and not have to worry about those essentials.
Exactly, the bare bones of the event space are there or something.
And I think it's our top tip for this week, really.
But it's just to make sure you check with your venue
what is and isn't included.
Are there any restrictions on what you're allowed?
Because we did mention at the beginning,
you could be a hotel or it could be like a dry, higher barn.
So in a dry, higher barn, you may still have to bring in
such as some power, some catering equipment, chairs, tables,
crockery, cutlery, but a hotel.
You're going to have all of that in place.
So make sure if you are going for a venue,
you find out exactly what is and isn't included.
And if there are options to grade your crockery to some beautiful pink
that's from an individual supplier, you know, what are your options?
What do you allow to bring in?
Yeah, exactly.
And I think as well, if you are not set on a certain style of venue,
you need to be comparing them like for like.
So making sure you are finding out from those different places
what is included and what's not.
And again, if you're comparing venues to make your caterers
are included or if they're not.
Reviews?
Yes.
That's really important.
Visit.
Yes.
Sorry, interrupted.
But visit.
And if you can see it on the morning of a wedding,
while it's being set up, it's great.
Great, quite good.
But obviously you'd be aware that then on your wedding day,
they might be doing show-around.
So, you know, there's pros and cons to everything.
It's just about what you want for your wedding
and what's important to you, exactly.
So hopefully you found that more useful.
And you've got your pros and cons of both
if you're in the position where you can choose both.
Or if you're looking at a dry hire versus a hotel,
you can kind of find the fundamental differences between the two.
And the next week, we are going to be talking about
planning your timeline for the day,
who actually my favourite thing is all in Taiwan.
I'm such a logistical planner, we get so excited about this.
I know, I like, when my schedule starts coming together,
I'm like, yeah, that's the right thing on there.
So we will see you next week.
See you next week.
Thank you.