Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wedding Lounge podcast. This episode is quite close to
Evie and I's heart. We're going to be talking about marquees and marquee styles. We're going to
take you through the details of four of the big hitters, yeah, in the marquee world. And then at the
end we'll let you know about some of the other ones, but we won't go into quite so much detail about
them, we'd be here for ages, basically. So I am going to start off by going through a frame marquee
or sometimes they're known as clear spelling of our geese. So a frame marquee is basically
an aluminium frame with a PVC cover. So there are no ropes and no poles involved with a frame marquee.
They are secured by using pegs or weights if pegs were to be appropriate. And for that reason,
they can actually be erected on a variety of surfaces. So rust, tennis courts, concrete, we've got more
options of where you can have a frame marquee. So they also, they don't require a lot of space around
the outside of the structure. So therefore they can fit into awkward spaces if you've not got a
large space or if you even want to attach them to the side of the building or have them very close
up to your house in your garden, for example. Inside, because they are a frame, there aren't any poles,
so you have an unobstructed view in the inside of your marquee, which just helps with design
element, you haven't got things in the way of speeches, for example. You have various options
of the sides, you can have them all shot if you need them to be with you're getting married in
the winter or it's just a bit windy. You can have the sides pulled back, they're like a curtain,
so you can pull them back and have sides open for getting a breeze in, for example, or you can have
them removed properly. They have a metal bar that goes across the bottom, so you can roll them up
and tie them on, but it can look quite messy with the poles and it's heavy. Yeah, it's easy just to
remove them if you want them done, but you have that flexibility on the day with a frame marquee.
They do look better lined, there's no two ways about it, you obviously have a metal structure
as the frame, so if you don't have them lined, you're going to have metal poles and uprights
throughout the back of your pictures, which probably isn't what you're looking for with your
wedding photos, like industrial. Yes, so you definitely want to have them lined, there are various
options of lining, whether you have them flat lined, sort of a folded lining, depending on your
look and design for your wedding day. They are options of carpet, which floor or matting in them,
because they're nice sort of square structures, it's easy to have a variety of different flooring,
just check with your marquee company what they're able to provide. They come in a variety of widths
in increments of three meters, so you can choose different widths for your marquee and obviously
different length if you have more of them added together. They can be connected, as I just said,
to make different size structures, different shapes, if you want an L shaped marquee, they're really
handy to have, because you can link the two to that, though without having sort of a connecting curtain
or reveal curtain inside, you can create different aspects to your marquee design. They are a
practical option for the winter. They have a higher safety rating for wind and snow, so they
are a good option for winter wedding. If it is windy, then they will make sure that they use pegs,
they won't just use weights to hold it down, because you don't want to have the risk of your marquee
blowing away. One option that you can have with your frame marquee is having a key roof,
which air point a nice element to the design. You can have, I've seen them before, people have them
for dancing tents, they just have fairy light in the roof, so you have like sparkle at night time,
but you must be aware that obviously they do act like a bit like the greenhouse, don't they?
And you don't want your guests, if you've got tables underneath the clear part of your marquee,
you don't want the guests, the tables, to be melted while they're eating. And also, I don't,
do you remember Bernadette saying about the story of dance floor melting? The black and white
dance floor and the black elements all melted because it was out in the sun all day. Yeah, that was
Bernadette chat. So if you're going to have a clear roof marquee over your dance floor,
make sure you have either a white or a wood. Yes. And in fact, I wouldn't even go with anything
that's remotely plastic or white because you don't want it to melt because they honestly,
they just add like a greenhouse and they add it up. The clear roof does add a nice design element,
you might have the whole thing, but I would probably not go whole clear because you want some
kind of shade in there. I think if you're going to go clear, not in the summer. Yes. Go for sort of,
I mean, the perfect time to do it is April. I had a, an April wedding that had a totally clear
roof marquee. Oh, beautiful. We put quite a lot of foliage in which softened the sunlight,
which was quite good. Another one I did, which was the middle of July. The client really wanted
a clear roof marquee, even though we, we had said to them, it will get really hot. Fortunately,
it was quite an overcast day. We put draping in to kind of help shield and opened up all the sides,
but it can get really hot. Yeah, so definitely just be aware of that if you're having the clear roof
on your, on your frame marquee. The other thing to mention with the clear is that you obviously
will have the metal exposed because you're not putting a lot in there. Yeah, because it's just
something to be aware of when you're thinking about the aesthetic of it that there is the metal pole
element there. So you still want something going on in the roof whether that's fairy lights,
festoon lights, foliage, bit of dressing table, yeah, streamers, all sorts, but it's just something
to be aware of when you're going through that element. Definitely. So that is a frame marquee
for you. And whilst we're sticking on the square-ended shapes, and not as you will hear
with these fantastic new word, what is it? Squoval. Squoval. Squoval is coming for you.
A traditional marquee, which is a rectangular shape, so they have nice square corners,
it's quite a good use of space. Yeah, unlike the sails of tents, which you can get quite a lot of
dead rim in. A traditional tent is that rectangular or square shape, which you can make use of
every part. Unlike a clear span marquee, they have poles and gyrops, so you need five meters
around the outside for your gyrops to go in. And then you'll have poles central down the middle
that are called your king poles, hold up the ceiling. With those poles, they obviously create
a beautiful aesthetic, but they are something to bear in mind. You can put floral hoops around them,
you can tie trees to you. You can put a circular bar around it. There's so many different options,
but they are structurally integral to the tent. They're there and there's no way of getting around it.
You just got to make them pretty and include them into your wedding design. Exactly. Fast with the
gyrops around the outside. With having the gyrops, it means they can only be pegged down, so they
need to be on grass. Yeah, you can't put them on the, unless you have a grass tennis court and you're
okay with having holes in it. You can't put them on a tennis court. You can't put them over
anything where there is a hard surface. It's really important to know where your services are
underground. Yes, with any marquee. They look better lined. You can have flat linings or you can
have the traditional ruched lining. You could get star cloth ceiling. Yes. There's lots of options
you can have, but they tend to come with lining. The windows around the outside, you can have panoramic,
which gives you lovely big view, or you can have the traditional art shaped window. Or you can have
them just totally white. So if you're blocking off the view that you don't particularly like, or
brick wall, bar part, you can just hide all that. You can roll up the sides. You can pull them to one
side, or you can take them off, so there's loads of different options. And that can be done on the day,
can't it? It can. Yeah, and then you can roll them back down when it gets colder at night, and it's
the case of they've got like ropes that you can connect that lace together. Oh, I love that. I love
unlacing. Yeah, something really satisfying about unlacing, don't you think? It's what it is.
I know. It's when guests try and come and help you. No, no, what'd you do in your?
Things are going to get all up. Oh, clear span marquees. You put zips on them. Yes, exactly. They're
much quicker to one. Yeah. With the flooring, you could have matting. You can have wooden floor,
which you have carpet over the hard floor. The ground doesn't need to be perfectly even
if you're going with a hard floor, because you can level the ground, so you can have it on
slight structural supports or stilts to kind of level it off. So if you've got a slight slope to
your garden, you'll need to go with the hard floor to kind of level it up and make the tent itself
level, which is an increasing cost. Matting is definitely the cheapest option. But you sometimes lose
people down a hole. I don't even see my keys. There's someone's chair. It's like half a
minute. Yeah, rabbit holes. Good old, rather. You've got loads of options with lighting as well
with an earth tent like that, like you can have fairy lights all in the top or facetones,
or you can go with chandeliers down the middle with stones hanging. So yes, there's loads of
different options with lighting. And again, with your lining, you can have the lining that comes
with the tent, which is typically ivory or white, or you can look at some draping options.
Because you can get a pulley system that helps you elevate things within the rear structure of
the tent. They are much better being lined. So you get a join between the round where they put the
and marquee structure around the pole. It gets laced together much like sides get laced together.
So you kind of want to hide those elements, or it can just look a bit unfinished.
So it's definitely better to line your traditional tents. So Natasha touched upon
a sailcloth tent. She mentioned it there when she was talking about traditional marquees.
Now sailcloth tents, you may have also heard of them referred to as spary tents or a tidewater tent.
They are specific brands, makes of a sailcloth tent. But essentially, they are the same concept of
using a sailcloth. So much like the traditional structure, the sailcloth marquee is a pole structure,
so it has king poles and also poles on the outside with guide ropes. So you do need to have five meters
around the outside of your marquee to allow for the guide ropes. Sailcloth marquee is essentially
the poles with sailcloth canopy. So you get with the sailcloth marquee, you get the really high
peaks, which is absolutely lovely. You can have them in a single or double width. So you could have
like one pole going down, or you could have like two poles going around, so you get extra, extra width
and extra room for your guests. And they come in various lengths. Now this is something that you
like I thought scrawel was a word, but perhaps not. So I always describe sailcloths as scrawel,
because they are square, but with like overlays. So not a full oval, even having a conversation about
this, and the task of what is scrawel, but I'm going to be so very good. I'm going to have to
look it up. So your sailcloth tent will be straight at the sides and then the fins will be rounded
like an oval. I'm holding my hands up, ready for listening to the podcast, you won't be able to see
this. So they're scrawel, sorry, with the high peaks of the canopy, which they just, they are
stunning structures and they look really nice. Like with the traditional marquee, they have to be on
grass because you have the guide ropes, which need the five metres. You can have your sides rolled up,
you can have them down, you can remove them depending on the weather. Like with the traditional
marquee, you'll have the lacing, the rope lacing the sides together. And when you're choosing your
marquee design before the day, you can obviously decide to have white opaque sides or ivory,
whatever the colour is of the tent, or translucent sides you can see out. It's worth mentioning
that with a sailcloth tent, you can't have a door. Yes, you tend to just have an opening.
Yes, I mean, you can get a double width opening so they're putting almost like a lintel between
where two poles would be. Yeah, but they just open up one part of the tent view to walk through,
whereas with the traditional one, you can have a door actually put in. And the same with the
clay roof marquee, you can have a door put in. You can have an entrance tent, yes, added on,
which we were going to touch upon, yeah, touch upon entrance tents in a minute. But if you just go
over the sailcloth, you're just open to the elements. Yeah, without a door. Definitely. So that is
something to consider obviously if you're going for a wedding of season, or if you're preparing for a
wet summer wedding, that you might, might want to go for a different style marquee so that you can
shut off if you know you've got guests that are going to fill the cold. You don't usually tend to
decorate the sailcloth tent with additional lining. They're quite beautiful when they're put up,
so you don't often need to add something, but you do obviously have the options to add flowers
around the poles, a bar, round bars, suspended floral arrangements. Then I think that you like to
decorate the marquee as well as long as it fits like with any marquee within the weight limits of
what structure come with stand, but your marquee provider will go through that with you. You can also
have various types of flooring. They're more commonly used in matting because of the shape being
scoval. You're going to laugh every time I say that. Sure. Depend of on your marquee supplier,
you can also have wooden floor or carpet because they can just fit it to the shape of the tent,
but it's not as common to do check with your marquee supplier if you are adamant that you would like
clop it in a scoval sailcloth tent. You can interlink sailcloth tents by a tunnel between them,
but usually you have them by yourself, you'd only really link maybe a porch catering tent at the back,
but you don't normally have numerous sailcloth tents linked together like you would with a frame marquee.
I love sailcloths. I think they look really fresh. Yes, and just clean. Yeah, they're really
lovely, beautiful structures. What I really like is when you put the festine lights with
flying lights over the top on the outside. With that, they do produce quite a lot of light, though.
Yes, so when you've got the evening going on and you've got flying lights over the top on the
outside of the tent, they can be seen through the tent and create quite translucent colour,
but they are striking, striking structures. Beautiful. What's the last one that you're going to go
through for a stretch tent? A stretch tent. A stretch tent, which is quite an unusual structure.
They're really, I would describe them as quite a modern death shape. They're quite fluid,
so you essentially have a piece of canvas that is stretched, using poles at the edge,
and then internally you put king poles in sporadically around to hold the structure up. But the thing
with a stretch tent is that because it's fluid and because the central poles aren't always put
in in the most linear way, yes. It's quite difficult to work around. Use the space effectively.
They're often used as ceremony tents. Yeah, I've had a few weddings that have had a stretch tent
as a ceremony tent. They can do the poles instead of having like one central king pole. You could have
two central king poles that go either side of an aisle, and then other poles dotted around to kind of
hold off the rest of the roof. I have had a client use one or an entire wedding, which was really cool.
So you mean the wedding breakfast and the ceremony? Yeah, the whole thing was inside a stretch tent,
which was brilliant. Now with the sides of a stretch tent, they either need to come all the way down
to the ground, so it's kind of like it slopes off, which leaves you with quite a lot of dead space,
that you can't really use, or you can have them pitched up. When they're pitched up, they're more just
like a cover with the sides open to the elements, just like having the canopy above your heads,
that's covering you from the elements, then it is something stopping wind or cold weather or rain
getting in. They're great. Obviously, if you've got a really hot day and you dream of having an
alfresco wedding, when everything being outside, a stretch tent is wonderful, because you can
dine underneath almost like a giant umbrella, essentially, and still feel like you're outside.
So really lovely for that, and that I feel is why quite a lot of couples go for them as a ceremony
tent is because lots of couples want an outdoor ceremony. They don't want to be exposed to the elements.
I mean, we are in Britain, they're likely ahead of it raining is quite high. When I also think the
heat, there's one summit, it must have been a couple of years ago now, it was so hot, everyone's
lawns were scorched brown, and I think people were actually, you know, thinking where is the shade?
So I think a stretch tent for a ceremony is a brilliant idea, because you're covering your guests
in all elements, sun, heat, all the rain. And I also think it's handy to have as like a space
then for drinks reception, if it is wet, you're not having your guest tapes into your beautifully
set up marquee ready for the wedding breakfast, but in drinks down on tables.
Yeah, you can still label that as a surprise, can't you? Yeah, Lacey, you've got a covering for that.
Typically they come in tan, white or gray. We have a company we work with who have a sort of like
steel gray colour. The white ones are lovely. The tan with black is quite modern, so they've got black
covers that go over the poles, or you can have wooden poles or just metal poles. So they are quite a
modern structure. Where you haven't got something that's as formal as a traditional structure,
or a sale cotton, or a clear span, lighting can be tricky. Yes. You're limited to very lights or
festoon lights within a stretch tent structure, because there's nowhere to hang things from.
Or up lighters. I can have up lighters around the outside to sort of find out the tent.
Yeah. They're much better suited to smaller weddings, as well than big weddings, because just the way
the structure works when it's smaller, it's much nicer. You can't get them for bigger ones.
There's no denying it. It's just the amount of poles you have within the space. It makes it quite
tricky to work with. And much like the traditional tents and the salecloth, they have guy ropes
around the outside. So again, you can't really have them on hard surface. They need that
structural integrity down the side. They can be put up in wind. You need to be careful with it,
though. I had one client who it was 50 mile an hour winds. And they put in extra ropes to make sure
that the tent was safe. We also had to make sure that certain amounts of the sides were down.
Yes. To protect from the wind. They're not easy to link to anything. No.
You can't really connect it up to a catering tent or anything like that. So
the likelihood of having something like that exposed and seen is quite high. Unless you have it
behind the sides that's totally down and touching the ground. And your caterers need to walk around
the side to get into the tent. You're going to see a catering tent. So it's worth just considering
that when choosing a stretch tent. Or having a more sort of relaxed style wedding where you might
have food trucks or a festival. They work really well for a festival style wedding. They have food trucks
parked outside so that the man that you're seeing or open fire catering. Yes. And then it's like
a whole theatre with catering. Brilliant. So there are lots of other structures out there.
Those are the four main hitters that we come across typically. The other one that is absolutely
beautiful is a glass tent. Yes. Which is essentially a or injury that is erected. There's one
company in the UK that does those at the minute. I don't think there's any more out there.
They're very unique. They are very unique. And they're fairly solid. But again, it's a glass
structure. I think it'd be really nice to get someone on to talk about those specifically. And maybe
we'll come back to that in a native space. This space. So as well as glass marquee, you also have
Chinese hat marquees which are brilliant little structures to have either as a reception or entrance
tent. They're often used for catering tents. You have a capri tent which is great for like a
drinks reception because it's got open sides. And then you also have other styles of marquee. You've
got a teepee, mougles, a themian or injuries which are a wooden structure on the inside and canvas
on the outside. Very similar to a yacht which is another structure that you can have but they're
much smaller. Yes. So you've got lots of different options for for your marquee. And you know,
we would be here for hours if you went through every single one but hopefully we've given you
enough information about the main four structures that you might want to consider for your wedding.
Evie, what's our top tip for our listeners this week? Oh, so thinking about marquee styles,
I would definitely say that before you set your heart on a certain type of marquee style,
I would really look at how many guests you have and where your marquee is going to be located.
If you're going to have your marquee located over a tennis court, you're going to have
fewer options. You know, a frame marquee will be the best for you. If you are having it in
field, then you've got a lot more options. If you've got space to have the guy ropes or the sale cloth
that are traditional. But your guest numbers also affects the style of marquee that you're going to
have because if you fancied a more sort of like a round structure, then a yacht could work if you've
got smaller numbers, but if you know you've got 250 people, you're going to need a larger
traditional or sale cloth if you like the sort of round element where you can fit the guest numbers
in. So it will affect the style of marquee that you have depending on your guest numbers and obviously
where it's going to be located. So have a think about those things first for you sort of delving
choosing your marquee style. Fantastic, thank you, Evie. And next week on the podcast, we have got
our first guest. Yes, very exciting. And we're going to keep on the topic of marquee
because we could talk about them for England. So we have the fantastic county marquees joining us
next week. So we will have lots of questions to ask them. We look forward to seeing you then. Take care.