Wedding Village Venues

thomas.browne

Hi all,
I'm hoping I might be able to get some help as I have just started looking into this and find it a little daunting. Myself and my girlfriend are trying to find a venue for the reception to our wedding. The mass is going to be in south Dublin and then I want us to go to somewhere a little different for the reception. I love the idea of a little village type place rather than a hotel and we have checked out the village at lyons and are going to check out Ballymagarvey next weekend.

However does anyone know if there are other places like these two around? Lyons just wont work unfortunately because of the accommodation and split level dining for more than 100.

Thanks in advance for any help about this.

Tom.

sweetie

brookelodge at Macreddin village near Aughrim? Less than an hour from south dublin

thomas.browne wrote: »

Hi all,
I'm hoping I might be able to get some help as I have just started looking into this and find it a little daunting. Myself and my girlfriend are trying to find a venue for the reception to our wedding. The mass is going to be in south Dublin and then I want us to go to somewhere a little different for the reception. I love the idea of a little village type place rather than a hotel and we have checked out the village at lyons and are going to check out Ballymagarvey next weekend.

However does anyone know if there are other places like these two around? Lyons just wont work unfortunately because of the accommodation and split level dining for more than 100.

Thanks in advance for any help about this.

Tom.

Rew

We are looking for something similar to you, exclusive and not a hotel. Have a look at this list:
http://onefabday.com/rental-wedding-venues-ireland/

Ballymagarvey is gorgeous (make sure you go feed the trout in the pund up the back!), it has a gorgous price to go with it!!

Have a look at Boyne Hill House, Clonabreany House and the Rectory in Cork as well.

joshuajames

carton house, powercourt house or ballybeg near aughrim wicklow.

Wheaven

Ballymagarvey or Clonabreany House are two nice village venues

littleredspot

sweetie wrote: »

brookelodge at Macreddin village near Aughrim? Less than an hour from south dublin

Sister got married here last year, it is gorgeous and the food is spectacular

eyescreamcone

littleredspot wrote: »

Sister got married here last year, it is gorgeous and the food is spectacular

Getting married in Brooklodge in June
Cant wait

littleredspot

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Getting married in Brooklodge in June
Cant wait

Seriously even the butter at breakfast is amazing! Enjoy

Enquirer2011

Hi - We too are looking at the village of lyons and would really like to choose this as our venue. However we have numbers of 150 to 170 guests. The function room only accommodates 110 guest downstairs and the rest would have to be on the split level upstairs. Has anyone else had the problem? Would people think splitting the room would create a problem, offend guests? reduce the craic etc? We would really appreciate your opinions on this especially from anyone who had their wedding their or have attended a wedding at village of lyons. Thanks in advance

itsallaboutme!!

hi! we are in the process of chosing our venue as well and went to see the village at lyons a few months ago. we loved the whole idea of the place but the one thing that put us off was the split level in the dining hall. we woud be having about 150 people and to us it seemed wrong to have some guests separated upstairs. from where we were standing on the upper level the day we visited we werent even able to see the head table the way it was all set up.
We went to see a few other places that were far nicer Clonabreany house,Ballymagarvey village and Tulfarris hotel and golf resort. Ballymagravey village is far nicer in my opinion than lyons and if it had more accomodation to suit our numbers I would definately be going there but Tulfarris is ooking like our top choice at the moment as it has the manor house separate to the hotel and has thaat villagey feel to it as well.

Enquirer2011

Thanks very much for the reply. Yes we have serious reservations - also with the bar being upstairs on the higher level, I would be worried that the guests would not come down to dance at all! Thank you for the recommendation, we are going to check out Ballmagarvey now also and we want to look at Carton house too. The other option we would consider is Brook Lodge.

DubDubStep

Hi, try this venues in UK - search form. Mark Ireland, capacity of the venue, and some requirements, and click search. Good luck, and congratulations on your engagement;)
Oh...i've checked it, and there are only 9 venues in Ireland...:/
Anyway, maybe one of those 9 will be a good one;]

pada1981

ballymagarvey village was unreal, myself and the wife to be went to see it, fell in love with it, only thing was the staff we have been talking to are not interested in negoiating any prices??? 135 a head is pricey in these times for what your getting, was talking to a guy and he actually said to me that and i quote 'if you dont like the price thats the price we wont drop the price because we will book this place out anyways' , i was looking for 125 a head for a wedding of 150 people and most staying for 2 nights fully booked rooms and bbq the next day, bbq is 30 a head on top of that. some place though haha

Ballyman

Have a look at Boyne Hill House also. It's not a village per se but a private country house. I did a wedding there recently (about 140 people) and I thought it was really nice.

clint_silver

Enquirer2011 wrote: »

Thanks very much for the reply. Yes we have serious reservations - also with the bar being upstairs on the higher level, I would be worried that the guests would not come down to dance at all! Thank you for the recommendation, we are going to check out Ballmagarvey now also and we want to look at Carton house too. The other option we would consider is Brook Lodge.

from being in a band and played all the mentioned places many times, whatevevr about not seeing the top table, its not a problem for guests coming down to dance in the V@lyons, if the music is good they can stay on the balcony and come down as they wish. Its more of a problem in ballymagarvey as the bar is not in the same room. As Ive said many times, you could have U2 as the band and david guetta Djing in the room but if its an irish wedding, people will stay at the bar and if the bar is in a different room then you have a problem. for me its the one thing that lets ballymagarvey down.

All mentioned places would be of a similar standard food and scenery wise. Brook lodge might shade it for me as a village venue and scenery wise.

Gatica

Ballymagarvey was a winner for me, but not the prices. The Village at Lyons was gorgeous, but the split level would just never work for us. I couldn't put people up there, cos I thought it may make them feel a little left out, plus they'd have to get up and walk to the bannister to "see" the speeches.
Kilshane is again fabulous, but I couldn't justify their excessive "exclusivity" fee, when you're booking out the place already anyway.
I would suggest having a look at Marlfield House. I never actually saw it as it's too far for us and didn't want to risk falling in love with a place that was so far out, but heard good things and it looks fabulous. Max numbers are 140 though I think.

Moonbeam

Moyvalley is worth a look too.

Cupcake.

Hi Thomas!

We went venue searching about this time last year - covered a good bit of the country in the process!!

I think going to visit the venues will make the decision for you - sometimes best to go with your gut instinct because over-thinking the pros and cons drives you stark raving mad!!

My comments are just my own opinions, another person might have had a totally different experience! So I'll give you my thoughts but you'll know yourself:

Ballymagarvey - lovvveeeddd the whole set-up. I also asked people who had attended weddings there and the feedback was incredible. The big BUT for me was the overall cost - for the date I wanted it was 140 a head non negotiable.

Village at Lyons - Stunning entrance and the bridal house was a massive selling point for me. I was even prepared to work with the split level BUT after several unreturned emails/calls before we'd even booked we got cold feet and resumed the search.

Moyvalley - I just wasn't blown away, at all. But perhaps we visited on a bad day.

Brooklodge - I had a really good feeling about Brooklodge. Loved the size of the room. Nice and plentiful accomodation for guests, food sounds good BUT I was a bit worried about their financial position and, on a lesser point, not being allowed a 'free choice' toast drink.

Tullfarris & Clonbreany - neither had our date so we didn't visit but I heard good stuff about both and would include them if you have time to visit.

Durrow Castle - WOW, loved it but for some reason, and I can't quite put my finger on it, it wasn't us. Another couple could feel differently though - it is STUNNING & guest accomodation prices are reasonable.

Farnham estate - was looking like a strong contender for a while, then went for a second visit and was none too impressed with the food. Also they wouldn't budge on guest room prices so decided against.

Lyrath and Mount Juliet - too big and hotel like for us but both nice venues for other couples.

Barberstown castle - loved elements of the venue (the wedding reception room is really unusual and bbq options for after food) but overall we weren't crazy in love with the hotel itself.

Rathsallagh - Not for us - knew from the moment we arrived. However we did go on a Sunday morn when the room wasn't set up.

The reason I listed all the venues and not just villages is that I thought I really wanted a 'village' type venue but in the end fell in love with a non village.

VERY best of luck with the search!! I really enjoyed the process, I hope you do too

Gatica

Cupcake. wrote: »

Ballymagarvey - lovvveeeddd the whole set-up. I also asked people who had attended weddings there and the feedback was incredible. The big BUT for me was the overall cost - for the date I wanted it was 140 a head non negotiable.

Village at Lyons - Stunning entrance and the bridal house was a massive selling point for me. I was even prepared to work with the split level BUT after several unreturned emails/calls before we'd even booked we got cold feet and resumed the search.

...

Brooklodge - I had a really good feeling about Brooklodge. Loved the size of the room. Nice and plentiful accomodation for guests, food sounds good BUT I was a bit worried about their financial position and, on a lesser point, not being allowed a 'free choice' toast drink.

Tullfarris & Clonbreany - neither had our date so we didn't visit but I heard good stuff about both and would include them if you have time to visit.

Durrow Castle - WOW, loved it but for some reason, and I can't quite put my finger on it, it wasn't us. Another couple could feel differently though - it is STUNNING & guest accomodation prices are reasonable.

Farnham estate - was looking like a strong contender for a while, then went for a second visit and was none too impressed with the food. Also they wouldn't budge on guest room prices so decided against.

...

Rathsallagh - Not for us - knew from the moment we arrived. However we did go on a Sunday morn when the room wasn't set up.

Brooklodge does magnificent organic food. We loved it but it was a bit far out for us.
Haven't been to Clonbreany but Tulfarris was pretty nice. They have a separate building for hosting the wedding and the main mansion is really lovely. The only thing I didn't like is that it's an active golf resort at all times, and even though the wedding venue itself is exclusive to the wedding party, the parklands around and the main hotel are still working as normal and are not exclusive to the wedding party.

Durrow was amazing, I loved everything about it but it was booked out for the dates we wanted, and it was quite pricey too, almost as much as Ballymagarvey.

Rathsallagh website was great, but when we went there I wasn't too thrilled with it inside. The grounds are great but the shape of the dining room means the bridal party would have to sit by the kitchen entrance. The pavilion is just a separate building, all one room. It can host huge weddings, but a smaller wedding would get lost in that big room; plus the pavilion doesn't have the charm of the old country house as the rest of the buildings do. Wasn't for us.

and Farnham estate we didn't like at all. The old mansion looks great on the outside, but it looked like it was barely used for the hotel and certainly seemed like it wasn't used at all for the wedding. The weddding entrance is further down from the manor house, into a glass-front terrace. It looks nothing like the manor that you get presented with on their site unfortunately. The hotel is much too big for a smaller wedding, as we wanted pretty much exclusive use of it. Their spa was fantastic and I'd say it would be a great location for a hen, but not for a wedding, at least for me.

pada1981

never thought of that, goodstuff, ballymagarvey is someplace, looks the business

Gatica

Sorry to hear about your experience with them. That was our feeling on the place too, which is why we didn't book them. The exclusivity fee alone seemed ridiculous and I could not justify to myself paying that amount of money for that.
The place really is lovely, and I'm sure you have fantastic pictures of the day around the house and lovely conservatory.
It was probably our favourite in terms of house and location, but we tried to put it out of our minds looking around, as it was just too tempting to give in.

Dolbert

Another Tipp suggestion is Ashley Park House - you get the entire house and grounds to yourself and the food is about half the price of Kilshane.

Theboinkmaster

Can't believe nobody's mentioned this one yet - it's spectacular:

Tankardstown

Moonbeam

Their website is painful to navigate.

EveT

Bellinter house in Navan?

Dolbert

Lough Derg holiday village is another possibility, they will have a permanent glass marquee on the lakeshore from November of this year. You can arrange your own catering too if desired.

sweetie

tankardstown and middleton park house are two personal favourites, Both approx one hour
from dublin. Bellinter is also nice

Borderfox

Ballymagarvey is really nice but sooo expensive and from a photography point of view if it rains then a lot of the charm is gone.

Moyvalley is nothing to look at until a wedding day, food was excellent but slow to serve. Really haunted too

Castle Durrow was nice inside but the function room was way off outside the house, maybe I am wrong but if I book there I want to be in the house not out past the stables