Marquee Wedding in Cork

MahatmaGeansai

Hi all,

We're at the very early stages of planning our wedding so just throwing ideas around. One of them was to have a marquee wedding in the parents garden (they have plenty of room). Just wondering if anyone has any advice / experience of doing this in the Cork area and any idea of costs? We're thinking around 150 guests.

Thanks.

silly

Lovely idea.

This website might help...
http://www.weddingcaterers.ie/wedding-planning-service.php

MahatmaGeansai

Thanks. Great site

niallam

MahatmaGeansai wrote: »

Hi all,

We're at the very early stages of planning our wedding so just throwing ideas around. One of them was to have a marquee wedding in the parents garden (they have plenty of room). Just wondering if anyone has any advice / experience of doing this in the Cork area and any idea of costs? We're thinking around 150 guests.

Thanks.

You might think a marquee will work out cheaper than a hotel but research it first.
Marquee is 5K minimum, probably more by the time you add in carpet, linings, roof lining. 150 chairs @ €2.50 each, tables etc..... Basic unlined marquee for 150 people would be 9m x 15m and with floor and carpet works out about 2200 + vat, 700 for lining then lighting, heaters, all the little extra bits.
Outdoor caterers, i've seen well known caterers charging prices like - 2 dish buffet @ €14 per head, €4 for dessert. That's €2700 and they also charge for chef and waiting staff time, 35 and 25 p/h there and approx 4 hours so another €340. For a seated meal your going to be over €25 per head for 3 courses, as well as the staff cost
So for marquee and food that's anything up to €9k so far, add another 1k for flowers, and centre pieces etc., 10K would be where you'd be then.

After that you'll have to sort a bar out. Probably the area money could be saved, not by yourself though, only by the people paying for the drinks

But then the other extras will be the same as a hotel wedding really.

At 10k it add's to €66 per head roughly, you'd get a great deal from a hotel these days for that money

Not putting you off a wedding marquee but just some info for you, i've researched it myself not too long ago

MahatmaGeansai

Brilliant stuff. Thanks a mill niallam.

zaraminty

Hi MahatmaGeansai,
Just wondering if you went ahead with the marquee wedding idea? I am hoping for some advice!

Balmed Out

Friend did it an I reckon it worked out more expensive then pretty much any hotel and the day in question was lashing rain, stormy and unseasonally cold. Everyone still enjoyed it but save yourself the worry, time, hassle and money. You have enough to be doing during the week before a wedding rather then getting the venue ready.

Also dont forget you would need to organise a bar license.

zaraminty

It works out about 3 times the price of your average hotel wedding but we really want something a bit different and personal! We don't want to be worrying the week before our wedding so we are trying to plan everything as best we can from overseas. Hopefully it will work out in the end and people will love the "tent" wedding!

clint_silver

zaraminty wrote: »

It works out about 3 times the price of your average hotel wedding but we really want something a bit different and personal! We don't want to be worrying the week before our wedding so we are trying to plan everything as best we can from overseas. Hopefully it will work out in the end and people will love the "tent" wedding!

... how do you figure youll have less worry organizing a marquee yourself? Despite marquee events being great in their own right, I would have thought far more could go wrong than you have to worry about than a bricks and mortar hotel wedding. weather, temperature, caterers, power, logistics, cleanup....

lazygal

Marquee weddings are a lot more work. The only one I've seen work really well was a no expense spared affair, where everything was top notch. Even then the couple had a fair amount of last minute jobs to do.

spade

I had a marquee wedding last summer, and completely agree with Zaraminty - it does work out 3 times more expensive than your average wedding. But a word of warninng - Clint_silver is right there's no way you will have it sorted for the week before.

The week before is the most hectic of all - a million things to sort out, a million questions to answer and a million small things going wrong. Unless you're an experienced outdoor event planner, it will throw up loads of random curve balls and you have to just stick it out. It is worth it, but unless you have a planner, you are going to end up wanting to scream by the day before