Private function - venue ideas?

JKM

I am wondering if anyone could help me out. I am looking for a venue for a very small wedding (27 people including Bride and Groom) in December in Cork city or surrounding areas. When I say wedding it is actually going to be held at approx. 7pm in the evening and will be a surprise to all attending besides the Bride, Groom and 3 others.
Basically, we are going to invite our family to dinner to celebrate our engagement, which we will announce a few weeks before. We hope to then surprise them with a very low key ceremony at the dinner. We will then actually sit down to dinner and enjoy the rest of the evening. We will be booking a good few rooms, possibly in The River Lee Hotel, for a fair few of the guests and will probably retire their to the residents bar towards the end of the night.
We are envisaging a private dining experience, potentially with an adjoining room where we can set up the ceremony. Failing that we can just have the ceremony with everyone sitting where they will then dine.
To give you an idea, we were looking at The Hayfield Manor, where they have a private dining room with an adjoining Library. However, although they would be ideal, they are really expensive!
Anyone have any suggestions? We would prefer somewhere where we could stay for the night until last orders and would consider a restaurant or something but definitely want it to be private.
A tall order maybe! Thanks in advance.

wispyman

Isn't there a pub you can hire out in Cork? There was talk of it in a thread in this forum a while back. I seem to remember it was down near to Anglesey Street.

I always thought it would be such a cool thing to do

JKM

Thanks Wispyman. Although renting out a pub is tempting we are going to try go for a fine dining experience if possible. I know that won't be the cheapest option but we are really into eating out and would love to threat our family to something nice. We were just hoping to find somewhere that won't charge an arm and a leg for the room hire.

wispyman

See this thread - it mentions the pub I was referring to and has a few other ideas you might want to look at:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=73864487

evilivor

JKM wrote: »

I am wondering if anyone could help me out. I am looking for a venue for a very small wedding (27 people including Bride and Groom) in December in Cork city or surrounding areas. When I say wedding it is actually going to be held at approx. 7pm in the evening and will be a surprise to all attending besides the Bride, Groom and 3 others.
Basically, we are going to invite our family to dinner to celebrate our engagement, which we will announce a few weeks before. We hope to then surprise them with a very low key ceremony at the dinner. We will then actually sit down to dinner and enjoy the rest of the evening. We will be booking a good few rooms, possibly in The River Lee Hotel, for a fair few of the guests and will probably retire their to the residents bar towards the end of the night.
We are envisaging a private dining experience, potentially with an adjoining room where we can set up the ceremony. Failing that we can just have the ceremony with everyone sitting where they will then dine.
To give you an idea, we were looking at The Hayfield Manor, where they have a private dining room with an adjoining Library. However, although they would be ideal, they are really expensive!
Anyone have any suggestions? We would prefer somewhere where we could stay for the night until last orders and would consider a restaurant or something but definitely want it to be private.
A tall order maybe! Thanks in advance.

Have you checked with the Registrar? I think weddings can only be held in office hours.

curly from cork

Ive heard good reports on Blackrock Castle. Fantastic surroundings, As far as I know the owners are the Market Lane and their food is good.

Balmed Out

Soho have a good private function room too. If u wanted to travel a bit further the celtic ross have a 2nd smaller funtion room thats really nice and bright and holds about 30. As mentioned Blackrock castle is worth checking out.

Check the major hotels, a lot of them have smaller function rooms that would do fine. Get onto the imperial, metropole,clarion, rochestown etc.

JKM

evilivor wrote: »

Have you checked with the Registrar? I think weddings can only be held in office hours.

We have our celebrant sorted already for an evening ceremony. We are having a humanist ceremony so don't have the normal restrictions. We'll be doing the actual civil registration at another convenient time, probably a few days before. Although fingers crossed the Humanist Association will be legally able to conduct ceremonies by December which will make this unnecessary. We're hopefull the relevant bill might be passed in the Dail and made law before they break for Summer.

Milly33

wispyman wrote: »

Isn't there a pub you can hire out in Cork? There was talk of it in a thread in this forum a while back. I seem to remember it was down near to Anglesey Street.

I always thought it would be such a cool thing to do

Id stay away from them if tis the Hub completly and utter muppets seem to run the place or else it is just the lady there does not have a clue how to manage things

evilivor

JKM wrote: »

We have our celebrant sorted already for an evening ceremony. We are having a humanist ceremony so don't have the normal restrictions. We'll be doing the actual civil registration at another convenient time, probably a few days before. Although fingers crossed the Humanist Association will be legally able to conduct ceremonies by December which will make this unnecessary. We're hopefull the relevant bill might be passed in the Dail and made law before they break for Summer.

That's interesting. I wasn't aware of the campaign. I know someone mentioned Blackrock Castle earlier in the thread- they have a a place in the castle where you can, if you wanted to, get married in the legal sense and have the ceremony in the cafe there later (or in the courtyard if the weather is fine though it might be a bit nippy in December) - they have two dining rooms.

There is a lovely private dining room in Jacobs on the Mall that seats 25 - and there is another library type room off it that which might work - similar to the set up in Hayfield but it might be a bit cheaper. I know it's 2 more than you mentioned but they might be able to do it.

The problem with December is that most of the best places book early and everywhere is going to be expensive.

Balmed Out

Evilivor's on the ball there get it sorted asap before the christmas parties have booked everywhere up.

Kenny Logins

This just popped up on Twitter -

https://twitter.com/#!/ElectricCork/status/200962579932262400