GOOD GRIEF !! maybe i should try reading previous posts eh ?? to late but hey ho xx

If you have already booked then fabby however if you havent .... I got married nearly 2 years ago at " The Flotterstone Inn " just outside penicuik at the foot of the pentlands. They have a wedding licence and we got married at the bottom of their garden by the burn at 7.30pm at night. i had a humanist service and just over 90 guests. I got married there and never had a meal or anything but they did me a FANTASTIC buffet and the use if the hall etc . I also hired a lighting company and they lit up the burn and the "witchy bridge" and the trees and garden etc for me , BEAUTIFUL and to top it all off it didnt cost an arm and a leg. Goodluck xx

Sumama,

OP here! Well, we had our wedding - ceremony at Marlins Wynd with reception at The Rowentree. Marlins Wynd was really magical for our ceremony and all of our guests thought it was wonderful. We really wanted a small and personal wedding with people we care about and Marlins Wynd is perfect for that. I think because it is so intimate and atmospheric it just has such a lovely feel. We brought a big vase of flowers and put lovely scented candles around the ledge. I also made some flower garlands to hang over the pughes just to add a bit of decor. I found Lois really lovely and helpful and the whole ceremony went just as we hoped.

Hope you enjoy your day!

Also - thanks to everyone who gave tips and advice to me!

There's quite a lot of different types of wedding venues that you may consider, ranging from castles, stately homes, function rooms, hotels and clubs, and some rather unique historic venues. There is a free web site called nicevenues.com which has many of these Edinburgh wedding venues on it. You can browse through the venues using a map, and filter by the type of venue. It lets you see where all the venues are.

Malt Whisky Society down at the Vaults is lovely, so is the queen street venue and both do weddings and caterings. For flowers I can recommend Curcuma Flowers (an old school friend of mine) and photographers we used for our wedding at the Caves was Duke Photography - they did an excellent job of capturing the atmospheric underground venue so I imagine they'd do a lovely job in the Wynd too.

We got married at craighouse, Napier university, reasonable price per head (in 2007), venue gorgeous and made for lovely photos. Highly recommended.
Good luck!

I saw this discussion and have now planned my wedding for Marlins Wynd. Thanks for all the tips. Has anyone used Marlins Wynd? What did the original seeker of opinions finally decide to do and how did it work out? I also need a gluten free wedding cake and flowers and a photographer. All recommendations are welcome! Thanks for all of the helpful information in the chat here!

tothesea I had my wedding reception at the Counting House and it was excellent. It cost 250 to hire. They allow outside caterers and bands. There was a 250 deposit on the bar but if you spent more than 1000 on drinks you got the deposit back. Staff were great, very friendly and helpful.

The only downside was they didn't open the diary until 6 months before the date. There was no problems with this but I wanted to make sure it was definitely mine.

Bruntsfield Hotel - went to a really nice wedding there a number of years ago.

Napier University has a lovely venue Craighouse (?) I think.

Or Mechiston Castle School - can be married in the Library, big Hall for dancing and of course gorgeous grounds.

Mmm St Stephen's Church Hall in Stockbridge - fab for a Celidh.

Good luck.

I know someone who had their wedding at the ghillie dhu and they were really happy with it. Think it was relatively cheap too.

We looked at Marlin's Wynd, and it was a contender, but my mum didn't like it as she thought it was too dark and didn't like that there was no natural light. However, she didn't see it when it was ready for a party - it can look amazing, and really atmospheric.

Not been to a wedding at Ghillie Dhu, but was there for a meal and drink recently and thought it was gorgeous - and a wedding party came in later and had a wee dance, they seemed to like it!

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Will definately check out the Hub (I'd have just assumed this was too expensive before) and St Columbas church hall. Will also look at The Scotsman.

The Caves are amazing but we'd have to go with the Rowntree as thats the room they use for smaller weddings and DP's brother got married there so we'd probably rather find somewhere else if possible.

Has anyone used the venue at the bottom of Blair street - Marlins Wynd or Ghille Dhu?

You've just described my wedding! 70 guests, Humanist, dinner and dancing, atmospheric etc.

We had it at the Hub, and it was wonderful. Cheaper on a Friday or Sunday.

Re: room charge - we had the Garden Room at Prestonfield for £250 and could use the Tapestry Room plus balcony for drinks before the meal itself. Fantastic venue, food was beautiful and there were a range of menus at different prices from about £35 per head as far as I remember (2y ago).

City Chambers?

Niddry Street Caves.
I photographed a wedding there last year and it was amazing! Lovely venue and really atmospheric. They seem to have different rooms for different sized weddings too.

Sorry, £500 to hire the rooms all day - then obviously food charges per head. I can't remember how much, but it wasn't that bad, honest. We did a lot of shopping around and they can in really favourably with charges and they definitely had the lowest room hire charge. It was a a few years ago, so they may have upped their charges since then.

I was just coming on here to start this very thread - I wondered if anyone knew about the Counting House as a wedding venue?
the borrower how did you get the Scotsman for £500? I looked on the website and the cheapest seemed to be £80 per guest!!

I know you said you wanted to avoid hotels, but The Scotsman! We got married there and had our reception after too. 40 people for dinner and 100 at night. Was also surprisingly cheap - only £500 for the whole day, and that included 3 rooms, all interconnected and in a wee area all of our own. Was really nice and intimate and laid back.

We had our wedding reception at the Royal Scots Club on Abercromby Place, and it was lovely. We had about 70 people. We didn't have the ceremony there, but you can do that.

Howies Waterloo Place, we had our reception there 4 years ago and it was brilliant and really reasonable budgetwise. You can have the ceremony there too.

The Hub, near the castle. Looks like a church but isn't.

portobello town hall!

Forgot to post link! www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/functions/

The zoo do weddings! Then you can go watch the penguin walk afterwards !!

Oh and a humanist can marry you anywhere, it doesn;t have to be registered for civil ceremonies like places have to be for registrar weddings.