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Original poster

Small Wedding venues in Edinburgh

30 replies

cherrybug · 18/07/2011 15:25

Wondered if anyone could suggest any potential wedding venues. looking at a small wedding next year (betwen 50 - 100 guests) and we are thinking of venues where we can have humanist ceremony, wedding dinner and evening reception (with dancing and band - which we will provide!)

We want something atmospheric, that either provides catering or ideally where we can bring in outside catering. We also dont have a big budget. Would rather avoid hotels if possible.

Any nice churches you can hire without having Christian ceremony or Fringe festival venues that are available for hire outwith August? Galleries? unusual places.

Thanks!

OP posts:
dahu · 18/07/2011 15:45

The botanics looks lovely, they have the new john hope gateway.

If you are flexible on dates they have a special offer on for bookings made for the start of the year.

rattling · 23/07/2011 16:29

Not sure about the ceremony part as they are a church hall, but we got married in Victoria Street registry office then moved up to the church hall of St.Columba's by the Castle. It has a kitchen, so we got caterers in, hired linen, did our own flowers, arranged a ceilidh and decks for everyone to DJ later. It also has a garden area and is generally very impressive especially to visitors from outwith Edinburgh at a very reasonable rate.

The guy running it was a bit odd - but their website looks more professional now - and this year it will be 10 years since we used it!!!

MindtheGappp · 23/07/2011 16:31

Carberry Towers in Musselburgh. This is an amazing hotel that we always stay in when we are in town with the children.

LisMcA · 23/07/2011 16:34

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

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.

LisMcA · 23/07/2011 16:36

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

ditziness · 27/07/2011 13:09

portobello town hall!

iggagog · 27/07/2011 18:01

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

Bellebelle · 27/07/2011 21:16

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.

FrozenFlowers · 06/08/2011 10:45

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.

theborrower · 18/08/2011 20:16

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.

tothesea · 21/08/2011 10:39

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!!

theborrower · 21/08/2011 21:47

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.

BawbagBiggins · 21/08/2011 21:53

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.

zippy539 · 21/08/2011 21:55

City Chambers?

tiokiko · 25/08/2011 19:36

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).

Soupqueen · 27/08/2011 10:29

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.

Original poster
Cherrybug · 29/08/2011 10:48

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?

OP posts:
theborrower · 29/08/2011 19:20

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!

Nospringflower · 13/09/2011 22:56

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

gomez · 13/09/2011 23:01

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.

balloonmoon · 27/09/2011 19:00

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.

sumama · 30/01/2013 09:57

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!

Rebuslover · 01/02/2013 20:51

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

krusovice · 07/02/2013 22:39

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.

kittiekatnap · 22/03/2013 13:22

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.

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