Wedding venue – am I looking for a needle in a haystack??

[RockinInAFreeWorld]

Looking for somewhere in these areas:

Gloucestershire
Bristol
Bath
Bournemouth

Hampshire
Exeter
Sussex

1. That can hold 100+ reception guests
2. With accommodation on site (even 5 or 6 rooms would suffice)
3. Low corkage charge or better still no corkage fee
4. Where music and booze can be played/served until at least 1am with option to extend licence till later
5. Want to marry in a church so whether its licenced for ceremonies or not is irrelevant

The main hurdle I’m having is places i’ve found say everything has to be shut down by midnight at the latest and/or no outside caterers, with most of the menu offers that come with the packages not really to our taste. I like the idea of meeting with caterers and coming up with a menu that reflects us. Another issue i’m finding is we can only provide our own alcohol for the meal and once the entertainment starts guests have to purchase from the bar.

Posting in AIBU for traffic too.

Any help greatly appreciated!

When I got engaged, we looked around at venues. I don't think we had unreasonable expectations but nothing felt right.

In the end, we hired land, hired a marquee, bar, catering, entertainment, bought our booze, the whole shebang and organised it all ourselves. It was an incredible day, everyone had a wonderful time.

Would that be an option?

I was about to say - find somewhere you can put a marquee/tipis up! Then you can arrange your own music/food/drinks etc and the party can go on for as long as you want!!

Would the church wedding be on the same day? As a lot of churches will only marry you if you actually live in the parish or have a strong connection with it (e.g. were baptised there / parents live there).

Have you looked at Colehayes Park Manor? Bit further west than you were looking (it's in Devon IIRC) but it would fit the bill in terms of accommodation (sleeps 70!), organising your own caterers etc.

Is the church wedding on the same day? Wouldn't that need to be the one you attend (or one of you attended as a child)? That would narrow the areas down.

Hired a barn. It was cheap as they were very hands off but that meant we could provide our own food and drink. Most places can't get exemptions on music licenses but we had music until midnight and our bar was still serving at 1am

This is South of Bristol, Near Taunton, but very accessible from all the places listed

Think it ticks all your boxes
maunselhouse.co.uk/weddings/the-reception/

We got married at Brympton House in Somerset and it ticks all your boxes but it wasn't cheap then (4 years ago) so depends on your budget. I think we had about 50 people staying over and the dj played till 2 (with bar) and people stayed up till about 4/5 with drinks/nibbles we provided. We had 120-130 people and used their recommmended caterers at the time who were great - we liked their menu so not sure how flexible they are.

We paid corkage (which was per person rather than bottle) which worked out pretty reasonably.

We had to pay slightly extra for late licence but it wasn't that much.

www.brymptonhouse.co

Congratulations and good luck!

PS - we also visited Maunsel House and it was great - v quirky and same idea as Brympton. It was a bit too small for our numbers though.

Try this place. kingscotebarn.co.uk
A friend got married there a few years ago. It meets all your criteria as far as I can tell.

Square and Compass wedding barn in Ilminster. Ticks all of your boxes!!

Hi
Few years ago I was at the wedding church in Birtsmorton Court Many beautiful places, the castle and an amazing garden. Check this place out if you want.

Check this one. Church wedding at Birtsmorton Court