What Are the Benefits of Marquee Hire For Outdoor Weddings

There are many benefits of hiring a marquee for an outdoor wedding or reception party. The main benefit is that a marquee provides a stylish canopy which gives shelter from unpredictable British weather conditions, such as strong winds, sunshine and rainfall.

Some people choose to hire a marquee their wedding reception, whilst others hold the whole wedding day inside the marquee. They may hold everything from the wedding day lunch, wedding ceremony, the speeches, wedding reception meal and even the disco afterwards. They may only venture outside for the wedding photographs.

Hiring a temporary structure like a marquee enables you to pick and choose what you do on your wedding day. If the weather is good, then you may move the ceremony outside or take the photography inside if it rains.

Some people choose to erect their wedding marquee in the grounds of a hotel, giving the hotel the responsibility of organising the meals, furniture, flower arrangements, creating themed decor and even ‘putting up’ the relatives. This is an ideal solution when organising a large wedding with hundreds or guests. Thus giving you more time to relax and enjoy your special day.

An added benefit of positioning your wedding marquee next to a hotel is your guests may take advantage of the hotels facilities, car park and ultimately their accommodation.

Whilst those who are fortunate enough to have access to a large garden, suitable for a marquee, choose to organise every last detail themselves. This may seem a more stressful and time consuming an option, but it does allow for much more freedom to create a more bespoke wedding day experience.

Putting a marquee within your own garden allows for ‘on the fly’ changes, if for example, the weather takes a turn for the worst, you can move indoors or if more guests arrive than expected, you can accommodate them within your house. Additionally if your caterers let you down, you can organise additional food yourselves more easily.

Types of Wedding Marquee

There are 2 main types of marquee available for hire on the market today, the first and the most common type of marquee is called ‘clear-span’. Clear-span marquees are basically very large tents that do not have the need for guy ropes or metal support struts. This means their interiors are clear from internal poles and frame work.

The main benefit of this is that you have the freedom to organise the interior space at your wedding marquee, without being restricted about what goes where. Where as, if you were hiring a function room, you may be restricted by the owners or the shape and size of the venue.

The second type of marquee available for hire, is called a ‘shaped marquee’, they tend to be either octagonal or hexagonal in shape. The main use for shaped marquees is as a secondary marquee which can be used for caterers who need food preparation areas, as a cloakroom or a storage area for a band. They can also be used as an alternative to traditional marquees when a different shaped marquee option is needed to fit into the required space.

Organising Wedding Marquees

When organising marquee hire for a wedding you must decide how many guests you are inviting, what furniture, staging and décor you require, in order to work out what size marquee you need to hire.

Other factors which are important when arranging your marquee are, the location of your wedding, the time of year, whether you require furniture hire, audio / visual equipment hire and whether or not you want a mobile disco. All these things are vital as they have a direct impact upon the marquee hire process.

If you are having your wedding in mid-summer, then it is more likely that you will need to book your marquee hire some 6 months if not a year in advance of the date of your wedding.

This is because a lot more weddings are held during the summer and marquee hire companies may be fully booked for the months in advance.

That is not to say that marquees are not hired during the winter, as hire companies provide indoor heating in colder months of the year, which helps to make Christmas themed marquee hire very popular.

Wedding marquees are usually erected a few days before your wedding day and packed away a few days after, so make sure you allow for this when you are booking wedding marquee venue.

Some marquee hire companies devote their time to providing the best marquee hire service and leave other things like catering and furniture hire up to you to organise. Other companies offer the whole package, from event planning, themed fittings design, flower arrangements, catering services, furniture hire, mobile disco or live band booking, stage hire and event photography.