How much does a marquee wedding cost?

Marquee weddings at home are, quite rightly, viewed as a romantic wedding setting. Your childhood memories surround one of the most poignant days of your life - a full circle moment. However, too often couples think that by saving money on a venue, a marquee wedding will be a cheaper option. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Marquee weddings are one of the most expensive ways to get married.

Starting with the bare essentials

For a marquee wedding, you are building a venue from scratch. If you are having a marquee at home, then hopefully you will at least have access to an outdoor water source; if you’re putting a marquee in the middle of a field, this is less likely to be the case. But you will still need the basics: power and waste management (and water if you aren’t blessed with an outdoor tap relatively near your marquee site).

You do not want to rely on the power from your house to power your marquee. You must have a generator. Running from the generator will be a kitchen, fridge trailer, toilets, bar fridges, lighting, sound, instruments, DJ decks, heating (potentially), plus anything your guests might want e.g. phone chargers (and I’ve also probably forgotten something!). Running all of that from your house will trip the system and your wedding will be over. Oh and get a back-up generator too, just in case.

As well as power, you need somewhere to put waste. This usually takes the form of a skip. So add skip hire to your wedding budget.

Then if you don’t have an outdoor water source, you will need to get water in the form of a water bowser. This can be used for drinking, but also for your caterers and bar company.

Building to the basics

So we have the absolute bare essentials sorted. Now we need to add in the basics.

Firstly, the marquee itself. There are a range of styles you can choose from: traditional pole marquee, clear span, glass, stretch tent, tipi, sailcloth and so many more! The type of marquee you want will massively impact your wedding budget. A glass marquee will be the most expensive, a stretch tent the cheapest. Sailcloths are typically more expensive than clear span. Tipi generally cheaper. If budget is a concern for you, then consider the style of marquee carefully before you start planning. The style is important, but never compromise on quality. Not only are there price discrepancies between the types of marquees, but also between marquee providers. And there is a very good reason for this. The quality of marquees varies hugely. A ‘cheap’ marquee looks and feels cheap. You want a good quality marquee and a marquee company that will stay on site throughout the wedding, so that should anything go wrong, professionals are on site to sort it. Your marquee is your venue, so make sure it’s measuring up to the standard that you want!

Secondly, we need some toilets. From festival-style green plastic Portaloos (never advised for a wedding!) to luxury shepherd hut style, the choice for wedding toilet hire nowadays is amazing. If these are going to be hidden, then you can compromise on appearance. But if they will be on show, then make sure they are aesthetically pleasing, as they will likely get in the back of some photos.

Finally, you will need a fridge trailer for your caterers/bar company. This is a fridge on wheels that will store your food and drinks. Sometimes you will need two if the caterer can’t share with the bar company.

Adding the wedding necessities

Every wedding venue comes with a venue coordinator. A marquee wedding does not. A key supplier, therefore, is a wedding coordinator. Or, a full planner if everything you’ve read so far sounds a little overwhelming. But you absolutely need someone to run your day, otherwise it will be you and your family sorting everything.

You also need to feed yourselves and your guests, so you’ll need to hire caterers. Again, catering is commonly included in venue hire prices, but it’s not included in a marquee hire price. So, this is an additional cost. Your guest count matters hugely here: the more guests you have, the more mouths to feed. If, for example, you assume catering is £100pp (canapés, 3 courses, evening food), a 150 person wedding will incur a £5000 higher catering bill than a 100 person wedding. Guest count matters. You might also want one caterer to provide your canapés and wedding breakfast, but want to bring in food trucks for your evening food. This might become more expensive once travel is taken into account.

Similar to catering, a bar service isn’t included in marquee hire, unlike most venues. Sourcing a decent bar company can make or break a wedding. Having long queues at the bar because there isn’t enough staff is absolutely not what you want - the longer people are waiting at the bar, the longer they’re away from the dance floor. They need to be professional, efficient and smartly dressed.

Additionally, you need some production. This can be really basic sound and lighting, or full-scale professional level production, but either way, you will need something if you want any music at your wedding. Your wedding band/DJ might be able to provide this for you, but depending on the scale of entertainment, you might need to source a production company who can sort all of the sound and lighting.

Finishing with the remaining wedding needs

Everything covered so far are the absolute essentials needed for a marquee wedding. We haven’t even started on the ‘fun and pretty stuff’ yet. Are you starting to see why a marquee wedding isn’t a cheap option?

Once you’ve built your venue and added the necessities, you can now start to look at all of the remaining suppliers. Photographer, videographer, content creator (1, 2 or all 3!), florist, entertainment, furniture & decor, stationery, cake etc.

A key piece of advice: a marquee is a blank canvas. If you don’t invest in flowers/decor, it remains a blank canvas. If that’s your vibe, then great. But for most it’s not, so investing in a good florist and decor is really important. You will likely need more flowers than you think to give the ‘Pinterest marquee wedding’ aesthetic.

Closing remarks

A marquee wedding is one of my favourite types of weddings. But they absolutely aren’t a cheap option and can end up being very overwhelming for couples to organise themselves.

Fortunately, I offer my Full Planning service that extends to marquee weddings. This includes supplier sourcing and management (this means EVERYTHING listed above), budget management, contract reviewing, wedding design, on the day management, logistics handling and more.

If you are wanting a marquee wedding but don’t know where to start, then feel free to get in touch. I’d love to hear from you!

All photos from the talented Sarah Salotti Photography