Venues
Capacity, toilets and the hidden costs of DIY/marquee/back-garden
A wedding in a field is not a cheaper wedding. It is the construction of a temporary venue from nothing, on ground that has never been asked to do the job, and every service a building supplies without being noticed has to be bought, delivered, connected and taken away again.
That does not make it a bad idea. Built properly it is the only way to hold a wedding in a place that means something to you, and it can be superb. What follows is the actual list of what has to be hired, published hire prices for each part, and the capacity arithmetic that decides how many of each you need.
The capacity arithmetic nobody does first
Start with the ground, not the guest list. A marquee needs level ground with vehicle access for a lorry, and it needs a working width around it for guy lines and pegs. A garden that looks generous frequently holds a structure two sizes smaller than expected once those are allowed for.
Space per guest inside is the next number. Seated at round tables with a dance floor, service routes and a bar, the working figure sits at roughly one and a half to two square metres a head, and long tables run tighter than rounds because they waste less floor. Standing receptions need less, but a wedding is not a standing reception for nine hours.
Then the lavatories. The working ratio used across the events trade is about one unit per fifty to seventy-five guests for an event of several hours where alcohol is served, and closer to one per fifty once you pass six hours. A luxury trailer described as a two plus one is two ladies’ cubicles and one gents’ with urinals, and it is generally rated to somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty guests. For a wedding of a hundred and twenty running to midnight, one trailer is the floor rather than the comfortable answer.
The services a building was quietly providing
Written out in full, because the list is longer than people expect: flooring, power, distribution and cabling, lighting inside and along every route people walk after dark, heating, lavatories with their own water and waste, hand washing, potable water for catering, catering tentage and a serving area, refrigeration, waste collection, parking with a surface that survives rain, and a route in for vehicles that does not cross the guest route. Add security if the licence requires it, and a generator big enough for the catering load rather than the lighting load, which is the mistake that trips the power at eight in the evening.
The approach by budget
Borrow the infrastructure, not just the field
The only version of this that reliably saves money is a site that already has the services: a farm with hardstanding and three-phase power, a village hall with a marquee on the lawn beside it, a family property with real lavatories inside and a marquee for the meal. In each case the expensive part is already built.
A bare field with nothing is the expensive version. Flooring alone is published at around £3 a square metre, so a modest 6m by 12m floor is around £216 before anything stands on it, and power for catering rather than lighting starts in the hundreds.
The genuine saving at this level is the smaller structure. A 6m by 6m marquee is published at £400 where a 12m by 24m is £2,200, and the difference is guest numbers rather than quality.
Check the marquee firm is a trade member before paying a deposit
Temporary structures are an engineering job with a wind loading, and the trade body publishes standards and a member list that is worth checking against.
Check the marquee trade standardsBuy the floor, the power and the lavatories properly
These three are where a field wedding succeeds or fails, and they are the three most often trimmed. A proper floor keeps chairs level and stops a wet afternoon becoming a mud problem. Enough power stops the catering and the band competing for the same supply. Enough lavatories stop a queue forming that people talk about afterwards.
On power, size to the catering load. Published rates put a 20kVA generator at around £645 for a weekend including twenty hours of run time and cabling, and a 10kVA unit with a distribution box and cabling at about £124 a day. A band and a lighting rig do not need much; an electric oven and a fridge trailer do.
On lavatories, the published spread between economy and luxury is wide and the difference is real on a nine-hour day. Economy units start from around £300 and a two plus one luxury trailer from around £400 to £625 depending on supplier and hire length.
Temporary structures and event safety, from the regulator
Marquees, staging and temporary power sit under the same event safety guidance as any other public event, and the guidance is free to read.
Read the event safety guidanceBuild it to be comfortable in bad weather
At the generous end the money goes on the things that make a temporary venue behave like a permanent one: a suspended wooden floor rather than matting, lined walls, proper heating, a covered walkway between the marquee and the lavatories, and lighting along every route people use after dark.
Published prices show what that step costs. A traditional 12m by 18m ceremony marquee with clear walls, wooden flooring and a wooden door unit is listed at £2,950, while a 15m by 35m premium clearspan with a suspended floor, clear roof sections and glass doors is listed at £12,500.
Where the spend stops paying is on structure size beyond the guest count. An oversized marquee is colder, harder to light and reads as empty, and the money is better placed in the floor, the heat and the lavatories than in span.
What actually makes the difference
- Sizing the generator to the catering, not the lighting. Kitchens and refrigeration draw far more than a band, and a supply sized for the visible load fails at the invisible one.
- One lavatory unit per fifty to seventy-five guests, and more past six hours. It is the queue people remember, and it is entirely preventable arithmetic.
- A real floor. Matting on grass is fine until it rains, and a wet floor changes shoes, dancing and mood for the rest of the night.
- Lighting the routes, not just the room. The path to the lavatories and the car park in the dark is the safety issue, and it is the one nobody budgets for.
- Vehicle access and ground conditions. A lorry that cannot reach the site, or that sinks, turns a build day into a crisis before the marquee is up.
Common mistakes
Assuming a field is the cheap option
The headline hire figure for a marquee is smaller than a venue’s, so the comparison stops there, before the floor, power, lavatories and waste are added.
Instead: price the whole build, then compare it with a packaged venue at the same guest count.
Counting only the marquee’s footprint
Catering tentage, a bar, a lavatory trailer, parking and a fire route all need ground, and they are drawn on the plan after the structure is already sized.
Instead: mark out the whole site on a plan before booking anything, including where the lorry parks.
Hiring lavatories by unit rather than by hour
A trailer rated for a hundred and fifty people is rated for a shorter event than a wedding, and the rating quietly assumes a lower drinks consumption than a wedding delivers.
Instead: size for the guest count over the actual number of hours, and add a unit if you are close to the boundary.
Forgetting the day before and the day after
Hire prices are quoted for a period, and a build day and a collection day are usually inside it, but access, security and the state of the ground are not.
Instead: agree the build and collection days in writing, and who is on site for both.
Leaving waste and water off the list
They are invisible in a building, so they are invisible in the plan, and then nobody has arranged fresh water for the caterers or a collection for the bins.
Instead: put potable water, grey water and waste collection on the hire list alongside the structure.
What building a venue actually costs
Every figure below is published openly by the supplier on its own website. Read them as the shape of the market rather than as a quotation, and note the VAT position on each row, because it is stated inconsistently across the trade and it changes a total by a fifth.
| What it buys | Published price | Source | Captured |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6m x 6m marquee, structure only | £400, VAT and delivery added | Queensberry Event Hire, Scotland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 12m x 12m marquee, structure only | £1,400, VAT and delivery added | Queensberry Event Hire, Scotland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 12m x 24m marquee, structure only | £2,200, VAT and delivery added | Queensberry Event Hire, Scotland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 12m x 18m traditional marquee with clear walls, wooden floor and door unit | £2,950 | Queensberry Event Hire, Scotland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 15m x 35m premium clearspan, suspended floor, clear roof, glass doors | £12,500 | Queensberry Event Hire, Scotland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| Wooden folding chair, per chair | £3.65 each | Queensberry Event Hire, Scotland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 10m x 9m clearspan marquee | £995.00 | Rent A Tent NI, Northern Ireland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 10m x 18m clearspan marquee | £1,795.00 | Rent A Tent NI, Northern Ireland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| Marquee flooring, per square metre | £3.00 per sq m | Rent A Tent NI, Northern Ireland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| Marquee flooring, 6m x 12m (72 sq m) | £216.00 | Rent A Tent NI, Northern Ireland | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 2 bay economy toilet hire, from | from £300.00 plus VAT | Wight Event Toilets, South West England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 2+1 luxury toilet trailer hire, from | from £625.00 plus VAT | Wight Event Toilets, South West England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 4+1 luxury toilet with disabled bay, from | from £895.00 plus VAT | Wight Event Toilets, South West England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| Fridge trailer hire, from | from £300.00 plus VAT | Wight Event Toilets, South West England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 2+1 luxury toilet trailer, Friday to Monday hire | £500.00, from £400.00 on a longer rate | Toilets On The Go, North West England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 20kVA generator, weekend, including 20 hours run time and cabling | £645 | Grizzly Bear Events, South East England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 40kVA generator, weekend | £995 | Grizzly Bear Events, South East England | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 10kVA generator with distribution box and cabling, one day | £124.20, £207.00 per week, £350 deposit | Fosseway Tool Hire, West Midlands | 13 Aug 2026 |
| 6.5kVA petrol generator, one day | £51.00, £85.00 per week | Fosseway Tool Hire, West Midlands | 13 Aug 2026 |
Every figure above is a price the supplier publishes openly on its own website, captured on the date shown. Published prices change, they often exclude VAT, delivery and setup, and they are not a quote. Treat them as a guide to the shape of the market, then confirm anything you are relying on directly with the supplier.
Sample: 6 suppliers across Scotland, Northern Ireland, South West England, North West England, South East England and the West Midlands, captured August 2026.
Assemble a plausible build from those rows and the point makes itself. A 10m by 18m marquee at £1,795, a 72 square metre floor at £216, a luxury lavatory trailer from £625 plus VAT and a 20kVA generator at £645 reaches roughly £3,300 before chairs, tables, lighting, heating, catering tentage, waste, delivery or VAT. That is the venue only. Nothing has been eaten or drunk.
Set against a packaged venue at the same guest count, the field is frequently the more expensive route, and it is always the more managed one. Choose it because the place matters, not because it looks cheaper on the first line.