2020 Editor's Choice Hotels for Weddings
Editor’s Choice: Wedding Hotel Venues
Bodysgallen Hall and Spa - 'The Great Half-Price Break' Special Offer
Llandudno
A photographer’s dream, this Elizabethan manor house stands in gardens and parkland, with mountain views. A spa, oak-panelled drawing room, romantic four-poster suite, stone cottages with roses round the door. . . What more could you ask?
Montagu Arms - 'Forest to Fork' Dining Break Special Offer
Beaulieu
From an intimate ceremony in the Paris Room to a large gathering in the Terrace restaurant, with Gertrude Jekyll-inspired gardens outside and four-poster suites above, this New Forest hotel can lay on the full Monty.
Judges - Autumn and Winter Special Offer from £125 B&B
Yarm
Up to 75 people can attend your garden wedding ceremony in the Gazebo at this smart hotel (smaller gatherings in the lounge, garden room and conservatory restaurant). You want a Daimler? A magician? A string quartet? They have the contacts.
Askham Hall - Midweek Special Offer
Penrith
The chapel, a French drawing room, medieval hall, gardens and nearby church are at your disposal if you wed at this battlemented ancient pile. Relax in the spa beforehand, party in the Bank Barn, sleep in a four-poster room.
Morston Hall
Holt
A more intimate venue, this long-time Guide favourite is renowned for Galton Blackiston’s Michelin-starred cooking. Ceremonies are held in the conservatory or gardens. Opt for exclusive use and guests will be welcomed with a cream tea.
The Colonsay
Colonsay
Whether you elect to hold your wedding in the lovely gardens or indoors (and this is the rainy Hebrides), the remote and beautiful situation of this hotel makes for an unforgettable day. There are self- catering cottages if there’s no room at the inn for all guests.
The Painswick
Painswick
Have a civil ceremony in the lounge or on the terrace of this beautiful Palladian mansion with wisteria-draped loggia, or make your vows at St Mary’s church. Spa treatments and the four-poster George’s Suite are a bride’s dream.
Hilton Park
Clones
Formal gardens and pleasure grounds surround this Italianate ancestral home. A roofed colonnade has been restored to create a wedding space. Or request a humanist ceremony in the rose garden by the lake. A house-party atmosphere prevails.
The Salutation
Sandwich
The owners of this beautiful, Queen Anne-style Lutyens house with Arts and Crafts gardens choose to host a small number of weddings each year, and to make them very special. There are no packages; everything is bespoke.
From £90 per night
Lympstone Manor
Exmouth
It will be a while before guests can raise a flute of Lympstone Manor bubbly from the vineyard, but Michael Caines’s Georgian manor in parkland on the Exe estuary affords a glorious setting and a gourmet experience.
2019 Editor's Choice Hotels for Weddings
Editor’s Choice: Wedding Hotel Venues
The Horn of Plenty - Two Night Signature Tasting Menu Getaway Special Offer
Tavistock
The name doesn’t lie. There’s plenty of good cheer, from falcons to fireworks, for guests at this 19th-century mansion. With four rooms for civil ceremonies, and a host of atmospheric local churches, celebrations can embrace the main house or use a marquee for large parties.
Seaham Hall - Three Night Christmas Stay Special Offer
Seaham
Lord Byron married Annabella Milbanke at this Georgian mansion turned spa hotel. The union didn’t fare well, but the hotel’s wedding packages, named after their brilliant daughter, Ada Lovelace, include everything from use of the ballroom to champagne.
Gravetye Manor
East Grinstead
Built by ironmaster for his bride, this Elizabethan manor house in lovely gardens laid out by William Robinson is as romantic a venue as you could wish. Exclusive use is available for parties of up to 60, with the wedding breakfast in the glass-walled dining room.
Temple House
Ballymote
A family home for centuries, this Georgian mansion has witnessed many splendid wedding celebrations. Vast period rooms and a ruined Knights Templar castle by the lake – imagine those photos – are the icing on the cake.
Langar Hall
Langar
Ceremonies are held in the Indian room, garden room or dining room at this apricot-washed mansion in beautiful grounds in the Vale of Belvoir. Small, informal weddings and partnerships are a speciality.
Prestonfield
Edinburgh
Throw a party in the circular stables ballroom at this 17th-century mansion, or go for something more intimate in the Stuart Room or Italian room. Then how about a night to remember in a silver- leaf sleigh bed in a room with an antique chaise longue and trompe l’oeil drapery?
Fischer’s at Baslow Hall
Baslow
Readers who spent their wedding night at this stone manor house on the edge of the Chatsworth estate loved it so much that they returned this year for their 12th anniversary. Ceremonies in drawing room or study.
Jesmond Dene House
Newcastle upon Tyne
From the Apartment, hosting ten guests, to the panelled Great Hall for up to 120, from a small supper to a banquet, cakes, flowers, photographers, magicians, all can be arranged at this 19th-century stone mansion in woodland.
Bingham Riverhouse
Richmond-upon-Thames
You can book the garden and garden rooms, and choose anything from canapés to buffet to barbecue at this romantic riverside hotel. Packages include ‘Summer Whirlwind’, ‘Small and Intimate’, and exclusive use.
The Assembly House
Norwich
You can hire the Grand Hall, the Ballroom, the Music Room, or a less flamboyant space at this landmark Georgian building replete with chandeliers. Best of all, book exclusive use and bag the bridal suite with tester bed.
2018 Editor's Choice Hotels for Weddings
Editor’s Choice: Wedding Hotel Venues
The Horn of Plenty - Two Night Signature Tasting Menu Getaway Special Offer
Tavistock
What do Jennifer Saunders and David Bowie have in common? Both have stayed at this ‘superbly relaxing’ spot overlooking the Tamar valley.
Glenfinnan House Hotel - Three nights for Two Special Offer
Fort William
In one of the most dramatic settings of any UK hotel, Jane MacFarlane's 18th-century-cum-Victorian mansion stands against a backdrop of woodland and mountain, overlooking Loch Shiel.
Temple House
Ballymote
A half-mile avenue meanders through parkland to Roderick and Helena Perceval’s classical mansion overlooking the ivy-clad ruins of a Knights Templar castle on a lake.
Langar Hall
Langar
‘We arrived on a golden Indian summer late afternoon to a warm welcome, culminating in tea on the lawn, looking beyond the ha-ha to a field.’
Hipping Hall
Kirkby Lonsdale
In the Lune valley, between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, this ‘comfortable hotel with modern, well-appointed bedrooms’ was Andrew Wildsmith’s first foray into the hospitality field.
Goldstone Hall
Market Drayton
‘Hands-on owners, attention to detail and a warm and friendly ambience.’ All-round plaudits this year for John and Sue Cushing’s Georgian manor house hotel.
Bingham Riverhouse
Richmond-upon-Thames
A change of both name and feel for Bingham Riverhouse this year, its ‘more traditional, opulent style’ replaced by ‘something more informal and friendly’, say our inspectors.
Penally Abbey
Tenby
‘Worth the journey!’ Overlooking the Pembrokeshire coast, the Boissevain family’s 19th-century neo-Gothic house is ‘an attractive building’ in a ‘beautiful’ location.
Budock Vean
Falmouth
In ‘glorious’ grounds’ Martin Barlow’s hotel, golf resort and spa on the Helford river returns to a full entry this year thanks to a trusted reader and frequent guest who loves ‘the personalised hospitality and the attention of good staff’.
Llangoed Hall
Brecon
A ‘fabulous’ art collection still adorns this Jacobean mansion, which was opened as a hotel by the late Sir Bernard Ashley in 1990.
2017 Editor's Choice Hotels for Weddings
Editor’s Choice: Wedding Hotel Venues
Star Castle
St Mary’s
With ‘epic’ views across to Tresco and Bryher, the Francis family’s ‘really good hotel’ combines ‘a great setting’ with ‘fabulous historic features’.
Gregans Castle Hotel
Ballyvaughan
‘Country house luxury’ abounds in this Georgian mansion, run by owners Simon Haden and Frederieke McMurray as a luxury hotel.
Langar Hall
Langar
‘We arrived on a golden Indian summer late afternoon to a warm welcome, culminating in tea on the lawn, looking beyond the ha-ha to a field.’
The Lord Crewe Arms
Blanchland
You can drink champagne in the vaulted bar, as W H Auden did, dine among the ancient stone walls like Philip Larkin, or sleep in a tranquil room once used by Benjamin Britten, at this hotel in the monastic buildings of a dissolved abbey.
Hotel Endsleigh
Tavistock
Et in Arcadia we go – to Olga Polizzi’s Regency cottage-orné, in gardens and pleasure grounds with woodland walks and waterfalls, arboretum, fount and follies.
Jesmond Dene House
Newcastle upon Tyne
‘An oasis of calm in the northern suburbs of Newcastle’, Peter Candler’s mansion is named after the wooded valley in which it stands.
The Coach House at Middleton Lodge
Richmond
More tasteful developments this year among the potpourri of Georgian estate buildings that create James Allison’s hotel 'in beautiful countryside a few miles from Scotch Corner’.
Roundwood House
Mountrath
A library in the stables, dedicated to the history of the evolution of civilisation, is a unique selling point, but there is much more to enjoy at Paddy and Hannah Flynn’s Georgian mansion in parkland beneath the Slieve Bloom mountains.
Boath House
Nairn
‘A beautiful hotel with wonderful food and lovely young staff.’ Readers this year loved their stay at Don and Wendy Matheson’s Georgian mansion in gardens and parkland.
The Assembly House
Norwich
An opulent wedding venue, hotel, art gallery and cookery school in one, The Assembly House offers history and contemporary style in a Grade I listed city-centre location.
2016 Editor's Choice Hotels for Weddings
Editor’s Choice: Wedding Hotel Venues
The Ollerod
Beaminster
Since Chris Staines and Silvana Bandini bought The Ollerod 18 months ago, its transformation into a ‘restaurant-led’ establishment has continued apace.
Knockinaam Lodge
Portpatrick
‘A very special place,’ say guests in 2019, of Sian and David Ibbotson’s Victorian hunting lodge overlooking the Irish Sea. ‘The accommodating hosts went out of their way, more than once, to ensure we had a terrific time.'
Ballymaloe House
Shanagarry
‘Utter comfort – a fire lit after breakfast in the drawing room, drinks from the bar when needed.’ An endorsement from a regular visitor, following another stay at this family-run hotel.
Bingham Riverhouse
Richmond-upon-Thames
A change of both name and feel for Bingham Riverhouse this year, its ‘more traditional, opulent style’ replaced by ‘something more informal and friendly’, say our inspectors.
Watersmeet
Woolacombe
On the South West Coastal Path, this former Edwardian gentleman’s retreat has cliff-top views of the three-mile-long beach.
Rose in Vale
ST AGNES
In summer, swags of roses adorn the Doric porch of James and Sara Evans’s ‘elegant’ if much extended Georgian country house in a secluded valley in the village of Mithian.
Hotels in Cornwall
Cornwall hotels with pools
Hotels for Christmas in CornwallFind your perfect wedding venue
From Sussex to Scotland and everywhere in between, hotels across the UK are the ideal locations for weddings because they really know what they are doing. The difficulty is finding the ones that really stand out as individual and characterful destinations with the best of style, design and, king of all attributes, customer service.
The Good Hotel Guide was built on an ethos of quality and identity, and at no time are those elements more important than when you’re planning a wedding. A time to look after and entertain all the people who are closest to you, the hotels we have found, from boutique hotels to grand country house hotels, city townhouses to the most elegant of rustic country pubs, all include those highly desired qualities in our collection of UK wide hotel wedding venues.
The collection includes a wide variety of locations, not just in terms of counties and cities, but varying from lakeside hotels near Windermere to mountainside locations in Wales, seaside hotels in Devon and Highland hotels in Scotland.
Each has its own approach to weddings, and many have in-house planners who make the whole process that much more carefree for the bride and groom. Food is a high priority in most places, and a tricky one to coordinate outside a hotel venue, adding another tick box in the reasons for choosing a hotel as your wedding venue.
Whether you’re looking for a grand event at the likes of Lewtrenchard Manor or a small and intimate occasion, there’s something for every wedding occasion amongst this collection.