Hiring a Marquee for your Wedding
Marquees are a wonderful invention - they provide relatively instant large scale accommodation that transforms a house into a vast wedding venue (assuming the garden's big enough) and leaves hardly a trace behind afterwards other than a few holes in the lawn where the pegs were dug in. They're not cheap to hire, but in some circumstances save quite a lot on venue hire and in any case can give you the chance to have your wedding reception at home, despite the fact that 200 guests would have to be stacked horizontally were they to be entertained in the house itself.
As in so many other instances if you are going to hire a marquee yourself, try if you can to get personal recommendations of local companies. And don't try to economise here. Boy Scout marquees - a.k.a large tents - can be very cheap, but also can be rather dirty and full of holes.
Proper marquees designed for functions come with all the necessary accessories, including heating should that be needed. However be warned here: often marquees are heated by giant hot air blowers which, though efficient, tend to be noisy. That means that they will need to be turned off during the speeches, even if you use microphones.
If your wedding is taking place in cooler months you might find that your guests get pretty chilly, especially if dad or Uncle Bernard go on at length about your first bicycle and how you learned to ride it, or the best man gets carried away telling jokes. It may be worth your while talking to the marquee supplier to see whether a quieter form of heating can be used, or alternatively you may need to keep the speeches pretty short.
