A wedding venue for three hundred, in a wood

Two hundred guests is where the options run out

Up to about a hundred and fifty, the Midlands is full of good woodland and tipi venues. Past that the list collapses, and couples end up in a hotel ballroom or a marquee in a field — not because they wanted either, but because nothing else would take the numbers.

A wood is not usually limited by its acreage. It is limited by what has been buried under it: power, water, drainage, washrooms that can take four hundred visits in a day, and enough level, drained ground for people to park, walk and stand on in November. That is expensive to put in, so most sites never do, and they cap the guest list instead.

Where three hundred people actually go

Three hundred is the site limit. What changes between layouts is how many of those three hundred are sitting down at the same moment.

The tipis give you the higher ceiling and the open fire; the tent takes more covers in the same footprint. You can use both.

Going from 150 to 300

Catering. Three hundred covers needs a real kitchen and somewhere cold to keep it, not a gazebo behind the tipis. Both are here, so your caterer quotes for cooking rather than for building a kitchen first.

Washrooms. Plumbed and heated, built to be used four hundred times in a day rather than once. This is the thing that quietly ruins large outdoor weddings and the thing nobody asks about on the viewing.

Getting everyone here and home. Three hundred people is roughly a hundred cars or five coaches. Parking is inside the wood and there is room for a coach at the gate. There is more on getting here, coaches and where guests stay.

Ground. Chipped, level paths that hold up in November, so three hundred people in good shoes can move between the ceremony, the meal and the fire pits without a queue or a bottleneck.

What three hundred costs

Exclusive use of forty acres with the structure included. Every figure includes VAT.

A midweek date in summer costs less than a Saturday and is a materially better wedding than a Saturday in November. The full tariff is published here, including the smaller guest counts.

Come and see whether three hundred feels like three hundred

It is the only way to judge it. Viewings are by appointment, one couple at a time, and we will walk you the whole site — including where the coaches turn and where the queue for the bar would form.

Book a viewing · Read the venue guide