Marquees, barns and rooms without walls
Midlands Wedding Styling Marquees, barns and rooms without walls
A blank space is not an easier canvas. Everything a building normally provides has to be hired, and the fire rules are stricter, not looser.
Barns and marquees are common across Warwickshire, Staffordshire and rural Worcestershire, and they are a different discipline from dressing a room that already has walls, heating and sockets.
What you are also hiring
In a conventional venue the building supplies the floor, the light, the heat, the power, the toilets and the furniture. In a marquee or a bare barn you are hiring some or all of it, and it competes for the same budget as the styling.
Establish early what the space actually includes. A barn described as fully equipped may mean it has tables. It rarely means it has lighting you would want. See budget.
Fire restrictions are tighter, not looser
The instinct is that a big open space is more permissive. The opposite is true.
Timber-framed barns and thatch carry strict naked-flame prohibitions, frequently absolute. Marquees have their own restrictions on flame, on heaters, and on where anything hot may stand.
Any fabric brought in, linings, drapes, backdrops, will normally need to meet a flame retardancy standard with certification available. The duties behind these rules sit under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and the operator's risk assessment is what you are handed. See venue restrictions.
Battery candlelight is the answer in almost every case, and in these spaces it is usually the only answer.
Scale
The commonest styling mistake in a barn is dressing it as if it were a room. High ceilings and long spans swallow table-height decoration, and a scheme that would fill a hotel function room disappears.
The fixes are vertical and overhead: festoon across the span, hanging installations where the structure permits, tall arrangements, and using the length of long tables rather than scattering rounds. See lighting and table styling.
Power
The question that decides your lighting plan. Establish how many circuits exist, what they are rated for, and what else is on them. Catering will take a substantial share.
In a marquee, generator capacity and its noise position are both worth asking about. A generator sited near the ceremony is a problem discovered late.
Anything electrical brought in may need testing; see the HSE's portable appliance testing guidance and expect the operator to ask.
Ground, weather and access
Marquee floors move on soft ground, and rain in the week before changes what a delivery vehicle can reach. Ask what the access is like when it is wet, not when it is dry.
Anything outdoors needs weighting. Anything at height needs a fixing the structure permits, and a marquee frame is not automatically a rigging point. See seasonal styling.
Time
Blank spaces take longer to dress, because the layout has to be created rather than adjusted. Add substantially to the estimates on setup and turnaround, and push hard for access the night before, which in these venues is more often available.
The unglamorous list
Heating and how it is fuelled. Toilets and their position relative to the dining space. Where the caterer works, and whether that space is screened. Lighting the path from the car park to the door, and back again at midnight. Waste, and who removes it.
None of it appears in a styling scheme, and all of it decides whether the evening works.
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