I’m Simon Fazackarley, a documentary wedding photographer based in Sussex. Over the years I’ve photographed many relaxed weddings across Sussex and the South of England – including several creative village hall celebrations.
Village hall weddings are particularly popular across Sussex, where many villages have beautiful community halls surrounded by countryside. They offer couples the chance to create a relaxed, personal celebration without the structure of a traditional wedding venue. Over the years I’ve photographed several village hall weddings around Lewes, Brighton and the wider Sussex countryside, and they often become some of the most joyful and personal weddings I document.
Village Halls can be an affordable option, and a lot of village or church halls are already ideally suited to events, with parking, plenty of space, kitchen facilities and the ability for you to make the space your very own. But the downside to using a community space can be how can you transform it to make it just right for your wedding?
We’ve used our experience as wedding photographers to put together this handy guide of what can work and how to do it.
Planning A Village Hall Wedding in Sussex
Budget
First up, have a clear idea of your budget. This helps you work out what might actually be possible with the funds you have available – a lot of our couples tell us how easy it is to lose track of spending when you’re doing it yourself, with small purchases here and there it soon adds up. It might not be very exciting but getting all your expenditures into a spreadsheet will really help you in your planning and will give you a clear idea of where your money is going to help you see where you can make savings.
Planning
Check with your venue what you are and aren’t permitted to use or do with the space. You might find there are things in the hall that can’t be moved (noticeboards, posters etc) or they might prohibit the use of candles and confetti so do try and book a visit before getting really stuck into planning.
It’s a good idea to take measurements of your venue and take a few photos when you go to visit. This will help you visualise how the space might look once you’re back at home and deep in planning mode. Have a look at where and how many plug sockets the venue has so you know whether you’ll need to provide any extension cables on the day.
Does the venue have chairs and tables available and are there additional costs for using these? Are there enough for the number of guests you are planning to invite or will you need to hire in more?
Designing
Next, it’s time to lose yourself in Pinterest to get inspiration on how to decorate a hall for a wedding. Create yourself boards for moods and colour schemes, decorations, lighting, table and seating placements and layouts.
One of the biggest considerations for transforming your venue is lighting. What time of year are you having your wedding? Will it be dark by 4pm when your guests will be sitting down to eat or will the weather be mild enough to sit outside?
A few fairy lights here and there might look really pretty but often don’t create very much light once it’s fully dark, especially in larger spaces. The secret is to use subtle lighting to brighten and actually ‘light’ your venue and just use fairy lights or festoons to add a bit of twinkle and atmosphere. Fairy lights alone will not only make your venue appear a bit gloomy but will also impact your wedding photographs – photographers need good light!
Once you’ve got decided on your main venue lighting you can use fairy lights to create atmosphere. We love simple fairy lights to decorate window sills and drape over tabletops.
Cotton lights are also really classy and the bonus is that you can use them to decorate your home after your wedding – a smart investment.
If you are looking for lighting to work indoors and outside then festoon lights also work well but do check you have access to outside power first!
For real impact (and to disguise boring walls) lighting curtains look amazing. Tom & Lauren used a beautiful lighting curtain like the one below. We regularily work at a venue called Firle Place, it’s a country house wedding venue – but a lot of the ideas they use in their lighting are very relevant to village halls. They have a giant wall of fairy lights that always wows and would be relatively simple to implement in a smaller venue.
Hide and disguise
Our biggest tip here is to keep things simple. If you are lucky your village hall will be a blank space, but in some cases, there might be notice boards or other posters and fixtures that belong to other users of the space. With permission, you might be able to move some of these to a storeroom but some things might not be able to be moved so you’ll need to come up with some methods of hiding or disguising. If you have the budget available you might want to hire in chairs and tables if there aren’t any available or if the ones provided aren’t suitable.
If you really can’t work with the room decor then you could consider putting up drapes from the ceilings or down walls.
If your venue aren’t happy about you hanging things then you might consider buying free standing drapes in the colour of your choice that you can place where you like.
Decorations
Once you’ve decided on a theme or a colour scheme for your wedding you have the fun task of choosing decorations! Not on the High Street, Ebay and Amazon are all obvious great places to find bulk items like festoon lighting, fairy lights and bunting.
We love paper lanterns in neutral colours that you can use to hang from ceilings and beams. We also adore paper lantern bags which you can buy with yours and your partners initials on them – a cute touch to add to your guest book table or for windowsill decorations. Just remember to use battery powered tealights rather than real ones for safety. We thought this pack on Amazon was great value.
If you have hanging space available then these delicate paper fans make a real impact, are low cost and are easy to assemble.
And of course no village hall wedding would be complete without bunting! For bringing a bit of joy to a plain venue we love bunting.
For a more natural look, we’ve seen lots of couples using this hessian bunting, which also works well outdoors.
If you are a colour lover and planning a contemporary wedding then pom pom garlands are really lovely and something a bit different from bunting!
But don’t forget that if you are on a budget you can also find lots of affordable and quirky bits and bobs in charity shops.
Even though we work a lot in bigger venues like Pelham House – there’s a lot of inspiration to be taken from how they decorate a room. The Blencowe room at Pelham is a just a big empty space until you fill it with tables, flowers and decorations – just like most village halls!
Have a look at some of the cute decoration ideas from Lizzie & Duncan’s marquee wedding:
Design your room setup
Will you have a top table, a guest book signing area, a sweet table, a drinks table and a buffet spread? Think about the space you have available and allow space for your guests to mingle comfortably. If you are having trestle tables remember to allow space between aisles for your guests to stand for toasts etc. Also bear in mind whether you need to designate a space for pushchairs and walking aids for guests. Are you having dancing in the evening and if so, can tables be pushed to one side or cleared away to create a dance-floor space?
If you are having a winter wedding where will guests store their coats? Bulky coats on the backs of chairs will make your venue look cluttered and will impact the space for guests moving between tables – is there a cloak room or storage area where a coat rail could be placed instead?
Flowers
Unless you are planning to provide your own flowers for the day you will need to find a good local florist. Chat to them about your plans and the ideas you have. Try to arrange a venue viewing for them and provide them with pictures of the venue if you can. If you don’t want to use a florist then you might want to find a local flower supplier who can provide you with fresh blooms for you to use to collect and then decorate the venue yourself. Jam jars, vintage jugs, vases and teapots all come to life when filled with colourful blooms and a few of these placed up and down trestle tables can really be all you to fill your venue with colour – or keep things fuss-free and use fake flowers. Alternatively, don’t use flowers at all – windmills could make a lovely and low-cost table decoration in a vase and guests can even take them home with them as a gift.
Hire a catering company
The great thing about village and church halls is that there usually aren’t any restrictions on outside catering. There are a lot of catering companies that can bring their own cutlery and table decorations, as well as providing the food and drink and serving your guests on the day – this can take away some of the stress and is a good option to consider if you have the budget available.
We’ve photographed a lot of weddings where our couples have hired in street food vendors. If your budget allows this option can really take a lot of the pressure away from you on the day as well as the option to have hot food available (something that might not be possible if you are providing food yourself).
We do recommend providing water or some soft drinks like pre-mixed squash for your guests to help themselves to throughout the day. Lots of our couples use these lovely glass dispensers.
Check out some of the scrummy food Leah & Adam had at their village hall wedding:
Finishing touches
There are lots of great companies online that can design your own DIY wedding table plans for you. We’ve also seen a lot of couples using little wooden easels for table numbers and table signage in their venues. Some companies allow you to make your own wedding invitations and postcards which you can use for table name places.
Music
Find out whether your venue has its own sound system and how you can connect to this. It can be fun to curate your own wedding playlist and connect to your venue’s speakers. If you are using spotify don’t forget to make your playlists offline in case your venue doesn’t have wifi!
Garden games
You don’t need to spend a fortune on entertainment for your wedding. Everyone loves a good garden game and with a bit of planning you can pick up some great games online to keep all your guests amused and mingling – and also look great in photos!
Here are a few ideas that have worked well from weddings we’ve photographed:
Traditional games like giant Jenga are always a winner
Bubble machines are great to keep little wedding guests amused and look lovely in wedding photos (just remember to buy plenty of spare bubble mixture and nominate one of your wedding party to keep it topped up).
If you have a lot of children at your wedding then a pinata filled with sweets and hung from a tree outside can be a great way to distract kids.
Mini sports day sets – nothing beats seeing your Nan win at the egg & spoon race
You could even provide your own little prizes like little medals
Lawn games like Boules are great for your older guests who want some fun without too much running around. Jaques of London are a great brand.
Old favourites like Twister are great for more lively guests and also make for great photos – especially once the guests have hit the bar!
Want more inspiration?
We’ve photographed a host of village hall weddings in our time as Brighton and Sussex wedding photographers so if you are looking for more inspiration why not have a browse through some of the glorious recent weddings –
Hopefully that has given you some things to think about, but If you’re planning a relaxed village hall wedding in Sussex and want the day documented naturally, you can see more of my documentary wedding photography here.
