Frequently Asked Questions - Wedding Venue Swansea | South Wales | Wales, Craig y Nos Castle wedding packages, wedding receptions

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many can your Wales Castle Wedding Venue hold?
A: 150 in Function Room and 150 in Theatre, 120 plus in Conservatory. Craig y Nos Castle can sleep 64 in the en-suites and 22 in the non en-suites. 86 guests can stay overnight in total. See also accommodation capacity here.

Q: How much does your wedding venue cost?
A: Unlike probably any other wedding in Wales, the Wedding Venue itself is free under our Special Wedding Offer Package Deal (SWOD).

For the Wedding Breakfast and Welcome Drinks you pay £40 per guest for a minimum of 50, and £12.50 per guest for the Evening Wedding Buffet for those attending the Wedding Breakfast.

The Buffet is £15/head for evening extras not attending the Wedding Breakfast.

You need 50 guests staying overnight at £75 B&B each to qualify for this rate.

It is the B&B use that allows you to have the castle wedding venue exclusive for free. SWOD is our most popular discount package as it encourages weddings to have all their guests for the day and night, all staying under one roof together. See what is included here.

Q: Most of my guests are local so I cannot get 50 guests to stay overnight. What can you offer as an alternative?
A: If you are local, you may consider larger numbers of guests. If you can increase numbers to > 75 at the Wedding Breakfast, the Members Discount Club Tariff (MDC) would work. However to get exactly the same rate as SWOD, you would need > 125 at the Wedding Breakfast. This is because the discounts under MDC are graded according to guest numbers. > 75 guests = 50% off venue hire. > 100 guests = free venue hire except for theatre which has to be hired irrespective of whether you are using it. > 125 = free venue hire and free exclusive use of castle for your wedding in Wales.

No requirement under MDC for any guests to stay overnight, but those that do, provided they join the Club in turn, can stay for £30 per head B&B only. See Members Discount Club here.

Q: I only want a small intimate wedding with 15 - 20 people - do you do small weddings?
A: Bespoke Regular Wedding Tariff (BRT) would apply but the per head rate, when including venue hire, will be around £90-130 a head depending on numbers. So you might be better off just increasing your numbers to 50 anyway.

Say you had 20 people for your wedding in Wales; the cost on BRT would be: Wedding Breakfast: £45.15, Welcome Drinks £5.65, Evening Buffet £17.65, comes to £62.80/ head. Factor in Wedding Venue Hire say for just ONE room - the Conservatory Wedding Reception room at £691 together with the theatre wedding ceremony room at £665, and both rooms for just 20 guests add another £67.80 per head. So in this example the cost would be £130.60 a head. A 25% discount on venue hire applies Sunday through to Thursday.

The Wedding Package (SWOD) at £40 per head or £52.50 per head with evening bufffet works out the same price for 50 as BRT for 20. Multiply 20 X £130.60 = £2,612. But SWOD Wedding Package @ 50 X £52.50 = £2,625. So you are better off on a SWOD Wedding Package deal than BRT, unless you cannot get the 50 overnight guests. You can have 50 guests day and night under SWOD for the same price as 20 guests day and night under BRT PLUS under SWOD Wedding Package you get the whole wedding venue exclusive as opposed to the use of one room only. For price comparison examples between SWOD and BRT see here.

Q: What is your availability?
A: See http://www.weddinginwales.com/

Q: Do you have recommended wedding suppliers?
A: Regular wedding suppliers are featured on this website - go to balloons and scroll through alphabetically to the category you need.

Q: What are the timings and schedule for the wedding day?
A: This site contains a comprehensive Wedding Planner Guide; go through page to page. See specifically the Wedding Day Schedule.

Q: Can I see your rooms individually?
A: There is a room by room guide on this site, starting with en-suite accommodation (scroll through to the room you are interested in, in numerical order).

Q: The £75 B&B tariff under SWOD Wedding Package seems a bit high and I am worried I might not be able to get some or all my guests to stay overnight at this tariff. Can you reduce it?
A: The wedding tariff is fixed but you are gaining over £3,000 of wedding venue hire free, and other savings, by filling up all the accommodation. To encourage more people to stay, you may opt to partly subsidise the guests who are staying and so supporting your wedding. You could pay £15 or £20 per head, to bring the cost for the overnight guests down to £60 or £55 B&B per head. See here for how to ensure you get 50 guests staying overnight.

Q: I understand the Castle is having some renovation work done. Will renovation work affect guests and what changes will take place over the next year or so?
A: Historically we have averaged £300,000 a year on renovation work and adding new en-suites and function rooms at the rate of three or four a year. With the economic downturn this has reduced while routine maintenance tasks take time away from new renovation projects. External work is done during the week in the summer and internal work is done mainly in the slow winter periods when we are not busy with functions. We close 140 days of the year in winter other than when we have functions booked. This allows us to do the more major internal works, when no guests are around.

The following 8 projects should be completed within the next 12 - 18 months:

(1) Repaint function room - changing colour from pale blues to creams and golds. This room is used for the Evening Functions and morning Breakfasts for overnight stayers. It is overdue for some redecorating.
(2) Re-tarmac trenches dug when we laid new water pipes to castle. There are currently temporary gravel surfaces covering the trences.
(3) Complete marble effect floor tiling at back of Conservatory along back wall; floor has temporary carpet here.
(4) Complete paving slabs outside spa area and along rear terrace from Conservatory Patio to Theatre Patio to allow guests to walk between the two terraces on same style paving.
(5) Complete renovation of theatre bedrooms, creating a further family en-suite and kitchen/ diner/ lounge apartment sleeping 6 guests on two levels.
(6) Repaint all windows, front of castle and Nurses Block. All gutters to be painted black as currently they are a mixture of green, cream, grey and black in different parts of the building.
(7) Woodburner stove to Nicolini Lounge.
(8) Various remedial works in the derelict upper areas.

Once the above projects are complete, we plan to complete the Blue Bar Restaurant and upgrade the theatre public loos, or we may move on to build the second Bridal Suite in the 'secret room'. This is a room no one knows about as it is accessed via a tiny private staircase. Which we will do depends on whether we need more en-suites, or whether we get more enquiries for the restaurant. Creating a separate restaurant that is open to non-residents and non-function guests when we have a function on would allow us to increase our current tourist board grading from 3 star guesthouse to 3 star hotel. (A 'hotel' has to have a permanent restaurant whereas a guest house does not.)  

Q: I visited the castle some years ago. What changes / improvements have been made in last year or two?
A: A reasonable amount considering we have cut back:
(1) Wooden character Oak flooring laid to all ground floor rooms from reception hall, through Patti Bar and Function Room up to music room in Jan 2010. This took about 6 weeks to do in the winter, while castle closed.
(2) Nicolini Lounge completely refurbished and redecorated, with new ceiling, new curtains, the old bar taken out, new carpet, and made into a proper reception lounge full of leather chesterfield sofas, club chairs and Queen Anne chairs.
(3) Theatre Left Ground Floor left room gutted and refurbished to prevent ingress of water and rising damp. Theatre porch plaster stripped back to stone, stone walls repaired and repointed, window corners and stone surrounds rebuilt where had collapsed.
(4) New carpets laid in bedroom corridors and stairs to en-suites, replacing the old sun damaged and worn carpets. AB23 also re-carpeted.
(5) Phones and TVs added to more bedrooms.
(6) Windows repainted Nurses Block and Nurses Block exterior repainted. However windows need doing again.
(7) Spa area - external area alongside corridor to spa now decked, repainted and made into a sun-trap seating area.
(8) New water pipes laid from front entrance to theatre end, and into castle main building, and to Nurses Block. This finally resolved a ten year problem with leaks that had led to £18,000 per annum bills for water. Since the new alkafine pipes were laid, our water bills have reduced to circa £4,500 a year - so much lower that the water company suspected (and tested for) a problem with their meter!
(9) 56 New large table lamps bought from 'Coachhouse' and distributed around the bedrooms and function rooms. In the lounges and dining areas these provide low level softer lighting which is preferable to the brighter lights of the overhead chandeliers. Ambience certainly is improved in the evenings and the bedrooms look nicer with the new lamps too.
(10) General tidying up and improvement of garden areas immediately around castle.

Q: What is the deposit if I want to book a date?
(A) £2000 which can be paid in one go or in 8 equal monthly instalments of £250.

Q: How do I arrange a viewing?
A: Go to our viewing request page here.

Q: I don't know how many I will eventually have to my wedding. So how can I book the correct number and can I change my numbers?
A: Initially you only need to book for the minimum number for SWOD (50 for Wedding Breakfast) or MDC (75 for wedding breakfast) and with SWOD you commit to having 50 guests stay overnight. Nearer the date, once your RSVPs are in, you can increase your numbers to the correct level based on the numbers who have confirmed they are coming to your wedding. You cannot however reduce your numbers within two months of the wedding date, as this would incur a late notice cancellation fee of 50% of the reductions.

Q: I am not sure how many evening guests will be hungry so soon after the Wedding Breakfast, so can I reduce the numbers for the Evening Buffet?
A: No. However it is a good idea to schedule your day so there is a long enough gap between the Wedding Breakfast ending and the Evening Buffet starting. Ideally the gap should be at least 3 hours. So if you start your Wedding Breakfast at 3.00 / 3.30, you would tend to finish at 6.00 to 6.30 pm, and the bufet could then go out around 9.00 pm. See information on timing of the Wedding Breakfast and Evening Buffet here.

The SWOD tariff for the evening buffet is a reduced tariff - only £12.50 against £17.65/£23.55 a head for the standard/ superior buffet on the regular tariff (BRT). We used to allow reductions under BRT but do not under the already discounted SWOD rate. Because SWOD is already a reduced rate, we do insist on exact numbers being catered for in line with the number of guests.

However under SWOD, you are able to choose any 6 items from the BRT buffet options Buffet One, 'standard' to Buffet Two, 'superior'. Portion numbers are increased for the cheaper items and decreased for the more expensive items. By selecting some of your six items from the more expensive Buffet Three, this means you can choose some expensive items, to give your guests less 'quantity' but more 'quality'.

Q: What is Exclusive Use under SWOD and MDC?
A: Under SWOD and MDC, provided you get the correct numbers, you are entitled to exclusive use of the ground floor areas of the castle. This includes the function room (Music Room and Billiard Room), the theatre, the Patti Bar, the Nicolini Lounge and Breakfast Room lounge, and the Conservatory.

Exclusive use may not include the Conservatory Bar unless your party is large enough to merit having two bars open (e.g. above 150 or so guests). You must specify you need this extra bar, as most Weddings use the Patti Bar only. This allows the Conservatory Bar to be used as a secondary serving area. It is from here that we plate up the food which the waitresses serve your guests when you are dining in the Conservatory.

You will generally vacate the Conservatory by 8.00 pm and move through to the function room for your evening party. We do not encourage evening parties in the Conservatory due to noise disturbance for residents.

Where there is another wedding on the day after yours, the Conservatory - after you have moved through to the function rom for your evening do - is made available to the next day's Wedding Party. This allows them to set up their wedding tables and decorate the room ready for their wedding day. The Conservatory Bar may also be opened up for guests of the next day's wedding party, or used as a store room by them, or used by guests of the Fright Night if there is a Fright Night running. Since by 8 pm you will have moved through from the Conservatory to the main lounges and function room, this will not affect you.

Exclusive use does not include the upper levels of the castle, known as the 'derelict levels', nor the cellars. These may be used for Ghost Tours and Fright Nights. Ghost tours will not normally operate on a wedding night because they need peace and quiet and the noise of a wedding disco is not acceptable to them. However our Fright Night/ Hen Night customers don't mind a bit of noise and so we may run a Fright Night in the derelict upper levels and cellars on a Wedding Night.

As access to the derelict levels is via the side staircase to the en-suite, 'Fright Night' guests have no requirement at any point to pass through any of the exclusive ground floor areas listed above, nor (aside from booking in) need they visit the main reception and hallways. They stay overnight in the separate 'Nurses Block'.

Exclusive use does not include the ancillary Nurses Block or any bedrooms not booked by your party. Only bedrooms booked by your wedding guests become 'yours' for the day.

Under SWOD you should be booking up all the en-suites, but under Members Discount Club (MDC) tariff, you may not be using all or indeed any of the en-suites. People choose MDC because they and their guests are local, which means only a few will stay overnight. So with MDC weddings, there may well be some non wedding guests in bedrooms your party has not booked, rather than let the rooms you do not book go to waste.

Any non-wedding guests are informed - when they first enquire, when they confirm their booking, and again upon booking in - that they cannot go into any of the ground floor lounges and function rooms, and for evening meals they are directed to the four or five local pubs.

To view our wedding availability website - click below




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