Few addresses in London can match Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. A UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Thames, it is at once a serious scientific institution, one of the great botanical collections on earth and a landscape of lawns, long vistas and glasshouses that people travel from the other side of the world to walk around. Marrying here means all of that becomes the backdrop to your day, which is a hard thing for any other venue to beat.
Kew’s classic wedding threads three of its loveliest spaces together. You marry in the Nash Conservatory, an enchanting nineteenth-century glasshouse with light pouring in from every side. Drinks follow in the Princess of Wales Conservatory or out on the Sir Joseph Banks Lawn, and while your guests are settling in you are whisked off on an escorted buggy tour through the gardens for photographs — an unfairly good half-hour, and one of the details couples talk about long afterwards. Dinner and dancing then happen in the Orangery, a Grade I listed building of real elegance, long and light and grand without being remotely stuffy.
The package takes up to 200 guests for the ceremony, the reception and the dinner-dance alike, and you have exclusive use of your chosen venue for the evening. Hire runs from 4pm to midnight, with extra hours available on request, and weddings are taken from early January through to 22 December. It is not an inexpensive day — it is Kew — but very few places in the country give you the same sense of occasion, or the same gasp from guests walking through the gate.
Where the band plays
The Orangery is the room for a band, and Kew is refreshingly specific about what works in it: line-ups of up to seven pieces are permitted there, with tighter limits elsewhere on site — five in the Temperate House, four at Cambridge Cottage. That means a proper soul or function band with a rhythm section, brass and vocalists is entirely possible, but the line-up needs settling against the venue you choose rather than the other way round. Bands also need £5 million of public liability cover, and at some venues Kew asks you to work with its approved entertainment suppliers, so it is worth having that conversation early rather than after you have fallen for someone.
Sound, and how the evening runs
Kew operates a site-wide 85 decibel limit, with readings taken at intervals through the evening, and all music must be performed inside your chosen venue rather than out in the gardens. That sounds restrictive, and it does need respecting, but a good band handles it without breaking stride: it mostly means a smaller PA, electronic or well-controlled acoustic drums, and an engineer keeping an eye on the meter. Tell your band the figure when you book and they will plan for it. With the hire running to midnight, the usual shape is dinner, speeches and then a couple of sets that carry you right to the end. Parking is limited, with a private car park on Kew Green at weekends only, so agree load-in and unloading with the events team in advance — it is the one piece of planning musicians will thank you for.
Bands available in London and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in London.
- Wedding Bands in London
- Events Bands in London
- London Tribute Acts
- London Wedding DJs
- London Corporate Entertainment
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.