Snape Maltings began in 1846 as a working malthouse on the banks of the River Alde, built by the Suffolk businessman Newson Garrett and expanded through the rest of the nineteenth century into one of the county's biggest barley malting operations. It stopped malting in the 1960s, and rather than falling derelict it was reinvented by the composer Benjamin Britten, who saw the largest of the old malthouses as the permanent home his Aldeburgh Festival needed. Converted in 1966 and 1967 and reopened by the Queen, then rebuilt again after a serious fire in 1969, the concert hall that emerged is now an 832-seat venue still carrying its Victorian industrial bones. The site is run today by Britten Pears Arts, and the surrounding reedbeds and riverside walks along the Alde are as much a part of a Snape wedding as the buildings themselves.
Weddings at Snape Maltings take in the wider site rather than just the concert hall itself — terraces looking out over the reedbeds and the river, and function spaces within the old maltings buildings, giving couples a genuinely unusual backdrop that very few Suffolk venues can offer.
Where the band plays
The venue's own events team can talk through which of the maltings spaces suits your numbers and your ceremony plans, and a riverside terrace reception is a different brief for a band to a full maltings hire.
How the evening runs
There's no published sound-limiter figure or fixed curfew for live music on the wedding side of the site, so it's worth asking directly when you book, especially given the concert hall's own acoustic history.
Bands available in Suffolk and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in Suffolk.
- Suffolk Wedding Bands
- Suffolk Events Bands
- Tribute Acts in Suffolk
- Wedding DJs in Suffolk
- Corporate Entertainment in Suffolk
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.