The Celtic Manor began as a 19th-century manor house in the woods at Coldra, high above the Usk valley just outside Newport, and it has grown into something far larger without ever quite losing that original building. The resort now spreads across a swathe of Monmouthshire countryside, with championship golf courses, spas, restaurants and a hotel of real scale, and it is best known beyond Wales for hosting the 2010 Ryder Cup. For a wedding, that scale is the point: very few venues in south Wales can take a guest list of several hundred without anybody feeling squeezed.
There is more than one wedding here, in the sense that there is more than one venue. The Resort Hotel holds the Caernarfon Ballroom, a pillarless room with high ceilings and chandeliers that handles anything from 250 to 800 guests and has its own bar and a dance floor to match. Alongside it, the Beaumaris Suite is a self-contained space for 80 to 120 through the day and up to 170 in the evening, and the Rooftop Garden and Terrace offers something altogether more relaxed for 80 to 130, with a summerhouse and a smokehouse barbecue. Over in the original Manor House, the panelled Hedleys room with its stained glass and open fires suits 30 to 50, while the Manor Suite takes 60 to 110 for dinner and 170 later, with a paved patio over the gardens for photographs.
Add the golf club and the Twenty Ten Clubhouse, the Hunter Lodges in the valley and Newbridge on Usk, and the resort can dress itself up or down to suit almost any kind of day. Guests stay on site, which removes the usual late-night taxi scramble entirely.
Choosing the room your band will love
Because the spaces here differ so much in size and character, the room you pick shapes the music more than it would at a smaller venue. The Caernarfon Ballroom is the one built for a big, brassy, horn-section sort of night — pillarless, tall and designed for production, so a larger line-up with proper lighting looks entirely at home. The Manor Suite and Hedleys are warmer, more domestic rooms where a compact four or five-piece, or an acoustic set through dinner, will sit better than a wall of amplification. Worth asking the events team early which room your numbers point to, because the answer changes what you should be booking.
Drinks, dinner and the run to the end of the night
Ceremony spaces, drinks terraces and dining rooms are close together, so the day flows without long marches between buildings, and in summer the rooftop terrace or the manor gardens make a lovely stop for canapes and something acoustic. The resort runs weddings constantly and its team will give you a clear finish time for your particular room and date — do pin that down when you book, along with any limit on volume, since a big hotel with bedrooms above the function space usually has one. Load-in is as easy as it gets: dedicated event access, lifts, and staff who deal with touring production all year round.
Bands available in Cardiff and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in Cardiff.
- Cardiff Wedding Bands
- Cardiff Events Bands
- Tribute Acts in Cardiff
- Wedding DJs in Cardiff
- Corporate Entertainment in Cardiff
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters at Venues: What You Need to Know. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.