While hotels are often more well-known as holiday destinations, they can also make for truly incredible party venues. When you choose to book a hotel as a party venue, there are many unique features that come part and parcel with the experience. Hotels often host multiple parties or weddings each month and as such, are very well practiced at making sure everything goes as planned.
When to start searching for a venue?
When organising an event, selecting your venue is the first thing you should start thinking about. How far in advance you should book the venue depends on what kind of event you are celebrating or when. If you wait too long, then the function rooms available at professional venues may be booked up months in advance. This is especially true of Christmas parties or the New Year, so make sure to have your chosen venue booked well ahead of time.
Sending invitations to your guests early is a good idea as well, especially if they have to travel a long distance to attend, giving your guests time to plan how to get to your party location makes logistics a lot easier. Because even if you don’t send invites, as you are still unsure of the location of your party, ensuring your guests know in advance that you are planning an event and when is important so your guests can pencil the date in their diaries.
The advantages of holding your party in a hotel
- Logistics are easier to manage when you have an experienced team to help you set up your decorations and dining.
- There is a sense of anticipation you feel when going to an event that is entirely different from organising a party in your home.
- Guests that have travelled a long way to attend can book in to the hotel as a guest to stay overnight before heading back.
- The catering of your party, whether a three course meal or just nibbles for your guests will be taken care of by professional chefs to your specifications.
- The hotel may have decorations for the event already in stock, so you won’t have to buy them.
- No cleaning! The clean up after the party will be taken care of by the hotel staff.
Catering
Our chefs are seasoned professionals who take pride in their menus and are capable of high quality catering for a hungry crowd. Sending out a menu for guests to select their dishes from ahead of time is a great way to ensure there are no surprises on the day.
If you have guests that are vegetarian or vegan, allergic to peanuts or gluten intolerant, these are all things that the chefs will have to know ahead of time, so they can prepare separate dishes for those guests. If a guest is particularly sensitive to a specific ingredient, then it may be necessary to exclude it from the menu.
If in doubt, ask if you can do a menu tasting ahead of time. This will allow you to sample the dishes and decide what you would like to have served to your guests.
Drinks
Many of the world’s most famous cocktails where originally created by hotel barmen. Most hotel venues will have a wide variety of wines and other spirits available for your event. Placing wine out on tables is a good idea if you are serving a full meal for your guests. If you aren’t serving a meal, just nibbles, then having the bar open from the start will kick the proceedings off with a bang.
The Warehouse Bar has a wine list that is second to none, with an extensive list of cocktails and spirits for you to try. If you are ever in doubt about what you want to make available to your guests, then our staff will be happy to discuss the drinks available. Some of our wines pair particularly well with certain dishes and we can recommend a host of combinations for you to try.
Decorations
If you use a blank canvas like a marquee for your event, this means that you then need to order decorations and furniture for your guests. At a hotel venue the furniture and accessories you need such as glasses, cutlery and tablecloths will already be in stock.
The function rooms of One Warwick Place Hotel are fully furnished and if you decide you want extra decorations for your event, then we have a list of approved suppliers that have done good work for our guests before. Using hotel approved suppliers means that they have a proven positive track record at the party venue.
Capacity
Before booking your hotel venue, ensure you look at the minimum and maximum guest numbers for the venue. Many venues have specific rules and regulations regarding how many guests they can host at a time.
Options for pre-paying for the wine for each table, or even having an open bar event can be negotiated with the venue. While party venues attempt to be flexible with their timing and any changes to events it can be difficult to make last minute changes. Many hotels organise the meals and nibbles on a guest to guest basis ahead of time, so sudden changes to the plan such as inviting an extra ten people a few days before the event may not be possible.
With experienced chefs and beautiful function rooms, One Warwick Park offers an excellent service for customers looking to throw the party of the year!
If you are interested in hosting an event with One Warwick Park Hotel as the venue, then please contact us here. Our friendly and professional staff would be happy to discuss all our venue has to offer for your event.
