The Lawn Rochford, Essex -- Wedding Venue Review

The Lawn is a historic 16th century building, which is a family run business in Rochford, Essex, and holds a license for civil ceremonies.
The beautiful gardens, picturesque fountain and of course the long lawn itself make a delightful spot for a wedding ceremony to take place.

Described as a “no worries wedding” -- the Lawn can cater for around 100 wedding guests for a meal. However, the size of the building allows a lot more guests for a big party should you invite further evening guests. When you hire the Lawn for a wedding, you get the entire house to yourself for the whole day, there is no concern of bumping into another bridal party, and the management allow you access from around 9am to prepare for your special day. It really is “Exclusively Yours”.

Although there is no accommodation available at the Lawn, the bride is encouraged to get ready in one of their rooms upstairs. With a delightful balcony overlooking the gardens, these rooms are relaxing for the bride and yet spacious enough for the bride’s entourage of hairdressers, make-up artists, mother-of-the-bride and so on….!

For the groom, they have the opportunity of arriving in style and taking advantage of the heli-pad that the wedding venue has to offer. Should you not fancy arriving at your wedding feeling a little queezy with wobbly legs, there is more then enough parking available for you and your guests.

From the moment you first set foot on the property, the staff are delightful and pleasant to deal with. David, part of the family that run the business, seems truly proud of what they have achieved there over the years that they have been operating as a wedding venue. Nothing seems to be too much of a problem for the team, and they have a genuine desire to ensure your wedding day is nothing short of perfect.

Once inside The Lawn you are greeted by the “Blue Room” which is a long room, decorated nicely with antiques and a long mirror. This room immediately strikes you as the perfect room for wedding guests to relax and enjoy the goings-on around them. This is the reception room, where wedding guests congregate before the wedding ceremony.

From the Blue room, you walk into the Grand Hall which is used for both the ceremony and the wedding meal. This Grand Hall is absolutely perfect for personal intimate weddings, and can hold around 70 seats for guests to witness the ceremony. Surrounded by the upstairs balcony which overlooks the Grand Hall, you are instantly drawn to the stunning main feature in the building, the sweeping staircase. Making a fantastic point for the bridal entrance into the ceremony, the staircase makes a sensational feature for any wedding and a unique place for formal photographs.
Once the ceremony is over, the chairs are removed from the Grand Hall and replaced with the tables for the
wedding meal, which have been quietly hidden away behind screens in the Club Room just to the side.
In the corner, through a doorway lies the licensed bar area. Giving the feel of a small country style bar, this room is perfect in size and comfortable for any wedding guests who wish to sit in there. The reasonably priced bar remains closed before and during the ceremony, and The Lawn offer an outside bar on the terrace if the weather permits it.

Wedding Receptions at the Lawn

As mentioned previously, the wooden floored Club Room to the right of the Grand Hall which earlier held the tables for your meal, later becomes the setting for the dance-floor. Again, a well sized room perfect to hold a wedding DJ or band, and leave plenty of space for a dancing crowd.
During the evening wedding reception, The Lawn seamlessly changes face again, by removing some of the tables from the Grand Hall, replacing the top table as the buffet table, and the whole building opens up for guests to move freely from the bar, through the Grand Hall, dance-floor area, Blue Room, outside terrace, or take a spot on the 1st floor balcony overlooking the entire event.

The catering is all done on site, but outsourced to a private firm of caterers who work as their resident catering company. Couples may be put-off by the fact that they are unable to choose their own catering firm, but there is no need. Mussel Limited are a professional firm of caterers, who provide an excellent choice of menus and are equally as flexible when it comes to your wedding meal. A selection of set menus are available at very reasonable prices (with no sneaky add-ons) and Mandy will happily allow you to mix and match different courses from different menus to suit your requirements. A discounted children’s menu is also available for your younger wedding guests.
Their food is fresh, very tasty, and delivered to the tables by their highly trained staff.

The grounds around the main building are perfect for wedding photos, with the fountain and trees around the lawn itself, and some outdoor steps with the main building as a fantastic backdrop creating wonderful photograph opportunities. One fantastic memorable photo treasured by most couples, requires the wedding photographer to take their place on the first floor balcony, whilst the entire wedding party congregate on the lawn outside in front of the fountain. A unique photo opportunity with beautiful results to be treasured.

Should the weather let you down on your special day, then the interior design of The Lawn creates an equally impressive background for your formal photos, with both the staircase and Blue Room ideal indoor photographic locations.

Local area -- Rochford Essex

The only downside we could find is that The Lawn do not offer accommodation. The bride & groom along with their wedding guests need to find accommodation nearby. With Southend not so far away, it should be considered an option as Rochford only has 2 hotels to offer. Local hotels are the Essex County which is largely dire in every aspect, and the Maison Renouf which is fairly nice but whose staff require some serious training in how to deal with customers. I’ve stayed at both and would recommend your guests to the Maison Renouf above the Essex County any day, Renouf also has a bridal suite on offer, but it doesn’t come cheap.

Overall, we highly recommend The Lawn as a beautiful setting for a wedding, with helpful and friendly staff who will make your day as special as possible. If you are planning a wedding in Essex, and have around 60-80 daytime guests with more evening guests, then speak to the Lawn today.

The Lawn offer discounted hire rates for ceremonies booked on weekdays and is available for hire 7 days a week, for further details, contact them here :

The Lawn
Hall Road
Rochford
Essex
SS4 1PJ
Telephone: 01702 203701
Web: The Lawn

Find the Lawn in Rochford :
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DID YOU HAVE YOUR WEDDING DAY AT THE LAWN ? IF SO, LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW ON YOUR EXPERIENCES.

DO YOU RUN A WEDDING VENUE IN ESSEX ? IF SO, WE’D HAPPILY VISIT YOUR VENUE AND WRITE A SIMILAR ARTICLE. Please contact us for details.

Video clip of a wedding reception held at the Lawn courtesy of EssexFilms.co.uk who create professional wedding DVDs for you to treasure forever -- visit their website for further details.

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