A fully fitted wedding marquee for 100 guests costs around £10,000 to £12,000 for the structure and interior, or roughly £12,500 to £14,500 once you add facilities like catering tents and luxury loos. Garden parties cost far less. Corporate hire sits on its own scale. The final price comes down to four things: size, specification, how tricky your site is, and where you are. The only way to get a number you can trust is a free site visit.
We've been building marquees since 1988, and in that time we've learned that the same size marquee can cost two clients very different amounts. So when we say we won't quote until we've seen your site, that's not us being cagey. It's the only way to give you an accurate quote.
This guide breaks down what actually drives the cost, what a realistic budget looks like for events across London and the South East, and the extras that catch most people out.
Why there's no single answer to marquee hire prices
A fixed venue is already built. It's been floored, heated, wired and lit long before you booked it. A marquee has none of that until our team turns up with it and builds your venue from scratch.
A 200-guest wedding on a flat lawn with easy access is a very different job to 60 guests in a walled garden up a gravel track, even though the second one is smaller. We've quoted both, and the smaller one has come out dearer more than once.
This is also why online calculators only ever give you a rough figure. They work off guest size, not all the other intricate details involved.
What actually affects the cost of hiring a marquee
Here's where the money goes, roughly in order of how much it moves the price.
| Factor | Impact on price | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Size and structure | Highest | Guest count sets the minimum size. Width costs more than length. |
| Install and dismantle | High | Covers transport, crew, build and take-down over several days. |
| Flooring | Medium to high | Levelling and hardwood add up. Changes the feel completely. |
| Lining and interior | Medium to high | A lined interior turns a tent into a room. |
| Lighting | Medium | Does the most for atmosphere per pound spent. |
| Heating | Medium | Non-negotiable outside high summer. |
| Furniture | Low to medium | Base chairs are cheap. Styled furniture is not. |
| Duration | Lowest | One day or three costs about the same. |
Size and structure
Guest count sets the minimum size, and size is the biggest single driver. Width tends to matter more than length. A wider marquee needs more crew, takes longer to put up and take down, and uses more structure, so the cost climbs faster with width than length.
Clear span structures, with no poles down the middle, cost more but give you a completely open floor. For weddings, where the layout has to flow from ceremony to dinner to dancing, that flexibility usually earns its money back.
Installation and dismantling
All of our quotes include putting the marquee up and taking it down, and it's one of the biggest costs in the whole job. It covers the transport, the crew, the build and the breakdown, usually spread across two or three days either side of your event.
Access changes this more than anything. Tight entrances, long carries from the road, uneven ground and remote sites all add crew time. How we anchor the structure matters too: grass lets us peg in, but hard surfaces need water ballast or concrete weights, which costs more.
Flooring
You've got a real choice here, from matting through carpet to hardwood, at rising prices. Gardens nearly always need levelling first. We spend more time levelling lawns than most people expect, but it's the difference between guests on a slope and a proper floor.
Don't cut flooring to save money. It changes the feel of the space more than almost anything else on this list.
Lining, draping and interior finish
Standard white PVC is the base. A fully lined and draped interior is a different thing, softening the walls and ceiling into something that reads as a real venue. Starlight ceilings and clear roof panels take it further again, and they're priced as the premium options they are.
Lighting
Pound for pound, lighting does more for the atmosphere than anything else, which is why it's the last thing we'd tell you to trim. It runs from warm ambient lighting up to statement chandeliers, with fairy lights, festoon strings, uplighting and pin spotting sitting in between. A marquee lit properly at dusk is what people remember.
Heating and weatherproofing
For any event outside high summer, heating isn't optional. Heated marquee hire adds to the bill, but in a British autumn it's the thing that makes the day work at all. Build it into the budget from the start.
Duration
This one runs against what most people assume. Duration barely moves the price. A marquee up for three days costs a little more than one up for a day, because the expensive parts, the build and the breakdown, happen once either way. So don't rush your event to save money. It won't.
What does marquee hire actually cost in London?
The figures below are approximate UK ranges to help you plan. They aren't fixed prices, and London and the South East can run higher than national averages because of logistics and demand. Your own number comes from a site visit.
Wedding marquee hire cost
| Guests | Marquee element | Facilities on top | Rough all-in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | £2,000 to £5,000 | around £1,000 | £3,000 to £6,000 |
| 150 | £3,000 to £8,000 | around £1,500 | £4,500 to £9,500 |
| 200+ | £4,000 to £15,000 | around £3,500 | £7,500 to £18,500 |
The marquee element covers flooring, lighting, chairs, tables and a dance floor. Facilities cover the things that sit around the edge: a catering tent, luxury toilets and a generator if there's no mains power.
An all inclusive wedding marquee package makes budgeting simpler, because it pulls all of that under one quote instead of leaving you to chase five suppliers and hope the numbers add up.
Party and garden marquee hire cost
Smaller party marquees for 30 to 60 guests cost considerably less, and the price is driven mainly by size, flooring and whether you need heating.
Heating is the thing that shifts a garden party budget the most. It adds cost, but it also means you aren't limited to three months of the year. That's why our winter parties nearly always have it.
Corporate marquee hire cost
Corporate marquee hire varies too much to pin to a range. A one-day product launch and a marquee standing for three months as extra business space are priced on completely different terms. Branding, AV and specialist fit-out all add to the figure.
The extras that often catch people out
These are the costs that turn a tidy budget into an overspend if you forget them.
| Usually in the marquee quote | Usually a separate cost |
|---|---|
| The marquee structure | Catering tent and kitchen |
| Flooring and lining | Luxury toilet trailers |
| Lighting | Generator, if no mains power |
| Tables and chairs | Decorations and florals |
| Install and dismantle | Permits, if your site needs them |
| Event insurance |
None of these are huge on their own. Together they're the gap between the quote and the final invoice, so ask up front what's in and what's out. We'll always tell you straight.
The only way to get a price you can actually rely on
Online calculators give you a ballpark. This guide gives you a ballpark. Neither can see your site. A quote you can trust starts with one of us walking your ground, checking the access, and understanding what you're trying to create.
Before you get in touch, have four things ready:
- Guest count
- Event date
- Venue address or postcode
- Type of event
That's enough for a proper conversation. When you're comparing companies, ask what's included, whether install and dismantle are covered, what happens if the weather turns, and whether anything sits outside the headline price.
Ready to find out what your marquee would cost?
Every quote from Ruby's starts with a site visit. It's free, there's no obligation, and after more than 35 years, it's still the best way we know to price your day.
Request a free site visit.
