Booking a midweek date, and what it saves

Our midweek hire is £6,400 against £11,800 for a summer weekend. Same barn, same team, same two nights of exclusive use. The difference is the day of the week printed on the invitation.

1. Who actually cannot come

In our experience it is fewer people than couples fear. The guests who travel take a day off either side and treat it as a short holiday; the ones who live locally come straight from work for the evening. The list that shrinks is the outer ring — colleagues, distant cousins — which for a lot of couples is not a loss.

Tell people early. Eight months’ notice of a Wednesday gets a better turnout than four months’ notice of a Saturday.

2. What you get back

Two nights instead of one. Set-up on the Tuesday afternoon with no rush, the wedding on Wednesday, and out by eleven on Thursday. Suppliers are more available and often cheaper midweek, including the photographers and bands who are booked out eighteen months on Saturdays.

3. Winter midweek

November to March, midweek, is £4,900. The barn under candlelight in January is genuinely one of the best rooms we have, and the dates are usually open six months out rather than two years.

4. The one real catch

Guests who stay in the Granary will need the Thursday off too, because nobody leaves a wedding at midnight and drives home on a school night. Sixteen beds go fast. Decide early who gets them.