Your venue is one of the first things you need to consider when getting married. You cannot have a stunning wedding without the ideal venue place to tie the knot. But what if a traditional wedding venue is not your thing?
That’s where all the real wedding fun begins. You and your partner get to choose from a truly unique collection of alternative places to host your wedding, including crumbling castles, romantic gothic buildings, enchanted gardens, or haunted cells. You’ll have a magical and unique wedding experience that will stick in your guests’ memories forever. A unique setting also makes the perfect backdrop to your wedding photos, so you’ll get the best of both worlds!
Now, you’re looking for a unique place for your big day but don’t know where to start. Let us help you with wedding planning. Discover the best gothic-themed, haunted, spooky, and creepy wedding venues the UK has to offer.
Top Haunted Wedding Venues
Walworth Castle, Durham
Walworth Castle is located in Darlington, the North East of England. It’s a Grade 1 listed medieval castle built in 1189 and set on 18 acres of grounds, making it one of the best gothic wedding venues, especially for a unique outdoor wedding.
The Walworth Castle’s team offers bespoke and tailor-made wedding packages to your requirements, ensuring you have an amazing wedding.
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Now, onto the spooky part. This gothic castle is said to be haunted by a maid who was bricked into the castle’s spiral staircase wall after falling pregnant by the Lord of the house. Guests have reported many paranormal activities, including sightings of the maid’s ghost, teacups rattling at night, and crying from behind the staircase.
Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire
Yet another one of the famous haunted wedding venues, Tutbury Castle, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It’s a one-of-a-kind venue that offers midnight Gothic weddings and hand-binding ceremonies, so this venue is perfect for a dark wedding night.
Getting married to your significant other in the floodlit ruins of an 11th Century castle with pipers and harpists serenading you and your wedding guests at midnight sounds heavenly. But what makes it a unique wedding venue or, to say the least, scary?
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Its bloody past of war, torture and death includes the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots, who was held captive at Tutbury by Elizabeth I four times. So, Tutbury Castle is well known for its ghost hunts.
The castle was destroyed for being a royal base in 1647, but Mary is still said to roam the castle’s corridors. She was recently seen by archaeologists during a castle dig and appeared in front of 40 guests in the south tower in 2004.
Tutbury Castle embraces its haunted reputation and not only encourages couples to hold a second, torch-lit midnight wedding but suggests they take part in a ghost hunt around the castle grounds as part of their celebration.
Muncaster Castle, Cumbria
Muncaster Castle is a beautiful venue for a wonderland wedding, whether it’s an intimate wedding or a lavish wedding ceremony with many guests. You can choose from the Great Hall, Drawing Room, Formal Dining Room, Billiard Room, Guard Room, or the Library, all of which are breathtaking rooms for a romantic wedding.
This unique place is also home to several ghosts, including a girl murdered nearby and 16th-century jester Thomas Skelton (aka Tom the Fool), who plays tricks on the resident family, their staff, and their guests. Visitors to Muncaster often talk of hearing footsteps on the corridor at night, a girl crying, temperatures plummeting for no reason, and seeing door handles turn.
Suppose you don’t like one of these haunted venues. In that case, the following goth selection might be better for your type of wedding, especially if your idea of a fairytale wedding venue involves forgotten lands and secret gardens with outdoor chandeliers private lakes near you.
Prison Wedding Venues
If you have a particularly morbid fascination, why not have you and your guests incarcerated for your wedding?…
Bodmin Jail, Cornwall
Bodmin Jail is reportedly one of the most haunted venues in Britain and runs its fright night tours in the form of ghostly sleepovers hosted by a clairvoyant. It was built in 1779 and was the location of 55 hangings, including those of a woman who drowned her disabled son and whom many visitors claim to have heard weeping.
It’s the perfect venue for themed weddings, especially those who love Halloween!
Best Gothic Wedding Venues
If your idea of a fairytale wedding venue involves forgotten lands and secret gardens with outdoor chandeliers and private lakes, these venues should tickle your fancy.
Lost Orangery, Wiltshire
Set within 500 acres of private grounds that once belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh’s old hunting lodge, the Lost Orangery features a beautiful boating lake and valley, enchanting woodlands, and a crumbling castle.
Lost Orangery is a countryside venue for your dream wedding, a little slice of Venetian heaven tucked away in Wiltshire. You can hire it for a whole weekend for an unforgettable gothic experience. It’s ideal for a magical wedding with a large expanse of private grounds, Georgian-style architecture, sparkling water features, evergreen palm trees, lawns, a cloister, a thatched Boathouse, and an outdoor chandelier.
Carlton Towers, North Yorkshire
Has your wedding planner not mentioned the Carlton Towers? You’re missing out! It’s a versatile venue, a Grade 1 listed Victorian Gothic house spread on six floors, built in the 1700s and set on 250 acres of land. It’s the real family home of Lord and Lady Gerald Fitzalan Howard, making it a unique venue for your wedding reception.
Carlton Towers features an imposing clock tower, sweeping staircases, wood-panelled drawing rooms, and double-height picture galleries and promises to bring you all the grace of Downton Abbey with the magic of Hogwarts.
Le Petit Chateau, Northumbria
Le Petit Chateau is a wedding suite with a wide array of wedding packages and late availability special offers. It’s daring and eccentric, dressed from ceiling to floor in luxury antiques.
Its licensed wedding spaces include:
- A thatched ceremony room styled like a French chapel, complete with gilt chandeliers and a grand marble fireplace.
- An outdoor terrace featuring a retractable roof.
- A chateau ballroom that opens out onto the secret Mediterranean gardens featuring 16ft plans and a fire in a water feature.
Gothic? Alternative? It’s whatever you want it to be.
Cave Wedding Venues
Whispers of illicit intrigue abound here; perfect for more intimate gothic weddings.
Old Ship Brighton
The Old Ship Hotel is a historic Georgian hotel built in 1559, with one-third of its rooms overlooking Brighton’s famous beach. It’s one of the people’s favourite alternative wedding venues due to its rich history; both Charles Dickens and Winston Churchill paid it a visit.
Its Wine Cellars form part of a series of smugglers’ tunnels that were only discovered during restorations in the 1990s. It’s perfect for a DIY wedding; imagine styling it up as your very own smuggler’s den, lined with bottles of whisky, barrels of ale, old-fashioned pistols, loot, and even a smugglers’ story-telling corner.
Smugglers’ Tunnels & Drinking Dens
Banqueting House Under Croft
Are you looking to have your wedding at one of the best drinking den venues in the UK? King James I created the shadowy vaulted Undercroft of the Banqueting House as a drinking den for him and his royal favourites. Not many venues can achieve their degree of privacy with shell grottos and hidden, dark spaces beneath the vaults.
Its fabulously arched party space can be lit to haunt or to impress – perfect for an alternative wedding day.
Magic & Macabre
Fuel your celebrations with spells of mystical illusion and grisly suggestion…
House of Magic, London
Simon Drake’s House of Magic is one of the most extraordinary and enchanting venues you could hope to find. After all, that’s what you can expect from a renowned magician – a lavishly decorated mansion with enchanted gardens, haunted portraits, fascinating curiosities, clockwork toys, black magic books, creaking doors, distant thunders, and even howling wolves.
This venue isn’t something you find every day. However, it might be the perfect setting for your wedding day if you and your partner love the magic show and magic tricks.
The Witchery, Edinburgh
With a decadent hideaway with lashings of gothic history and plenty of charisma, The Witchery is one treasure of a venue ideal for your wedding. The venue offers a Secret Garden and a private terrace. You can dress and style each room of The Witchery to suit your wedding dress and style – not that we think you’ll want to: it’s practically perfect in every way.
Malmaison, Oxford
Malmaison in Oxford is a former prison-turned-hotel, and its ‘A Wing’ can now be exclusively hired for weddings.
Marry and host your reception in the atrium, and let your guests become inmates as they sleep in the surrounding ‘cells’ (each converted from three adjoining former cells).
Ocean Kave, Westward Ho!, Devon
The award-winning, wonderfully secluded, yet easily accessible Ocean Kave is as decadent as a cave can get. It’s hidden among 60 acres of private grounds within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, close to the beautiful golden sandy beach at Westward Ho.
You’ll enjoy unparalleled views over the Atlantic and a tailored experience in a world-class idyllic, private and magical coastal setting, perfect for an elaborate large seaside wedding, a smaller wedding, or even a micro wedding.
Bottom Line
Looking for Alternative Wedding Venues Just Got Easier!
Every wedding is different, meaning you should always find what works for you and your partner. Your wedding may be unique only if you take the time to make it that way. Fortunately, our hand-picked wedding venue set can help you along the way. The venues mentioned above are the perfect way to host an unforgettable wedding in every way possible!
