Southsea Castle is a beautiful historic venue located right on the seafront with gorgeous features which makes for a lovely wedding venue. There is a spacious marquee for the wedding dinner to take place, and a bar inside. Our guests loved the features and we got some great photos.
It will only be better in two years' time when the sea defences are fully built and the view from the ramparts does not include a large building site.
PLEASE NOTE: It is worth clarifying if you will be allowed access to the venue the day before to set up. We were lucky that there were no events happening so we could: otherwise it all has to be done on the morning of the wedding. Even so, when we arrived on the Friday to set up, the Castle were disorganised and things were not ready for us as had been promised. Again, we were lucky some of our guests volunteered to stay on and finish setting up once the Castle got things ready.
Our experience with the Castle in the months before the wedding was mixed. Communication was poor. We were stood up on our first appointment to view the venue, and our second appointment was taken by someone who seemed surprised to see us and unsure of what exactly he was supposed to be showing us.
Between then and the wedding, our emails and phone calls often went weeks without being answered, despite several followups. This is a significant added stress to consider when trying to plan. The Castle is a busy venue year-round, which was the reason given to us each time.
PLEASE NOTE: it is mandatory to use the on-site caterers (The Courtyard Restaurant). This makes it difficult to coordinate aspects of the wedding as it is not clear which areas are dealt with by the Castle and which by the Courtyard.
Communication with the Courtyard Restaurant was even poorer than with the Castle, with our first attempt to reach out going unanswered for 8 weeks, despite numerous email prompts and daily phone calls. We were often promised a call back within the day which never came; this happened multiple times. Again, this added a significant amount of stress to the whole wedding planning process, especially in the last two weeks.
On the day, the Courtyard catering was incredibly poorly done. Wine which we had paid for was not on the tables, nor was drinking water despite having specifically requested this for speeches. Upon request, some bottles of white wine were gradually brought out, but we never got the full amount of bottles of red or white that we paid for.
We sent a clear table plan with dietary requirements to the caterers 10 days before the wedding. However on the day, guests with requirements were left waiting 30 minutes for their food which was brought out cold after several prompts.
Besides this, smaller details were not correct, for example certain side dishes we had chosen were wrong - this was disappointing as we had spent time and effort planning what we wanted to serve to our guests.
If this had been service in a restaurant we would have been disappointed. As this is a professional venue which you pay a premium price for, it borders on unacceptable.
PLEASE ALSO NOTE: On the day there is no one manager or coordinator to oversee the operation - just several unsure staff. This makes it hard to get things sorted or questions answered.
Some positives: the venue itself is still beautiful and iconically Portsmouth - we still had a great day. They were kind enough to give us flowers leftover from a wedding the day before. However there is so much room for improvement as the potential of the Castle is huge.
