Why weddings?

The people. During the last couple of years, we were approached by three different couples asking to get married at Anarchy Brew Co.

The first were customers of the taproom. They loved the venue already; the bride’s father was in a band and wanted to play at his daughter’s wedding and we offered the flexibility to make that happen.

The second couple were clients we work with in the Marquee and Wedding Hire industry. They could really see the potential for the venue and loved that we were so flexible in letting them dress the space exactly how they wanted to.

And the groom of the third couple was an employee of ours. At first, he didn’t want to get married at his place of work, but because of Covid restrictions, the venue he and his wife initially chose had to close. They asked us if we could step in and it was such an honour to both host and attend their wedding.

It was while we were guests at that third reception that we realised how good it felt to be at a wedding here. The space looked beautiful, the atmosphere was brilliant, all three couples had been really happy and it felt great to be able to offer the venue to them at a reasonable price. It got us thinking about offering weddings full-time.

Anarchy is a brewery first and foremost – what role can your beer play in couples’ weddings?

We have a number of ways couples can incorporate our beer into their wedding day:

• Personalised flyers – our designer, Josh, who designs all our flyers and can labels can produce a personalised flyer for our couples to use as their Save The Dates and can also produce personalised labels which can be placed on our Blonde Star cans as their arrival or reception drinks.
• Seating plan – we can also provide beer mats with all guests’ names on them as part of the couple’s seating plans.
• Hen/Stag dos – we carry out brewery tours for large and small groups at the brewery already, so this could be an option for our couples’ hen and/or stag dos. We can provide tours on their actual wedding day, too.
• Food and beer pairings – although our guests are free to bring in any suppliers of their choosing, we have been working with Jack from The Duck House Pantry, who has produced a range of canapésspecifically chosen to be served with shots or tasters of our beer range. He’s also designed a three-course wedding breakfast paired with our beers, so instead of table wine, our couples can order a beer or wine flight for their guests. He’s also designed a late-night snack pack for guests, containing his famous sausage rolls, a can of our beer and other snacks.

What’s your vision for weddings at Anarchy Brew Co.?

Simply to allow couples to make their wedding day the day they want it to be here – with or without help from us.

We’ve been trading for 11 years now and our staff are experienced in the weddings and hospitality industries. We provide a very organised, professional service for whatever event we host and will be there throughout a couple’s wedding planning journey and on their special day to ensure everything runs smoothly.

We want people to know that we’ll be very flexible, but that we also have professional staff in place to listen and help with any of their needs.

Will Birdcages and Dragonflies be working with couples to plan their wedding at Anarchy Brew Co.?

As part of the wedding package, couples have access to our planning service. They’ll also have a coordinator with them on their wedding day, as well as a master of ceremonies.

We’ll have several meetings at Anarchy Brew Co. – looking at the space and designing how the couple would like to make their wedding day their own. We can recommend suppliers to fit their style and help plan the logistics and timescales of their day.

Couples will always be able to bring in any suppliers of their choice to help bring their day to life. We’ll simply help coordinate them. Couples will also be offered time in our studio for any planning meetings and styling consultations, should they need it, and we’ll always be on the end of an email or phone call.

Where do you find inspiration? 

It sounds cliché, but inspiration can come from anywhere. Usually, I’m inspired by the conversations we have with our couples and what they love most about their venue.

Prior to our first meeting, we tend to ask couples to send us five images from their (normally very extensive) Pinterest mood board. We chat about how they see their day running, which allows me to visualise how the spaces within a venue will be used throughout the day.

We have a full range of all the items we can hire in our studio, so we can see in 3D the different pieces we have to play with. We’ll get the table that either the couple is hiring or the venue is providing, and we’ll physically try out different tablescapes to find out what works.

Once we have a design that the couple is happy with, we’ll work backwards: looking to their ceremony to see where we can use or build on the props and flowers we’ll use on the tables.

Finally, we walk through how guests will travel through the day to ensure that we’re not missing anything and that we can provide different experiences through our style choices whenever and wherever the guests are at any given time.