36 Castle Wedding Venues That’ll Make You Feel Like Royalty

A castle wedding venue is a castle, palace, or château licensed to host a wedding ceremony, a reception or both. The 36 castle wedding venues below range from medieval fortresses in England, Ireland and Germany to American castles built between the 1850s and the 1990s, with the castle wedding venues in the United States listed first.

Compared to a traditional wedding venue, the trade-offs are clear. A castle gives you a room no hotel ballroom can imitate, and in exchange you plan around stone stairs, sound that bounces back off every wall, a great hall that seats fewer people than the lawn holds, and in the oldest buildings, specific rules about candles. Every one of those is manageable once you know to ask about it, and the questions are below.

What Counts as a Castle Wedding Venue?

A castle is a fortified residence built to be defended, a palace is a grand residence that was never meant to hold off a siege, and a château is the French word for either one. A castle wedding venue is any of the three licensed for weddings, and the oldest American castle dates back to 1852.

That last point matters more than the vocabulary. Wedding venues in castles fall into three categories, each of which comes with a rule book.

Medieval castles. Warwick Castle was constructed in 1068, Leeds Castle goes way back to 857 AD but was rebuilt in stone in 1119, and Ashford Castle was founded in 1228. Stone this old belongs to a heritage body or to an operator that has to answer to one, so these weddings must comply with conservation rules: where a marquee can be installed, what can touch a wall, and even how late the music plays.

Revival castles. Most of the American castles below are copies, built for private fortunes between the 1850s and the 1920s in Tudor, Gothic, Scottish Baronial Revival, and French Renaissance styles. Five of them now belong to a city, a county, a state, or a preservation nonprofit, and Hammond Castle is a working museum. The wedding helps pay for the building, so the rules come from the building's other priority.

Purpose-built castles. Ravenwood Castle in Ohio went up in 1994 and 1995 as an inn, modeled on 12th- and 13th-century castles in England and Wales. A castle built in the last few decades was planned around overnight guests, so the plumbing and the heat came with the design.

A manor, or a mansion without battlements, is an estate. If the house matters more to you than the towers, the estate wedding venues directory offers a much wider list.

Pros and Cons of Castle Wedding Venues

A castle gives you scale and privacy, but it also comes with stone and more specifically, stone staircases. Below, a few need-to-know facts about hosting your wedding in a castle.

What a castle does well. The grounds are usually yours alone for the day, and the hotel castles below put your guests to bed on the property, which turns a six-hour reception into a weekend. The rooms come dressed. Paneling, tapestries, carved stone, and chandeliers do the work a ballroom pays a designer for, so the floral budget can go to height instead of coverage. A great hall with a double-height ceiling flattens a low arrangement, and tall wedding centerpieces hold their own against the architecture. Dress for the room as well: a cathedral train that looks excessive in a hotel feels right at home on a stone staircase, which is why royal wedding dresses are the reference point here.

What can go wrong. Capacity is the first surprise, because the lawn typically holds more than the hall. Thornewood Castle seats 125 inside and 200 in its gardens. Cherokee Ranch & Castle accommodates 150 under its Veranda Tent from mid-May to mid-October and 75 in its Great Hall from November through April. Sound comes next. Stone and plaster return every note, so a band balanced for a carpeted ballroom will be too loud in a great hall. Light is the third problem: castle interiors are dark, and candlelit stone photographs only work well when the photographer and videographer are comfortable with flash or video light. Then there are the stairs, which look wonderful on a tower and can slow down every grandparent at the wedding.

What to ask on the tour. Ask for the seated dinner capacity indoors, because that number, as opposed to the lawn number, is your rain plan. Ask whether the building is open to the public on your date and when the last tour ends; museum castles schedule weddings around visitors. Ask about open flame before you design anything around it, since where candles are restricted, candle wedding centerpieces switch to LED pillars or enclosed hurricanes. Ask what can be hung from the walls, what time the music stops, whether the caterer is exclusive, whether heat is included for late fall and winter weddings, and how many guests sleep on site. Our guide to how to choose a wedding venue covers the rest of the contract.

Where Are the Best Castle Wedding Venues Located?

In the United States, castle wedding venues cluster in the Northeast, where New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts hold castles built for American royalty. Properties in Washington, California, Colorado, Texas, Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina make up the rest of this list. Abroad, Ireland, Scotland, England, and France are the premier destinations.

New York has the deepest bench on its own, from a Long Island château to a Gothic Revival castle in Westchester to a Midtown palace, and the New York wedding venues directory carries more of them. California boasts two noteworthy castles, one in Pasadena and another outside San Diego, alongside the broader run of California wedding venues. 

For destination weddings, check where the legal ceremony has to happen before you fall for a castle. French law recognizes only the civil ceremony performed at the town hall, and one partner has to have lived in that commune for at least 30 days. Ireland isn’t exclusive to the country’s residents, but it does require at least three months' notice to a civil registrar. The usual answer for couples from the United States is a legal ceremony stateside and a symbolic one at the castle, and a destination wedding planner who works in the country will know which route the venue expects.

If you want one suggestion instead of 36 options, we encourage you to book a castle your guests can sleep in. A castle that is also the hotel keeps everyone under one roof from the welcome dinner to the farewell brunch, and that is the experience people travel for. A castle that closes at 11 p.m. and sends guests to inns 20 minutes away is a beautiful room you rent for an evening. The trade-off is real. The castles with enough bedrooms are often hotels and resorts, and you give up some of the privacy and the rawer stone of a house museum. There are pros and cons to both, of course, so it comes down to the wedding and accommodations you and your partner prefer.

Here, a look at 36 of the best castle wedding venues in the world.

Castle Wedding Venues in the United States

Seventeen castle wedding venues in the United States follow, with destinations from the West to East Coast, with castle wedding venues in California, New York, and many states between.

International Castle Wedding Venues

Fourteen castles, palaces, and chateaus follow, in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Germany, and India. Several have hosted weddings the tabloids covered, from the Beckhams at Luttrellstown in 1999 to Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas at Umaid Bhawan in 2018, and our roundup of celebrity wedding venues has more.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a castle, palace, château, and manor?

A castle is a fortified residence built to withstand attack, and some still sit behind water. For example, Leeds Castle stands on islands in a lake. A palace is a grand residence that was never fortified, a château is the French word for a castle or a country house, and a manor is the main house of a country estate. Though those are their definitions, castle wedding venues may use one or some of those four words loosely.

Where are the best castle wedding venues in the United States?

New York has the most on this list, with Oheka Castle and Sands Point Preserve on Long Island, Whitby Castle in Rye, and Lotte New York Palace in Manhattan. Outside the Northeast, start with Biltmore in North Carolina, Castle Green and Mt. Woodson Castle in California, Thornewood Castle in Washington state, Cherokee Ranch & Castle in Colorado, and Castle Farms in Michigan.

Can you get married in a castle in Europe?

Yes, and the castles on this list in Ireland, Scotland, and England all host weddings, but the legal side depends on the country. Ireland requires at least three months' notice to a civil registrar. In France, only the civil ceremony at the town hall is legally binding, and one partner must have lived in that commune first for at least 30 days. That’s why we recommend couples from another country get married legally at home and hold a symbolic ceremony at a castle.

What are the benefits of choosing a castle wedding venue?

Exclusive grounds, rooms known for opulence, and at the hotel castles, bedrooms on site, a luxury that turns the wedding into a weekend. The costs are stone stairs, loud acoustics, dark interiors and an indoor capacity smaller than the lawn, so check the rain plan before you fall for the view.

How many guests can castle wedding venues accommodate?

It depends on the castle. On this list, Ravenwood Castle in Ohio caps its whole-property package at 50 guests, Joslyn Castle in Omaha works for 65 for an indoor ceremony, while Saint Clements in Connecticut holds up to 650 reception-style across the estate, and the grounds of Biltmore House can accommodate up to 600. Ask for the indoor seated number, since that’s the one that matters if it rains.

How much does a castle wedding cost?

Exclusivity sets the price more than any other factor. The quote climbs with exclusive use of the whole property, a Saturday in peak season, an overnight buyout of the bedrooms and an in-house caterer, and it drops for a weekday, a ceremony-only booking or a museum castle that rents its grounds rather than its rooms. Ask whether the quote is a flat site fee, like it is at Castle Green in Pasadena, or a per-person package. At the time of publishing, Castle Green pricing was $11,500 from 5 to 10:30 p.m. on Fridays, $14,500 from 5 to 10:30 p.m. on Saturdays, $11,500 from 4:30 to 10 p.m. on Sundays, $8,500 from 4:30 to 10 p.m. on weekdays, and $9,500 for 4:30 to 10 p.m. on weekdays in December.

Can you get married at Hearst Castle?

Yes, outdoors only. California State Parks issues special-event permits for weddings on Hearst Castle's grounds and terraces, but the historic buildings are closed to event guests, events must end by 11 p.m., and requests are due at least 16 weeks ahead. The largest space, the North Unfinished Terrace, holds 250, and every event has to fit around the public tour schedule.

Are there real castles in the United States?

Yes, as long as “real” means stone houses built to look like castles, which describes every American castle. They aren’t medieval, and the oldest American venue on this list, Whitby Castle in Rye, New York, dates back to 1852. The newest, Ravenwood Castle in Ohio, went up between 1994 and 1995. Most were built as private homes and now operate as museums, hotels, or event venues.

Start with a shortlist of three castles. Ask each one for its indoor seated capacity and its open-flame rule, look at the real weddings credited under each venue above, and browse real weddings for the castles that did not make this list.