London has an extraordinary choice of luxury hotels for weddings, but they offer very different experiences. There are grand ballrooms built for hundreds of guests and smaller hotels for more intimate celebrations. You’ll also find historic buildings and contemporary spaces overlooking the city.
We’ve been visiting hotel wedding venues across London and speaking to the teams behind them to understand how the spaces work for weddings, beyond what you can see in the photographs.
If you’re considering a luxury hotel wedding in London, these are eight we think are particularly worth knowing about.
1. The Dorchester
Capacity: Up to 380 guests
Style: Grand Park Lane hotel and ballroom
What we love: Wedding guests have their own entrance directly from Park Lane.
The Dorchester is one of London’s best-known hotels, and its Ballroom gives it the scale for a genuinely large celebration. What stood out when we visited was how separate the wedding spaces feel from the rest of the hotel.
Guests can arrive through a private entrance directly from Park Lane. This leads into the marble lobby outside the Ballroom and adjoining event spaces.
Explore The Dorchester on Beyond Weddings →
2. The Ned
Capacity: Up to 140 guests
Style: Historic City hotel and members’ club
What we love: The sixth floor gives you several different spaces to use throughout the wedding.
When we visited The Ned, one of the things that struck us was how separate the wedding spaces feel from the busy hotel and members’ club downstairs. The main spaces sit together on the sixth floor. This part of the building was once used for entertaining by the chairmen of the former Midland Bank.
Rather than spending the entire celebration in one ballroom, guests can move between several different spaces. Original details from the building’s banking days remain throughout, giving the floor a character of its own.
3. The Biltmore Mayfair
Capacity: Up to 250 guests
Style: Contemporary Mayfair hotel with flexible ballroom spaces
What we love: The Ballroom can be divided into separate sections, allowing the layout to change depending on the wedding.
The flexibility of the Ballroom was one of the things that stood out to us when we visited The Biltmore Mayfair. It can be divided in several different ways, giving couples the option to create separate areas for different parts of the wedding rather than working around one fixed room.
There are also smaller spaces within the hotel for more intimate celebrations. The hotel sits just off Grosvenor Square in the heart of Mayfair.
Explore The Biltmore Mayfair on Beyond Weddings →
4. Royal Horseguards & One Whitehall Place
Capacity: Up to 250 guests
Style: Historic Whitehall hotel and events venue
What we love: There are reminders of the building’s history throughout, from its marble staircase to rooms connected with Gladstone and Churchill.
What really stood out on our visit to Royal Horseguards and One Whitehall Place was the history of the building itself. The hotel is connected to One Whitehall Place, where an impressive marble staircase leads up to the main wedding spaces.
These include the Gladstone Library and adjoining Reading and Writing Room. Its position on Whitehall, close to the Thames, also gives it a very different sense of place from the Mayfair and Park Lane hotels on this list.
5. Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park
Capacity: Up to 200 guests
Style: Historic Knightsbridge hotel overlooking Hyde Park
What we love: The Ballroom has its own terrace overlooking Hyde Park, which is unusual for such a central London hotel.
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park sits between Knightsbridge and Hyde Park. Its Ballroom has hosted celebrations for generations.
Its floor-to-ceiling windows and access to a private garden and terrace make it particularly interesting among London’s grand hotel ballrooms, bringing the park into a space that otherwise feels very much part of a traditional London hotel.
Explore Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park on Beyond Weddings →
6. Bvlgari Hotel London
Capacity: Up to 150 guests
Style: Contemporary Knightsbridge hotel
What we love: The Ballroom occupies its own floor of the hotel, reached by dedicated lifts from the lobby.
Bvlgari offers a much more contemporary interpretation of a London hotel wedding. Its Ballroom and adjoining foyer can be hired together, creating a private events floor away from the other areas of the hotel.
The interiors are unmistakably Bvlgari, with a pair of solid silver chandeliers created specifically for the Ballroom.
7. Raffles London at The OWO
Capacity: Up to 450 guests
Style: Landmark historic building transformed into a luxury hotel
What we love: The former Old War Office gives the hotel a connection to London history that would be difficult to recreate elsewhere.
Raffles London at The OWO opened in 2023 following an extensive restoration of the former Old War Office in Whitehall.
Its Whitehall Ballroom is one of the larger hotel wedding spaces in central London, reached via the Grand Staircase, with adjoining spaces that can also be used as part of the celebration. Here, the history and architecture of the building are as much a part of the setting as the Ballroom itself.
8. Shangri-La The Shard
Capacity: Up to 100 guests
Style: Contemporary hotel with panoramic London views
What we love: The London skyline becomes part of the setting throughout the wedding.
Shangri-La The Shard offers a clear contrast to the grand ballrooms elsewhere on this list. Sitting high above London, its wedding spaces are designed for a smaller guest list, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out across the capital.
For couples considering a contemporary London hotel rather than a traditional ballroom setting, the location and views are the defining features here.
Choosing a Hotel Wedding Venue in London
The right London hotel will depend on more than which ballroom you like most. Guest numbers are an obvious starting point, but it is also worth looking at how private the wedding spaces are, how the different rooms work together and how guests will move between them throughout the day.
Some hotels have private entrances or dedicated event floors. Others keep the wedding much more connected to the rest of the hotel. These differences can have a big impact on how the day feels, even between hotels with similar capacities.
If you’re still deciding whether a hotel is right for you, our guide to getting married in London covers the wider choice across the city, including historic buildings, private clubs and other types of venue.
You can also explore our wedding venues across England, including more venues in London as well as options elsewhere in the country.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most of the hotels featured here are licensed for civil ceremonies. Always confirm the ceremony room, capacity and licensing directly with the hotel before committing to anything.
As a general rule, 18 months ahead is sensible for most of the hotels on this list. For the most sought-after venues and peak Saturday dates, two years is not unrealistic. The overall advice is to enquire as soon as you have a shortlist, even if your date is still flexible. Knowing what is available often helps couples make the decision faster than they expected.
Most London hotel wedding venues offer private event spaces within a working hotel rather than exclusive use of the whole property. If sole use of an entire venue matters to you, country house venues outside London are generally better suited. Our guide to exclusive use wedding venues outside London covers the best options.
They work well for this, which is part of why they remain popular with international couples. Most hotels on this list have substantial bedroom numbers or can recommend nearby partner hotels. Heathrow and St Pancras make London genuinely accessible for guests arriving from Europe, North America and beyond.
Browse all wedding venues in London on Beyond Weddings.