The Venue
Tournerbury Woods Estate sits on the northern shore of Hayling Island, overlooking Langstone Harbour. It's one of the South Coast's most distinctive wedding venues — 12 acres of private woodland with a sailcloth marquee, a firepit area, and a ceremony space under the tree canopy. The entire weekend is exclusively yours; no shared spaces, no noise restrictions until midnight.
For a mobile bar operation, outdoor estate venues like Tournerbury require the same off-grid planning as a barn venue: generator for power, brought-in water, and a weatherproof setup even in July.
The Setup
We positioned the bar at the edge of the marquee, facing the garden — guests could order from inside or outside, and we had sight of both the dance floor and the firepit area. For a 150-person wedding running until 1am, we deployed the full kit:
- Two bar units in a straight line with separate well stations for speed
- Three bartenders and one bar back — the three-plus-one ratio is our standard for 150+ guests
- 300 litres of ice across insulated bins (no mains power for ice machine)
- Portable generator set 40 metres from the marquee behind the tree line
- Battery-powered bar lighting that ran all night without a top-up
- Full glassware: 200+ pieces cycled across the evening
The Menu
A summer wedding on the coast calls for lighter, longer serves alongside the classics. The couple chose a seven-drink menu:
- French 75 — gin, lemon, champagne; served during the drinks reception on the lawn
- Aperol Spritz — the default summer serve; Aperol, prosecco, soda
- Pornstar Martini — passionfruit, vanilla vodka, prosecco sidecar
- Velvet Bramble — gin, blackberry liqueur, lemon, crushed ice
- Old Fashioned — rye, demerara, aromatic bitters; for the evening session
- Garden Gimlet — cucumber gin, elderflower, lime; the couple's signature serve
- No-groni — zero-proof Negroni riff for non-drinkers
We served 480 cocktails across seven hours. The Garden Gimlet — which the couple named "The Tournerbury" on the printed menu card — was the most ordered serve of the night.
Logistics: Working on Hayling Island
Hayling Island is connected to the mainland by a single road bridge (the A3023). For event suppliers, this means one thing: plan your load-in time carefully, because the bridge bottleneck adds 15–20 minutes during summer weekends. We arrived at 14:00 for a 17:00 ceremony — three hours of buffer for setup, plus contingency for bridge traffic.
The estate has excellent vehicle access once you're on site. The events team provided a load-in map with designated supplier parking, which made the process straightforward. Power was via our own generator; water via jerry cans. The estate has a catering kitchen, but we prefer self-contained setups for weddings — fewer dependencies mean fewer things that can go wrong at the wrong moment.
"The bar was absolutely perfect. The cocktails were incredible, the staff were brilliant, and the setup looked beautiful under the marquee. We couldn't have asked for more."
— Wedding couple, July 2025
Wedding Bar Hire in Hampshire
Wedding bar hire at estate and marquee venues across Hampshire starts from £2,400 for an all-inclusive package. For venues like Tournerbury that run late (past midnight), we add a £200 supplement for the extended shift. We cover Hayling Island, Chichester, Portsmouth, Winchester, and all Hampshire venues within 90 minutes of our base.
