Plymouth's best wedding venues: Barbican to Royal William

Plymouth has a surprising range of wedding venues, and a lot of them lean on the city's maritime history. If you want something with character, the Custom House on the Barbican is hard to beat. It's a Grade II listed building on the waterfront, designed by David Laing and finished in 1820, and it spent most of its life as an Excise office before a full renovation that began in 2018. Inside, it's three storeys of Victorian architecture, with high ceilings, oak panelling and a big fireplace in the main hall, which takes up to 240 guests, while the other rooms hold up to 130. There are seven licensed ceremony spaces in total, a cinema room, a Sonos system and a Cellar Bar built into the old cellar with its exposed brick ceilings. Menus are bespoke and made from local ingredients, the alcohol licence runs until 1am and there's room for 16 people in harbourside apartments reached by a stone spiral staircase.

For something more traditional, the Duke of Cornwall Hotel on Millbay Road has been around since 1863 and is one of the city's first luxury hotels, built in the Victorian Gothic style and only a short walk from Plymouth Hoe. The Ballroom seats up to 300, with 250 standing, and the other rooms include the vaulted Dining Room with its chandelier, the Millbay Suite and the Hayward Room. It handles civil ceremonies, wedding breakfasts and evening parties, with packages like the Drake, Mayflower and Grand Duke that add things like red-carpet entrances, professional pianists and a four-poster suite. There are 72 individually designed bedrooms in total, four-poster wedding suites among them.

At the larger end of the scale, the Crowne Plaza Plymouth sits on Armada Way at the top of Plymouth Hoe, a few minutes from the city centre and the Barbican. It has 211 recently refurbished rooms and can take up to 450 guests across its meeting and event spaces. The Mariner Suite is the biggest at 398 square metres, seating up to 500 for a reception and 450 theatre-style, with the Commonwealth, Walter Raleigh and Astor suites taking 130, 120 and 45 respectively. There's a leisure club with a 15-metre indoor heated pool, sauna and steam room, an alcohol licence until 1am and in-house catering.

And if you'd rather something smaller and more relaxed, Bistrot Pierre Plymouth sits in the New Cooperage building at Royal William Yard, with a large outdoor terrace looking over a big lawn. The restaurant floor takes up to 100 people, and it hires out privately for weddings and other celebrations with in-house catering and an alcohol licence until midnight.

Across the board, Plymouth venues tend to be close together, with many within a quarter-mile of the centre, and prices generally sit between £20 and £88 a head, with room hire starting at around £525. The Barbican in particular is worth a look for the backdrop alone, with the highest concentration of cobbled streets in Britain and around 100 listed buildings, plus the Mayflower Steps, the National Marine Aquarium and the Royal Citadel all within easy reach.