• Time from Port Talbot to Craig y Nos Castle Wedding Venue:
  

     39 minutes

• Distance from Port Talbot to Craig y Nos Castle Wedding Reception Venue: 24 miles
  

(1) The opera house for your wedding ceremony, where you will be the star of the show, on stage, before all your guests

(2) Welcome drinks in the Nicoloni Room, our main reception lounge (or outside in gardens if weather is fine)

(3) Your wedding breakfast in our 120 seater conservatory with fabulous views overlooking the Brecon Beacons National Park

(4) Evening wedding party and late night disco in our evening function room and music room, with resident's bar.

Port Talbot Wedding Theme ideas, or Wedding Decor and Wedding Gift Ideas, based on Port Talbot's history, style and culture.

Link your wedding theme, wedding decor and wedding favours to the history, style and sense of place in Port Talbot.

Your wedding theme may be linked to your own past, to key moments in your relationship with each other, your favourite colours, your personal tastes, or you may incorporate some elements of your home area within Port Talbot into your wedding day 'story book'.

When considering wedding decor you may already have plenty of your own ideas for your wedding. Or maybe you are still looking for inspiration?

Reflect the story of Pontardawe in your decor, to connect your personal history in your home city's roots, and your family's location in Port Talbot. You may get some ideas from the quick history of Port Talbot below, its buildings, street names, or local transport routes etc.


Interesting Facts About Port Talbot you may not know and could use in your wedding theme/ decor/ story:

1. Population: 37,276. Farming ditches found at Margam date back to 14,000 BC. Original town and port called Aberavon was established in C.11th.

2. The predecessor to the Beagle was bred at Port Talbot. It was known as the Talbot dog, a small white dog, bred by local landowner John Talbot.

3. Margam Abbey was founded in 1147. It may have accuonted for much of the trade in Aberavon Port. After the Abbey's dissolution in 1536, it is understood Aberavon port suffered a decline as writers of the time described it as a town that was struggling.

4. Copperworks opened in 1770. The river Afan was diverted and a new dock opened, in 1839, named after the Talbot family. Hence the name Port Talbot. The Talbots also built Margam Castle. The Talbot ironworks opened in 1831.

5. Talbot's daughter Emily Charlotte Talbot (1840–1918) inherited her father's fortune and created the port and railways to attract business away from Cardiff and Swansea. The Port Talbot Railway and Docks Company opened a dock at Port Talbot, serviced by Llyfni Railway which opened in 1897. By 1900, the dock was exporting 500,000 tons of coal and by 1923, over three million tons. Today the port imports iron ore and coal for use by the Port Talbot Steelworks. But Port Talbot will resume coal mining again - a deep coal mine is planned in the Margam area to supply coal to the steelworks for 15 years.

6. Port Talbot is today the home of one of Europe's largest integrated steelworks with 18,000 employees - the largest employer in Wales. In 1960 the BP chemical plant at Baglan Bay opened. Port Talbot is said to be the most polluted town in the UK, outside London.

7. Port Talbot is home to the BOC Industrial Gases plant, a biomass power station and a gas-fired power station as well as the steelworks.

8. There are plans to build the largest biomass station in the world at Port Talbot. It will use wood imported from Canada and be able to power half the homes in Wales.

9. The borough of Port Talbot was created in 1921, comprising Margam, Cwmafan and the old Aberavon town. Though the town had been called Port Talbot since the 1830's, this was the first time its name was officially recognised as such.

10. Famous people from Port Talbot include:

• Richard Burton (born in Pontrhydyfen, east of Port Talbot),
  

• Sir Anthony Hopkins (actor),
  

• Geoffrey Howe,
  

• Michael Sheen (born in Newport but brought up in Port Talbot).
  

11. The four rivers flowing through Neath / Port Talbot are Afan, Neath, Dulais and Tawe which all flow to the sea in Swansea Bay.

12. Aberavon, Port Talbot's beachfront Port, is a popular seaside resort. Other  attractions: the Afan Argoed Countryside Centre, Margam Country Park, Margam Abbey Museum.


Wedding theme ideas based on Port Talbot.

I was a bit stuck for Port Talbot ideas. Here are some off the cuff rather wild ones.

1. The Beagle Dog’s origins in Port Talbot, along with a few other interesting facts about Port Talbot, could be added to a storyboard about the couple and their home town.

2. Port Talbot is an industrial town. You might be tempted to celebrate this with table settings and designs and centrepieces based on the principle industries in Port Talbot. This would involve replicating, amongst others, a steelworks, a biomass plant, a chemical plant, and an industrial gases plant.  Your candles could be arranged to look like smoke stacks perhaps. Might suit a gothic wedding with black candles! Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics come to mind!

This idea, while amusing, it probably worth only a fleeting thought!

3.  If you had a lot of guests from outside the area, something could be done with a display and storyboard about your home town perhaps, to celebrate the town’s industrial present.

4. The four river names could be used for table names – Afan, Neath, Dulais, Tawe. But if you are having a wedding with more tables, this won’t be sufficient, other than as a start.

See our Special Wedding Packages

See what's included in our Special Wedding Package when you have 50 guests staying overnight. If you cannot get 50 guests staying but can invite 125 or more to your wedding breakfast, see instead our Members Club Wedding Package.

Arrange a viewing of the castle

To arrange a viewing and stay overnight for two nights at half price, (£150 B&B), check our viewing breaks B&B offer.

Or if you fancy just coming on a day trip, book a viewing here.

Are you looking for a local venue in or near to Port Talbot, or a 'destination wedding venue'?

You will not have thought of this, for you won't even have realised it yet - at least, not until reading this.

You will have one deciding factor above all others when choosing your wedding venue.

This is:

Will you 'go local', choosing a wedding venue in or near to Port Talbot,
or can you go further afield for a more special and unique wedding day?

Initially you will consider many different wedding venues: some local to your area, some further away. You  may even search for historic buildings and castles in far flung locations.

But when you come to your short-list, you'll consider not just your own preferences, but your guests' willingness to travel to your chosen wedding venue.

You may have some guests who live some distance away from Port Talbot, who will need to travel to your wedding anyway, so it won't matter to them so much where you get married. You may have more guests on your wedding invitations list who live local to you. These include your friends and neighbours and acquaintances and even work colleagues in and around Port Talbot, for whom it would be more convenient to choose a local wedding venue.

When you draw up your short-list of wedding venues, you'll be asking yourself - 'local or non-local'? This is a key decision you will make, even though you may not have realised it - until now.

You'll ask yourself, do you want a local wedding venue near Port Talbot where all your guests can get to easily - even though you may not find your ideal venue locally?

Inviting a smaller number of guests to your wedding breakfast can sometimes save you money as you're saving on the main meal. This allows you to invite a load more to the evening party.

Provided most of the evening guests are local, you will get lots of extras coming to the evening party. This won't happen if you choose a venue further away ('evening-only' guests won't travel far).

Or would you prefer a more intimate wedding venue, a 'destination wedding venue', where your closest friends and relatives come to your wedding, and where you invite everyone for the whole day?

When you choose a venue further afield, you'll need somewhere all your guests can stay overnight together. Craig y Nos Castle offers accommodation for up to 84 guests. You'll not want your guests traveling between two different locations (for the wedding and for B&B). It is better to have everyone stay at the wedding venue. Having your guests stay over means everyone will party with you late into the night as they have no worries about getting home.

Unlike with a local wedding, when you travel to Craig y Nos, you will not suffer the problem of some guests shooting off early to get home. This can be a problem with local weddings near Port Talbot as 'local' means the wedding party dwindles around 11-12 pm, bringing about an earlier finish to the day than you want.

A destination wedding venue such as Craig y Nos Castle in the Brecon Beacons best suits a wedding where you have the same number of guests invited to the wedding breakfast as to the evening do. It will not suit weddings where you want fewer guests for the day part and more for the evening do.

The decision whether to 'go local' or to go to a more interesting, unique and very special destination will be the first one you make, when drawing up your short-list of venues to visit. Going local means you may have to compromise on the quality and type of wedding venue, but if you are willing to travel, you have no need to compromise on the venue at all.

B&B Offers for all Port Talbot Brides:

To give you an incentive to 'sample' and see Craig y Nos Castle, we offer wedding couples a discounted B&B offer. You can stay overnight for two nights at half price and make a nice B&B break of it. You can even invite relatives to have a look too, and choose a family room if you wish.

So why not combine your hunt for a wonderful wedding venue with a relaxing B&B break somewhere new and scenic!

Craig y Nos Castle is a popular destination wedding venue for couples all over the UK and especially for couples along the M4 from Port Talbot. It combines the attraction of getting married in a real castle, where you can become the princess of your own fairytale castle for the day, with experiencing a historic building (yours exclusively for the day) in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

The mountain scenery of the Brecon Beacons National Park guarantees you stunning photo opportunities both inside and outside the castle. The Grade One Listed Opera House makes a fantastic setting for your wedding ceremony. You get exclusive use of the whole castle for you and your wedding guests when you invite 125 guests to your wedding breakfast.

Craig y Nos Castle is a truly magical and unique castle wedding venue that Brides and Grooms can now readily afford.

We have an offer on late availability weddings -
See last minute weddings offers

To arrange a viewing of the venue click below: