Wedding Cars

[Mr. Magoo]

I am thinking of starting a wedding cars business and I wanted to survey what people want to be chauffeured in these days? To start I thought I would use my vintage Lagonda as a pre-war choice. Then I thought 3 of the following to offer variety:

VW Campervan
Morris Mino convertible
Citreon DS
Mark 2 Jag
2CV
Jag XJC

Does anyone have any thoughts on current trends and taste for this purpose?

Cheers

[nicanary]

Pink Cadillac convertible - biggest fins you can find.

[Engineer1]

Consider the Bride's dress there is a reason that a lot of the "traditonal" firms use the same vehicles. It means the bride has good acess without wrecking the dress or having an undignified knicker or cleavage flashing exit.

[Griffithy]

Not a cheap but a fine one:

Rolls Royce Corniche Convertible.

Would be my choice, as I always loved those

[POORCARDEALER]

Colour is MEGA important..Apparantly Rolls Royce Shadows are not popular now (we service a chaps wedding fleet, hes getting rid of the shadows)

Daimler DS420 in white
Rolls Silver Cloud Silver
Bentley Blower (I know, touch pricey)

[spoodler]

I've been asked a couple of times if my '36 Austin hot rod could be used, a friend has done several weddings in his pro-street '57 Chevy pick up and other owners of 1950ish Yanks tend to get approached fairly regularly... I performed wedding car duties in a matt black Vitesse convertible and a 2CV years back but quite how popular either of those would be is anyone's guess. Generally needs to be grand, old fashioned or white - a mate's old white Jag' XJ6 (slightly tatty daily driver) was far more in demand than any of the others mentioned despite him also owning an immaculate E - Type.

[ClassicMotorNut]

nicanary said:

Pink Cadillac convertible - biggest fins you can find.

That'll be a '59 then.

My local wedding car company runs basically a fleet of kit cars, i.e. a Bramwith Landaulette, several Imperial Landaulettes and a Royale Windsor. It also runs a Morris Minor 1000 convertible and one of those ghastly new Chrysler 300C things and seems to do quite well for itself.

Edited by ClassicMotorNut on Monday 2nd December 19:05

[Keep it stiff]

You don't need a stock of cars, set up agreements with local owners of suitable classics and act as an agent taking a revenue share of bookings with the owners doing the driving in their own cars. That way you could offer a decent range of car options to your customers, have no capital outlay and no problems with multiple bookings for the same date. You could deal with booking insurance on behalf of your network of classic owners, run the front end sales and so on.

[hardcastlephil]

We got married in a MKII Jag, but bare in mind that some people cant get past white still! Also, I think people like 'matching' cars - either make and model or colour. We actually had a white Daimler 250 and Green Jag and the effect was very good.

The company we used also run a fleet of Bentleys, all in the same black and gold colour scheme. As a side line they have a classic car hire business. Website here:

http://www.superiormotorcars.co.uk/

The main reason they were chosen (apart from being local) was they were were a thoroughly decent bunch of people and having a look round all the cars they had stored was great fun and actively encouraged, even though we already knew we wanted the Jag.

Think Morris Minor's etc are also very popular. Camper vans too, but I wonder if that will ware off soon enough.

P

[retropower]

I reckon any 3 of the first 4. I love XJC's but I doubt it would be a popular wedding choice, and there would be some interest in the 2cv but not enough to justify having it

Mr. Magoo said:

I am thinking of starting a wedding cars business and I wanted to survey what people want to be chauffeured in these days? To start I thought I would use my vintage Lagonda as a pre-war choice. Then I thought 3 of the following to offer variety:

VW Campervan
Morris Mino convertible
Citreon DS
Mark 2 Jag
2CV
Jag XJC

Does anyone have any thoughts on current trends and taste for this purpose?

Cheers

[a8hex]

A friend of mine runs a company supplying classic Jags are wedding cars. While Mk2s are very popular they are tight with a lot of wedding dresses. An S-Type has the looks of the Mk2 (at least to the non aficionado) and has much more space in the back.

[Bull1t]

My (now) wife's criteria for a wedding car was it had to have rear doors as she wouldn't climb in the back of a two door in her dress. We ended up getting a Riley RMA.

Can't speak for the UK but in NZ I had a reasonable choice of Mk2 Jags, Rolls, Bentley, Moderns etc but finding anything 1950s or earlier was a real struggle so if I was setting a business up I'd be looking there.

[spikey78]

One thing to bear in mind when running a wedding car hire business is that most people are making bookings for weddings that are in 6 months, or a year, or two years time!

[lowdrag]

I was asked to use my car for a couple of weddings and it was a great success, meeting on all counts the pomp and grandeur and plenty of room for the bride to access. Also much cheaper than some mentioned. I give you the Mk VIII Jaguar, but a VII or IX will be just as good.

[deltashad]

Campervans do seem to be getting popular.

Access, and more importantly egress are priority, for something unusual maybe an FX4 tarted up.

[renaultgeek]

s types are very nice, whereas xj's are a bit phil mitchell now, and in xjc form doesn't make much sense.

I know I may be crucified for posting this in the classics section but I've noticed a lot of faux classics built on land rover chassis.

[a8hex]

renaultgeek said:

s types are very nice, whereas xj's are a bit phil mitchell now, and in xjc form doesn't make much sense.

I know I may be crucified for posting this in the classics section but I've noticed a lot of faux classics built on land rover chassis.

I know, hiddeous aren't they, mock pre war monstrosities, I've been to a couple of weddings that have used such abominations.
Look if you're going to pretend to be pre-war please at least try to do it with the right sized wheels.

[P1ato]

Low drag's jag is stunning. A Mark X would be a good choice too (in terms of style, cost of purchase and maintenance). Citroen DS is a great wedding car, and the VW camper would be cool and practical too.

[Mr. Magoo]

thank you all for your input. I think the earlier / bigger Jags are a good idea. Also the Camper and DS to offer some variety.

I have heard business can be quite cut throat and that fewer people are getting married in churches so there is a bit of a squeeze in this space.

[Autolycus]

The wedding car business is dieing round here. A number of local firms have packed up, and my own bookings were well down last year. People are realising they don't need a Rolls-Royce to travel from home to a hotel venue, since no-one will see them arrive or depart. The positive aspects are that the proposal to enforce local authority licensing for wedding hire (complete with twice yearly tests, CRB checks, and disability awareness training for drivers) seems to have been dropped for the moment; and the cost of buying a proper limousine, by which I don't mean a stretch or a kit-car, is ridiculously low now.

To anyone contemplating it, who thinks it's money for old rope: it ain't. For every hour you spend waiting for late bridesmaids or listening to happy couples discussing what they had for breakfast, you spend many more taking the bookings, checking the route, preparing the car, and cleaning confetti and paw-prints from the car.

But it can be great, too: last year, I drove a lovely couple through beautiful countryside, in a magnificent Royce that I wouldn't otherwise own, and thought: "They're paying me for this".

The trouble with running cute little cars is that, although you may use a gallon or two less petrol, and a distributor cap is a fiver, not £120, you can't charge anything likes as much for them as for a proper car. And how does a fat, eight months pregnant, bride get in or out of them?