Planning your Great Escape

Your wedding day has been a complete success, now all you want to do is enjoy your honeymoon. So how do you get to the airport or honeymoon location in style?

Safe Honeymoon Travel

Your London wedding car may have been perfect for your wedding day, but it may not be the right vehicle for your honeymoon. In London, you can legally hire a wedding car, from pretty much anyone with the right insurance. But for the ride to the airport, to take off on your honeymoon, you will need a PCO licensed driver. It could be that your wedding car chauffeur is registered with the PCO, who are part of Transport for London, but many London based wedding cars are not. Click here find a list of registered PCO drivers and operators. The PCO state that “Illegal cab drivers commit 10 sexual assaults each month. Don’t become a statistic, know what you’re getting into by always booking through a licensed private hire operator.”

Who will carry your bags?

A good private hire driver will be more than happy to carry your bags and liaise with hotel and airport staff to make sure that all your needs are catered for. No matter how good he or she maybe, if you didn’t inform her that you planned to go on a skiing or scuba diving honeymoon, then you might not be able to squeeze your luggage into the vehicle. If you do have lots of luggage, then a chauffeur driven Mercedes Viano would be a good choice. It has ample luggage space for most travellers, but if you have special requirements always mention these before you book your journey.

For most airport runs a Mercedes S Class will be perfect, they are very comfortable and have a fair sized boot for your luggage.

Returning to London

After the honeymoon, try and arrange a chauffeur driven airport collection from a PCO registered hire company. Ask about their airport transfer procedures, will they be waiting for you at arrivals with a nameboard? How much do they charge for waiting time and do they monitor your flight, so that incase of delays, you won’t be charged copious amounts of waiting time.

Plan for a successful honeymoon escape

Do not assume that your wedding vehicle is large enough for your needs, ask the supplier if it will take your 14 trunks and 27 suitcases! Ask if they are PCO registered, and about their airport transfer procedures. Careful planning will help you escape in style, and all you have to do is enjoy your honeymoon…

Honeymoon Travel Resources

• Luxury Travel Directory
• London Chauffeur
• PCO - Find a Ride

Advice on hiring a wedding car for your wedding day

Picture the scene, the drive of your life awaits. Months or even years of planning your wedding day have led to this point. Then ten minutes before your arranged collection, you get a call that your hired bridal car is stuck in traffic or even worse broken down!

This nightmare scenario is not common within the wedding car hire industry, but it can and does happen. So what to do? How do you make sure that when you hire your wedding car, you get exactly what you imagined?

Careful Planning

Even the best made plans can go wrong, but with a little bit of thought, you can help take away any wedding car hire blues.

• Use a reputable wedding car hire company. Do not go for the cheapest option. Do they install confidence when you call?
• Create a contingency plan with your bridal car service, if the car broke down or had an accident, would they be able to provide a swift alternative?
• Make sure you give the car hire service accurate address and time details - double check those postcodes!
• See if it was possible to view the car at another wedding, so you can see the presentation of the bride’s car and of the chauffeur - are they both clean and smart and is the driver amicable?

Vintage Wedding Car Hire

Classic and vintage wedding cars are a popular choice for weddings but they do have an Achilles heel - reliability. Vintage Bentley and Rolls Royce wedding car hire brings an air of glamour to any wedding day, but unless they are properly maintained they can’t compete with the reliability of a modern wedding car.

The lovely 1964 vintage Bentley Silver Cloud as pictured above, is lovingly maintained and even kept in a protective “bubble” within a garage to make sure that it is kept at the correct humidity! Not all vintage wedding cars are cared for in this way, so ask your wedding car hire provider how often the car is serviced before you part with your money.

Wedding Car Hire Summary

Whatever car you choose, do the company install confidence? Do they have any contingency plans? Are they helpful on the telephone and answer your e-mails promptly and efficiently?

Get it in writing and you can then be assured that you have done all you can to make your wedding day wonderful and one you will always care to remember.

There are no guarantees in life and you have no control over the weather but using a little common sense and some careful, detailed planning, you can be assured that you will get to the church on time.

Questions to ask a wedding car hire company

To make sure that you get exactly the right wedding car for your wedding day. Here are some questions and points to consider when negotiating with a prospective wedding car hire company.

• Try and get a written quote for your wedding car, an email should be fine. Do not rely solely on a telephone conversation. Similarly, double-check all correspondance for correct addresses, contact details and times.
• If you visit a website to look at wedding cars, ask is the picture displayed is the actual car or a similar one. Many chauffeur and wedding car hire websites use stock photographs on their websites and in brochures. Could you come and see the car?
• Will the wedding car be valeted before your wedding?
• What is the age of the wedding vehicle? There is a great deal of difference between a 1996 Bentley and a 2006 model.
• Make sure the wedding car operator and vehicle are properly licensed and insured? In London, for wedding car hire, no licence is necessary, aside from a current driving licence. However, if you would like to take the wedding car to an airport after the ceremony, then the driver should be PCO licenced.
• What contingency plans are in place, in case of vehicle breakdown or other eventualities?
• Ask for the driver’s mobile number
• What will the chauffeur be wearing? Do you want them to wear a suit, shirt and tie?
• Will they co-ordinate and work with the photographer and other wedding services?