Expert Planning by Refuge Weddings
◆Here's a fun bit of trivia to open your wedding planning with. The Imperial opened in 1936, in the same golden window when Lutyens' Delhi was still finding its feet. So when people call it a heritage venue, they mean it literally, not as a marketing word someone stuck on a brochure.
The hotel sits on eight private acres right next to Connaught Place. That's the detail most couples miss when comparing venues. While Delhi's other five-star icons, Taj Palace and Leela Palace, sit out in Chanakyapuri's Diplomatic Enclave, The Imperial is a five-minute walk from Janpath Metro and slap in the middle of the city. For a guest list full of relatives flying in from three different states, that's not a small thing.
The interiors mix Victorian detailing with Art Deco lines, and the hotel holds one of Asia's largest private collections of colonial and post-colonial art, over 5,500 pieces spread across guest floors, each floor curated around a different artist. You'll notice it the second you walk in. Marble corridors, oil paintings, chandeliers that have clearly seen a hundred years of good parties.
And then there's the lawn. The Imperial Lawn is, by the hotel's own account, the only lawn left in Delhi that hosted the actual Royal Durbar, a gathering of all 85 Maharajas and Maharanis of India's princely states. Try finding another wedding venue with that on its résumé.
We're not new to this venue. Refuge Weddings has planned a celebration at The Imperial itself, Saurabh and Somya Mittal's wedding, hosted across The Imperial and Shangri-La, New Delhi, for the family of Smt. Poonam Mittal. We know how the Royal Ballroom flows into the Lawn, how the events team likes to work, and where the small friction points show up when a wedding has 400 moving parts. Refuge has been running weddings and events since 1999, and today we're one of the more established wedding planners in Delhi, with teams also based in Ahmedabad and Nagpur, plus satellite support in Goa and Jaipur. Along the way we've picked up an EMF Gold award, an EMF Silver, and back-to-back Business Excellence recognitions in 2023 and 2024. None of that plans your wedding for you, but it tells you we've been doing this long enough to have opinions worth listening to.
The hotel gives you the room. We give the room a reason to look unforgettable: colour palette, lighting design, stage architecture, the walk-in moment. We hand the venue's decor team a brief, not a mood board full of vague adjectives.
Photography, mehendi artists, entertainment, hair and makeup, invitations. Coordinated on one timeline, with one point of accountability. Not eleven WhatsApp groups you're expected to police yourself.
Janpath's driveway approach works differently than a farmhouse gate. We've staged enough entries here to know exactly how the dhol players, the ghodi, and the family formation should line up so the moment actually lands.
For families flying guests in from across India or further, we set up hospitality desks, coordinate room-block allocations within the hotel, and arrange airport pickups so your uncle doesn't call you from Terminal 3 asking where to go.
Every function day, our team is on-site from check-in to farewell, running the show-flow so you get to actually attend your own wedding instead of managing it.
One consolidated view across venue and vendors. Per-plate pricing looks simple until you multiply it across three functions and a rate card full of add-ons. We map that out before anyone signs anything.
The Imperial's wedding offering centres on three named spaces, each with a distinct personality rather than three versions of the same ballroom.
| Space | Type | Size | Capacity | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Royal Ballroom | Indoor, 21-ft ceiling | 4,386 sq ft | Up to 500 guests | Grand receptions and ceremonies |
| The Imperial Lawn | Outdoor | 13,200 sq ft | 500–600 guests | Pheras, large receptions, the Durbar heritage moment |
| The Imperial Garden | Outdoor, boutique | Compact | Intimate functions | Personal, smaller celebrations |
The Royal Ballroom deserves its own paragraph. Twenty-one-foot ceilings, opulent chandeliers, a marble staircase, and a wall dominated by the "Darbar of Malerkotla", a genuinely massive oil painting that makes half your reception photos for you before the photographer even shows up. A balcony above overlooks the Imperial Lawn, a nice touch if you want your Sangeet crowd to spill upstairs for air between songs. The Imperial Lawn is where most couples put their pheras or their big reception night, and 13,200 square feet is enough room to build a stage, run a cocktail bar on the side, and still leave your guests space to actually mingle instead of queueing. A few smaller function spaces, including a conference-style room and a poolside area beside what's known as India's first temperature-controlled pool, also get used for intimate ceremonies like Haldi or a smaller Mehendi. We'll walk you through exact configurations once we know your guest count and function list. The hotel doesn't publish fixed numbers for every corner of the property, and we'd rather confirm it with the events team than guess on your behalf.
The Imperial has 235 rooms and suites, split across categories that range from the Deco Room, a neat 285 sq ft, up to The Imperial Suite, a roughly 4,000-square-foot flagship with its own 675-square-foot verandah lounge.
For a multi-day wedding with out-of-town guests, this matters more than people expect. You're not shuttling relatives between a venue and a hotel twenty minutes away. The wedding and the stay are the same address. Guests booked into the Heritage, Deco, Viceroy, or Luxury Suite categories also get access to the Imperial Lounge: private check-in, breakfast, evening cocktails, all-day tea. Small thing, but it takes pressure off your family desk on Day One.
Room blocks for peak season, October to February, move fast. If The Imperial is your venue, get the room-block conversation started at the same time as the venue contract, not after.
Catering here is exclusively in-house. No outside caterers, full stop. That's standard for a property of this class, and it comes with a real upside.
No outside caterers, full stop. Build your entire food budget around the hotel kitchen. This is the standard model across luxury Delhi hotels, not an Imperial quirk.
The same kitchen team runs the hotel's award-winning restaurants, including The Spice Route, which has shown up on more than one "world's best restaurants" list.
North Indian, South Indian, Rajasthani, Hyderabadi, Kashmiri, Italian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Mediterranean, and Jain-specific options, with fusion menus available if you want to get creative.
Bar service is handled in-house too, so your welcome drinks and cocktail evening are run by the same team as your dinner.
We pull the current quote directly from The Imperial's sales team once you're seriously considering the venue, so you're planning against real numbers, not a website estimate.
This is the question everyone actually wants answered, so let's be straight about it. Exact per-plate pricing at The Imperial changes with the season, the menu, and the year, and we'd rather send you an accurate custom quote than publish a number that's stale by the time you read this.
Based on current market data for comparable five-star heritage venues in Delhi, luxury hotel weddings in Delhi NCR typically run ₹3,000 to ₹10,000 per plate depending on the menu and season. A full multi-function wedding at this tier of venue generally lands somewhere between ₹60 lakh and ₹2 crore or more, once you add décor, photography, entertainment, and stay costs on top of catering.
Given The Imperial's heritage positioning and central Delhi address, expect pricing toward the upper half of that range rather than the entry point.
The venue itself doesn't charge a separate hall rental fee. Pricing runs on a per-plate model, which is standard across Delhi's five-star hotels.
Refuge Weddings works directly with The Imperial's sales team to get you current rates for your dates, your guest count, and your menu, and we'll flag every add-on before you sign anything.
The Imperial sits on Janpath, right next to Connaught Place, arguably the most central wedding address in Delhi. Janpath Metro station on the Yellow Line is a short walk away, which is genuinely rare for a venue in this category.
From IGI Airport, expect roughly 25 to 40 minutes depending on traffic, which is noticeably closer than most competing five-star venues out in Chanakyapuri.
Valet parking is available for event guests. If your guest list is large and mostly arriving by car, talk to us about staggered arrival timing. Janpath's a busy road, and a smooth drop-off plan saves everyone twenty frustrated minutes.
Peak wedding season in Delhi, when the outdoor lawn functions are at their best and the city finally cools down. Book 6 to 12 months ahead if you want The Imperial in this window. Prime dates and room blocks go early.
More flexibility on dates and slightly better rates, with the lawn still workable for evening functions.
If you're set on an indoor-only celebration, the Royal Ballroom works fine year-round, monsoon included. Often the easiest window for availability.
There's no fixed hall rental. Pricing runs per plate, generally in the ₹3,000–₹10,000 range depending on menu and season, in line with Delhi's other luxury heritage hotels. A full multi-function wedding typically totals ₹60 lakh to ₹2 crore or more once décor, photography, and entertainment are added. Refuge Weddings can get you a current, guest-count-specific quote directly from the venue.
The Royal Ballroom holds up to 500 guests. The Imperial Lawn holds 500 to 600. Combined across the property's spaces, larger weddings can be configured for close to 1,000 guests. We'll help you map the right space to your actual headcount.
No. Catering is exclusively in-house, run by the same kitchen team behind the hotel's award-winning restaurants.
235 rooms and suites, across categories from compact Deco Rooms to the flagship Imperial Suite. Room blocks should be confirmed early for peak-season weddings.
The hotel's in-house team runs the venue beautifully. What they don't do is design your wedding, chase down twelve vendors on one timeline, or negotiate your contract terms. We've planned a wedding at this exact venue before, and we handle everything the hotel's events team doesn't.
For peak season, October to February, 6 to 12 months ahead is the safe window, both for the venue and for your room block. Off-season dates offer more flexibility.
We've planned a wedding at this exact address before, and we know it beyond what any brochure will tell you: the spaces, the events team, the details that actually decide whether your day runs smoothly or not. Let's talk about yours.
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