So we haven’t put a deposit down yet, but the date is being held for us at our venue (a beautiful castle come hotel in Wales)
It’s W2B’s dream venue, and I love it too. However, I've just had a conversation with the co-ordinator and I’ve discovered that there is no way of setting the prices for food, venue hire etc now, even if we put down a deposit. Prices will go up again in 2013 February and our wedding is in May.
They won’t negotiate on corkage, or room hire full stop. How the heck am I supposed to budget when I don’t know how much the prices might go up? I know it’s likely to be 5-10% but there’s no guarantee.
Any advice on other things I could negotiate on? I hear that frequently, venues will throw in a free champagne reception but this is a no no for us as we’re wine snobs and free champagne is guaranteed to not meet our standards :-p
What else can I ask them to move on that will save me some money? How have you negotiated with your venues?
CommentAuthorOWB
The last venue we went to offered free transport home to all local hotels as they don't have accommodation. Maybe some decorations thrown in, they often have some from previous functions. Canapes?
If only life could be one long tea break
CommentAuthorMrs Badger
How about your hotel room? or is that already included? Or maybe see if they will offer some canapes? x
Now a Mrs!
"..I've seen the best and the worst of you and I understand
with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of
of a woman. You're the one..."
CommentAuthorTori-Mrs.Mitchell2b
wow thats the first i heard about not being able to set price etc, we are getting married may 4th 2013 and payed our deposit November last year and we were guaranteed that years prices with the exception of food although they said it wont go up by more than a pound on menu.
Id suggest maybe finding out about other stuff like hotel room, chair covers, room decorations, canapes, welcome drinks etc.
hope this helps hun x
CommentAuthorbarbie86
Ours wouldn't really budge on much TBH. Though we did manage to secure this year's prices for a wedding in 2014. We also secured room rates that are slightly below the current rates (so should be cheaper still by 2014 in theory), and we negotiated on room-hire costs (basically, we had to spend £6k and book all bedrooms to get exclusive use of the area where we're having our wedding breakfast and reception; but they were then asking for room hire costs for other public rooms on top of this; I haggled them down from £900 to £300 for these rooms, to guarantee that we will have the entire hotel to ourselves for about 24 hours).
A lot of people say that places are open to negotiation; I personally didn't find this. In a lot of cases, the venues we looked at were absolutely not short of bookings, so didn't desperately need our custom; and if they don't desperately need your custom, they're not going to be too fussed about negotiating, they'll just get a booking from someone else who doesn't want a discount/extras. We also didn't have much leverage because ours will be very small, and would have been under a lot of minimum number restictions; if you have more guests, you'd likely be more successful and securing discounts or 'freebies', as if their average wedding is 100 people, and yours is say 200, that is a LOT of extra revenue for them.
We asked for extras which would save us money but that didnt really affect them. Such as chair covers and sashes werent included in the price but you could hire them from them, so we asked them to chuck them in for free. Also we went for the cheapest food package but didnt like the food choices so we asked them to provide more choices for that price bracket. There are a couple of other things along those lines that just made the deal that little bit sweeter.
CommentAuthorKatya
ok well i think you should find yourself some deposit money.... if you have a contract they cant change the prices! so the sooner you put your deposit down with a written contract stating how much it is per head they cant change the prices as its a written contract!
the only time they can change the prices after a contract has been drawn up is if... 1. they dont state in the contract the per head price 2. you change your date after a deposit/contract has been agreed.
so get them to send you a contract so that you can put down your deposit, remember that before signing you can change anything on the contract that you like within reason and then sign it, return the contract with agreed deposit and vwalah! one fixed price venue/catering.
if they refuse to send a contract or the contract states that prices are subject to change, change the contract stating that once a contract has been signed they are unable to change anything without prior agreement by both parties.
Find out who you are & do it on purpose!
CommentAuthor
@Katya, I've read the contract (I read law at university) and it's tight. afraid your suggestion won't work in this case. They don't state the price per head and won't do that- that's the issue. Deposit required is £10 per person for the minimum number they will cater to on that day of the week (55). I'm aving 60 to the meal and 120 total in the evening.
I'm thinking of saying that I'll put a higher deposit down and pay 50% of the main meal and venue cost now if they fix the prices at the 2012 rate. For them, revunue in a nice big chunk is better than it trickling in bit by bit.
hotel room is included as standard, (plus that comes out of a different cost centre to events) and they don't do chair covers. what sort of decorations (in general) could I request?
