Did you haggle with your venue?

I cant really help here as I didnt haggle at the start, but I am about too, so ill be really interested in other peoples responces!

Due to lots of changes since we booked the venue a year ago, we really need to haggle them down a bit and as the payments are due in January we thought now would be a good time to try and do this!

Well we only have a provisional booking at the moment, we have a meeting on 5th Dec when we will also pay the deposit. So I thought it would be best to haggle before paying the deposit?

Good luck with haggling with your venue, although I would guess that they have your deposit now so they may be less generous.

Yea I know its going to be tricky, but, if you dont ask you dont get! we have had a look at costs for other venues and even factoring in the loss of the deposit we could save about £1500, but where we are getting married is our dream venue, and OH insists we stay there, which is good but we may use this in the haggle process too as im kinda hoping they would prefer to take a little off rather than lose us altogether, and if they say no - I will just have to find time for another job!!

You have no time for another job you razy lady!!!! ? I hope you OH is working as hard as you do!

That's what i'm going to use against mine, we have paid a deposit (which we will lose) at another venue and there's no reason why we can't have it at the other venue, i just don't want to. So ideally I'd like to save 500 quid and then I haven't lost anything ?

But... I'd just be happy up they upgraded the wine or something, just to make me feel like I've had a bargain even though I'm wasting more than half my annual salary on ONE day!!!

Well i have monday and tuesday nights off at the moment, every other day and evening I work, so i could fit some in then, but i am pretty zombiefied (wow, new word) on those days!!! Plus i would never see OH then!!

I know what you mean, even just a little something from my venue would be nice, make me a little happier about spending so much money!

We didn't haggle, we originally wanted the saturday but were restricted to two rooms. Since changing to the sunday, We now have exclusive use of the roseberry ballroom, garden suite, roseberry foyer, rolls royce suite and the acres of garden (can't remember how many acres they have) we also get a 5 course meal, drinks on arrival (in garden weather permitting) first toast (this will be a generic cocktail which I get to pick) wine with the meal (2 glasses pp) Red carpet on arrival & 2 bay trees with fairy lights, complimentary double jaccuzzi honeymoon suite with B&B for me and Hubby2B, Wedding planner, master of ceremonies, DJ, Menus, place cards and table plan, Fresh flower arrangement for top table, with swags and fairy lights, we also get White chair covers with gold bows for both the ceremony and the meal. All of this is included in the £59.95 we're paying pp.

We got a great deal which was offered to us by the wedding planner. So we really didn't need to haggle!

I would defo haggle, if you can knock money off somewhere it's always a bonus!!!

Lxx

Sorry, I obviously meant to say 'crazy'

Since having my second job I have noticed that me and OH seem to just never spend time together, either I'm working or he's doing over time. It' shard but, if we want a nice wedding it's what we've got to do. I am a walking zombie at the moment, I worked 9-5 and then 6-11pm yesterday so am knackered today. Hopefully if I get this new job (2nd interview is tomorrow) I could afford to not work at the second job so much.

Why are weddings so damn expensive!?!?!?!

Wow bw, that seems like a really good deal!!!

Moony - what you worked yesterday is what im working today and then tomorrow, then sat 07.00 - 2.00 and then 5-close in the pub, then sunday 1-6 in the pub!! And thats every week! But your so right, we want a nice wedding and honeymoon so its worth all the hard work! Ill probably be the only bride that spends the whole of the honeymoon asleep! lol!

Yeah we were really lucky but it will still cost us a fortune because we're planning on having 110 day guests!! lol

L xx

I did alot of research into wedding venues. Probably looked at about 25 and priced them up etc. I found that the venues that are chains... Marriott, Best Western, Holiday Inn etc prices are totally and utterly set in concrete and they will not budge one little bit!

Family run pubs/hotels etc seem to be a little more flexible. However, i found as a whole that none of them were flexible on price. Only a little on minimum numbers by reducing these by 5-10 people.

x

We did haggle and managed to get 15% off the meals and a free upgrade to the honeymoon suite with flowers, chocs & champagne (usually £80) so it def pays to ask. Also got my mum and dad's suite at the hotel for less than the normal price.

We did have to push them quite a bit for the 15% but we got there in the end.

Tried but failed! Although we managed to get a minimum numbers penalty rather than paying the full £58 per head, we now pay a £20 penalty instead.

Also I got them to through in potatoe wedges with our bacon and sausage butties in the evening. And upon looking, it seems they've also charged us for a finger buffet instead of the butties but the invoice states the butties, so that saved £150. So we've still managed to keep under out £5k reception budget!

Agree would be better to haggle sooner rather than later. Personally I didn't, but then I hate it - and we were getting a better deal anyway. I think if you *were* going to it might be an idea to say "oh that's a shame, if we pay x we won't be able to do y" (e.g. if the rental charge is £500 we won't be able to do canapes). Or even better "we've only allowed £500 for canapes and they're going to come to £1000 if we go with your package - is there a way you could provide something cheaper?". You might find if you do this they'll be more willing to do something for you as they get something out of it.