Difficult venues...time to start again?

Hi KannyBride

Not sure if I've got any advice that will help you, but our venue has been similar - hidden costs that they didnt tell us about on our first visit, despite us having gone through their price list with them and thinking we'd confirmed all the prices. When we went the second time they asked if we wanted round or rectangular tables and we said round but they never told us there was an extra charge for that!

When I rang up to say that I was coming to pay the deposit, I asked the wedding coordinator if we could have written confirmation of the costs / a written quote from her before we paid and she said that I would get that in the post, after paying the deposit. I pointed out that we didnt want to pay that kind of money before having written confirmation of the costs and she seemed quite surprised! When we turned up, she had written the costs down on a scrappy bit of paper! We have gone ahead and booked, as we love the venue so much, and the owner of the venue who we have met twice was much more friendly and helpful than the wedding coordinator.

I am thinking that we might hire an on the day coordinator to oversee things, as I can't imagine her being too helpful on the day!

Hi,

Unfortunately I see this all the time as a wedding planner, it’s a real struggle trying to get all the facts figures and information you require. It kind of spoils that special time doesn’t it, or can if you let it?

All the whole most coordinators are nice and helpful and straight forward to deal with, but now on again you get that small percentage that still go out of there way to be cold vague and unhelpful.

Please do not let it spoil things for you, if there is someone more helpful at the venue i.e. owner assistant manager that you feel more comfortable with, and you have more confidence in, ask them to take over.

It’s a good idea to get an on the day coordinator, so you have piece of mind though.

Good luck, keep us posted ?

Thanks both,

It's nice to know we're not the only ones! We've been really methodical and tried to ask as many questions as possible before proceeding with our booking. However, when we received the draft terms, it opened up a whole load of other questions that we thought had been dealt with. This has been met with a real reluctance, as if they are no longer interested in our booking because we want to make sure everything is covered. I've been made to feel like a bridezilla, just because I want to make sure there isn't an unexpected invoice around the corner...

I can't believe some places expect people to part with all that money without any kind of written confirmation! It completely baffles me; these venues organise weddings all the time - I'm only planning on doing this once and I feel I could do a better job. The contract is full of errors and we're waiting days on end to get responses to simple queries.

A coordinator sounds like it might help, thank you! I'm also not going to be shy about asking for an alternative coordinator if ours turns out to be awful.

Apologies for the rant and thanks for the advice! With 400 days to go, I'm sure there'll be a few more dramas along the way...