had the venue quote through...is this good? *****UPDATED*****

I think what you have to ask is..Are you prepared to pay this price for the experience you will have in return? It should be about what you want and the type of day you would like to experience, If you think that it's worth it then its good value to you. I don't think that it's so easy to compare venue prices. Ours is a third of that price (half the number of guests) but we knew we wanted that venue, Yes you could probably do this cheaper but its about what you want from your day and you can afford. The venue looks lovely

I really dont know if this is a good price or not, as we got married abroad.

Have you talked about possible ways to cut the cost with the venue such as:

-Providing your own wine (booze cruise to Calais), what would the corkage be per bottle & what would this save you?

-Could you have the wedding cake as your dessert rather than a seperate one? Therefore paying for a 2 course meal only. We did this. Most people are so full after canapes, entree & mains that most of the dessert gets left anyway.

-What about canapes with the welcome drink instead of an entree?

You havent mentioned table centres or chair covers. Are these included or extra?

Chair covers and centrepieces will be separate however we wouldn't 'need' chair covers as the chairs aren't too bad and i have a large collection of vintage coloured cut glass that i have been collecting for years that i want to use as centrepieces with floating candles and flowers in ...

the overall feeling is that the room hire is steep which i agree with (personally i think we should have the ceremony room and drapes for free, saving of £700) The venue is very 'us' and we really felt it was 'the one' so we are prepared to pay more than we would at some of the other places we have been but like people have been saying maybe the room hire needs to be looked at!!

Well you could always say to them we can pay £7k and no more and see what they say. Lots of people bargain things down. I think that's worth a shot.

As others have said, the room hire is very steep. Ours is £240 for exclusive use of the main room, drinks reception room and private terrace. I would speak to the venue and say your absolute maximum is £7000, and see if they will bring it down. Don't ask, you don't get! Drapes etc you may be able to hire elsewhere for less.

Having said that, if you break the whole price down as a per head figure, it's working out just over £60 a head. That's the upper end of average, I'd say.

What about holding it on a Sunday or Friday? Sometimes this works out cheaper. Not onyl for the venue, but suppliers can be cheaper too. I'd try negotiating if its def 'the one' for you. I'd tell them you only have £5000 to spend, & how can you work towards this?

To break down the cost down a bit more it is

£10.50 per head for 1/2 bottle of wine and a welcome drink (i think this is resonable)

and then £31 a head for 3 course meal

and £5.50 a head for the cheese and pate board in the evening...

rest of the cost is room hire/table cloths/drapes etc

all these prices are for 2014 so all venues usually increase prices but this will be our fixed price so may seem a bit steeper than some of the 2012/13 weddings

I think we may ask about the £7000 mark and see what he says i suppose if you don't ask you don't get!!

It's the same on any day/time of year so unfortunatly we can't really use that...its usually a jazz club (jazz dinners etc) and not a really well known/advertised venue for weddings, so their saturdays in summer aren't as in demand as some of the more popular venues... i have told him that £5000 was our max before we got the quote but obviously he had to quote us for what we asked for so maybe we should ask if there is anything we can negotiate to get it closer to our budget. and then be happy if he settles on 6500/7000??

Definitely worth a try, the worst they can say is no! I'd think they would be more inclined to accommodate you if you said £7000 rather than the £5000, on the grand scheme of things from their point of view the £500-odd is not a huge amount of money, they may give you the discount rather than risk losing the booking altogether.

The price break down does seem reasonable to me. Ours works out at around £50 a head, and that's for 2012. You make a good point about it being a 2014 wedding, I'd be surprised if the prices didn't increase by then.

Worth a try, you never know!

By the sounds of it you love this venue and it suits you in every other way. have you thought about if you can cut back in other areas to compensate? The venue is after all normally your biggest expense, so it's worth getting it right.

yeh thats the thing, other venues have said that 'allow a 5% increase on all areas each year' whereas he has factored that into the quote (extra £1 per head on 3 course meal and 50p on wine) and has said that that quote will stick at that which is what we like too as we know exactally what we are paying and saving for.

yeh we are hoping that as there are approx £2000 worth of things on the quote that they already have, that they are just charging hire for e.g rooms and drapes etc that we should be able to knock them down by £520 to take it to £7000

I suppose we were dissapointed as we were planning on the quote coming back at around £5700/£6000 (we knew it would be a bit over budget) but its come in at £1520 more than that!

this is so true it is perfect in every other way! we would be doing a lot of D.I.Y ...

dress wise i like the monsoon dresses/phase eight also a good bridal warehouse in liverpool (think all dresses are under 300) so will be looking places like this for my dress,

centrepieces as i mentioned before i have been collecting vintage cut glass for years now (before our engagement) and i would love to have them on the tables with floating candles/maybe flowers too (they don't need more than candles if we can't afford lots of flowers as the glass are all pastel colours and very intricate in design so wouldn't look boring...

cars wise me and mum had the idea of a few fiat 500's with bows on .... we have a white one and a few friends with white ones and we thought this could look pretty sweet as alternative wedding cars...

then bridesmaids would be high street dresses,

suits we have already spoken to a supplier about and will come in at around £60/£70 each...

photographer we have had a friend volunteer (although i have fallen in love with a professional one at £1395...thats not going to happen!!)

cake i have found a reasonable lady that can do what we want for under £200

DJ will be our friend

and bouquets etc i will do myself, going to have to buy buttonholes though!!

and possibly have a singer/band but that will be an extra depending on how we save haha!!

and the thing is i can see it all in this venue and thats why the quote has put a downer on it all!!

We are North West ... its a cheshire/altrincham/hale venue, some venues are charging £4000/£5000 just for room hire on a saturday in summer. We don't feel we can cut our guestlist anymore hence reconsidering our budget instead...we have lots of family, both have huge groups of friends (that can't be split) and both parents have lots of friends that we have known all our lives...it works out at £47 a head for 3 course meal, drinks and evening food so not too bad...the rest is made up by flippin room hire and drapes etc haha

It sounds like a pretty good deal to me, especially if they are willing to freeze the price for you. I'm predicting prices are only going to go up!

I'm getting married in a similar area to you and researched a lot of venues' prices around South Manchester/North Cheshire (although not The Bowdon Rooms, only because it's too close to work and didn't want to be reminded of work on my wedding day!) - although some didn't have venue hire, a lot were £4k+ as you say. I think £1-2k is probably pretty average. We're paying £1.1k

If you're not getting married until 2014 maybe you could work out how much you need to save a month and find a way to generate some extra income/cut costs in other parts of your life rather than compromising on your wedding venue or guest list?

When you say that they are allowing you extra people in the evening, what are they providing for these extra people?

I think your quote sounds very reasonable. Imthink venues weight their charges differently- so some venues charge little for the room hire but more for the catering and vice versa. I think your catering is very reasonable but have put the costs on to the room hire hence making guest list numbers less important, so in your case it works better.

Hello!

I know exactly what you mean. We had a similar quandry as our now venue was £2k over budget. However, we managed to negotiate on certain things like - no canapes on arrival, not having bridal suite just a standard room, these two things saved nearly £500 between them!

My advice, is to negotiate as others have said, or find an area where you could trim things down if possible.

At the end of the day, if it is the ONE, then at least you'd be prepared to save the extra money - that's what we decided.

No i don't mind you saying at all, it's something i had thought of!! centrepiece wise i am using my collection of pastel coloured cut vintage glass (collected way before engagement) with floating candles and floating flowers, so they wont cost much at all as i already have them (not the candles or flowers haha! but only need a couple for each table and happy to use supermarket/wholesale flowers) and favours in my experience at weddings get left behind unless they are something really amazingly special and therefore we will not be having favours so that will save on that x

Yep! both parents are contributing, it's just because we are saving for a house that we didn't want to dig into our funds too much for the wedding but it can be done...the house will just have to wait a bit longer haha! will definately be putting some saving techniques into practice! cutting down on luxuries will be a first!

x

Basically we are providing the evening food for 120 people so 100% of the people there...some venues you don't have to cater for 100% therefore we are doing so knowing not everyone will have loads having had the 3 course meal...and they are allowing us some extra's (very informal invites) e.g my OH's work colleagues etc and he has said if they have some of the cheese board etc there will still be enough for them too if that makes sense? we essentially aren't paying any extra but the food will be out when they arrive so they aren't going to be told off if they have some!

this is a big selling point for us as i don't know if anyone remembered but i posted about having 10 cousins on one side that we never see and was thinking about not inviting them...this now means that we can invite them to the evening and not cause issues!

x

Totally understand what it's like - only got a limited pot of money and it's hard to prioritise between wedding and house. Hopefully the venue can negotiate a bit and make the decision less difficult... although it sounds like you've already decided what you want to do. x

I think £62 per head is very reasonable, I am paying £112 per head and only get 74 people!

It sounds very reasonable to me! But it has to be do-able for you - like others have said, have a sit down and work out how much you need to save every week/month. And as AnniePie said, make sure you factor in extra dosh as more people inevitably means that the 'incidentals' add up - paying for 30 favours is much cheaper than 70 odd!