Is our venue ripping us off? - ****UPDATE****

We confirmed our numbers with the venue last week and the caterer also last week. I would say give them a call and discuss options!

I would ring them up and ask. Just explain that you have some people not turning up so you need less evening food etc and ask them if they can send you out a new invoice with the adjusted number. Try to avoid asking IF there will be a discount as you are just giving them the opportunity to say no. It might also be a good idea to ask the latest date you can change numbers is in case you have more drop outs befor ethat date. It should be fairly close to the date as they can't get fresh produce in too early x

We confirmed numbers a month before.

That does sound a bit early. How can they expect you to know if half the people you invite will accept the invite or not? Unless it is a package price?

Ours is a package deal, a set amount for 60 day and 100 evening and extra per head for additional. So if under 60 actually accepted we would still have to pay that price. Our venue did say that if that did happen we could perhaps negotiate having some extras like canapes etc. We invited far more than the set amount and only had a few declines. The venue asked for final numbers around 5 weeks before our date and we have had about 3 or 4 estimated invoices (due to menu changes, numbers and upgrades) so far (just checking final one tonight before we pay outstanding balance). Hope that makes sense?

Thanks girls. So is what our venue doing, NOT the norm?

I can't remember the exact conversation but it did keep changing to suit them, financially! They told us that (rather conveniently) our numbers was the number required for exclusive use, although I have seen wedding task place their recently on a much smaller scale. Anyway, how does this sound?

Hi ally Just a quick email to let you know that our evening guest numbers have decreased. Some of our day guests cancelled so we have "bumped up" some of our evening guests - I will send you the final number (can do this by tomorrow) so you can amend the invoice accordingly? Assuming it's okay to do this over email to speed things up? Thanks, Helen

We confirmed numbers six weeks before.

Our venue has asked for rough numbers now and we confirm about 6 weeks before, this might be the case with yours. I'm sure if you give them enough notice they can re-evaluate your final invoice. Your email looks fine. x

We pay for our numbers 3 months before hand, but about 2 weeks before we confirm and they refund us if it is less (we pay if more)

We had to pay the final balance 3 weeks before, but if we had any last minute drop outs we could let the venue know up to 3 days before and get a full refund for those guests.

We had to give estimated numbers about a year before, this was for the cancellation policy which was a % of the total estimated cost which increased as the date got closer. We had to give our final numbers 4 weeks before and had to pay the balance.

We also had a minimum of 60 people in our package but we were over by 5 and paid per head for them.

It sounds like your venue might have minimum numbers that you HAVE to pay for no matter what so in this instance you may have to pay for the minimum in order to get your exclusivity...however i would imagine that you shouldnt be paying/confirming fully until a bit nearer the time! x

The way ours has been done is that they have based our package on X amount of people but anything less than that will be taken off the final amount which is paid the morning after the wedding.

We have to confirm numbers only 1 week before, with a minimum number of 40.

Thanks. Although I can't imagine they will amend the invoice to reflect the changes. I may try asking if we could upgrade a couple of the evening guests to full day guests instaad.

We give final numbers 4 weeks before. We also have minimum numbers which we negotiated with them for exclusive use so we do already have a minimum figure that it will be. and we're sticking to that as close as possible otherwise we'll be bankrupt ?

.

Well, exclusive use is kind of a good point by the supplier.

With any supplier you have to make it worth their while to do certain things. If you want a venue to close out other business for you then there is a certain amount of money they require in order to do so. Sure they may have had smaller weddings but they may have negotiated an actual higher price than you. You'll never really know.

But a venue where 20% of the guests didn't turn up and the client is asking for a price adjustment most would understandably tend to say 'well you said this many....' etc. Whilst most good suppliers try to be as agreeable and personal as possible we all have a bottom line to meet.

If a couple booked me for wedding photography from prep to the first dance only to come back to me after I'd closed out other good business on their behalf to say 'we only want you for half day so we'd like you to change the price'... I wouldn't be too impressed.

Sure, venues can cut staff numbers but the actual bar trade / restaurant trade / room trade they will sacrifice for exclusive use will likely be quite a bit.

Our venue doesn't need final numbers until a week before, so hopefully we'll have lots of flexibility time, as we're sending out the invites very early, about 6 months before, because of it being August (next year), people might need to make plans around it etc

Thanks to all who replied to this. I checked the paperwork (terms we signed) and it was presented like a package with details of how much it would cost and when payment had to be made. There was no mention of confirming final numbers or the balance being amended if our numbers changed so I accepted it was unlikely we'd have any money taken off. I'd already sent the email by this point though.. However, I had a reply yesterday for the venue with an amended figure - £300 has been taken off . So thrilled with this as our finances are pretty dire at the moment so we are very glad of this to help pay off some of our accrued debt. Thanks again for your help. H

Great news!