Negotiating with a venue - the impossible task?

My venue has been very accomodating and allow us to change pretty much anything we want. We have a choice of any soup we like for starts and then 6 different main meals served with any veg that we want and we get to choose 2 desserts from a list of 12 and people can decide what they want on the day! Some of the main meal options add £2 or £3 per head to the price depending on what we choose. We can also decide if we want a drinks package with the main meal or if we want to provide our own drink which they serve free of charge. We also have the option to go with their resident DJ or book our own. All in all we have been very happy with their flexibility and I am sorry to hear that your venue aren't as accomodating to your needs x

Hey. Sounds like your prospective venue are being a bit unreasonable. Ours has been open to negotiation and has been happy to to talk about what we want on the day and to make some adjustments for us both on price and what we actually have on the day. If they won't budge at all and it's important to you then dont book them, you'll only worry about it for ages if you do. We rejected another place because they were so inflexible.

well i think you need to just keep making enquiries, cos a venue like that would drive you mad! you will never have anything but trouble from them! My coordinator is lovely! SHes full of ideas and will let us change things here and there...mind you theres no much that we are changing really...their package is fab!! You keep going round places til you find someone who is accomodating and will do things like that for you.

Well we have a 'build your own' menu rather than set menus to choose from, but most of the other venues we considered would have allowed us to switch dishes within reason ie switch one flavour soup for another rather than switching something like melon for smoked salmon as it's to do with the cost etc of the menu packages.

Sounds to me like they are being a bit unreasonable. I'd ask them again and say that you love the venue but aren't prepared to pay for food and drink that wont get eaten/drunk and that you may have to look at alternative venues that can offer you the package you are looking for, and then see what they say.