Seeking Opinions: Swapping Wedding Dates for Dream Venue - Is It Reasonable?

Personally I don't think this is a good idea and the venue are not likely to even entertain the discussion or contact their client to propose it. I don't think there is an etiquette, as it is simply not something that happens. I don't want to sound harsh, but i feel is quite rude to ask someone to swap so you can have your date when they don't even know you. Ii would not be happy if my venue asked me to consider swapping. As hard as it is for you it is what it is and you will either need to choose another date,a venue that can accommodate your desired date, or push your date out to 2025 if the dream venue has that available .

Hi Sam,
I know how important having your dream day is, and I assume having the date is also important to you too. But it’s likely also the same for most other couples booking their wedding.
I don’t think you should do this, it’ll likely cause you a lot of unnecessary hope and then upset when it doesn’t materialise. You’re better to learn to control the things you can control rather than try to change the things you can’t. Look for a different date or a different venue are likely to be your options.
Also, I would (hypothetically, as mine wouldn’t do this) seriously question the etiquette of my venue asking me to change my date after I booked and secured it. Personally, I’d feel very slighted, like I mattered less than the new people coming along as they have money to throw at “the problem” of me having booked the wedding date with enough notice. I’m sure this isn’t your intention, but that’s what you’re asking your venue to do for you ultimately.

View quoted message

Thank you so much for the considerate reply! I really appreciate it. I agree the venue is unlikely to pass on our request. However, doesn't everything have a price in life? I just wonder if there is a couple out there who would accept a cash offer to move their wedding from October to November. I just wonder if it isnt really that much of a big deal, and perhaps someone wouldn't mind getting married a few weeks / months later if it meant a portion of their wedding was paid for?

View quoted message

"I just wonder if it isnt really that much of a big deal, and perhaps someone wouldn't mind getting married a few weeks / months later"

I think you are being a little inconsistent here - if it 'isn't really that much of a big deal' to get married a few months later, then surely you can do that yourself?!

Of course, there is nothing to stop you making your request to the venue, but I doubt very much that they will entertain it - as others have said, it would make them look very unprofessional if they were to contact a couple who has already chosen an October date (presumably because they wanted October, because otherwise they would have chosen November themselves!) and ask them to move.

It's hard not having the date you want for your wedding, but thousands of couples have had to accept that (for a start, just about anyone planning to getting married in the last 9 months of 2020 didn't get their preferred wedding date!)

I think what you need to consider is that its not just the venue that the date changes for, but the other vendors too, who may not be available on a new date. The inconvenience of re-arranging and potentially finding new vendors could be pretty high. We started booking the photographer, caterer etc as soon as our date was booked and changing the dates could incur a loss of deposit if they were no longer available.

View quoted message If you don’t see it as a big deal moving the date then I don’t understand why you can’t move yours? You just have to remember that by now people might of booked the photographer/ florist plus other vendors and started to sort things out and it’s not easy to chance dates for these types of things and usually you have to pay money to change the date.

The venue we chose didn't have our preferred date available, but a different venue did. Even though we couldn't have our first choice of date we still found something we were happy with. Do I wish we'd been a bit sooner and got our original date? Of course. I let the venue know if the date became available for whatever reason (like the other couple we'd still like it, but it was never mentioned or considered by either side that we'd ask the other people to move their day for us.
We just accepted we can't always get what we want in life and moved on to find an alternative that worked for us.

From the hotels point of view even with some carefully written words just explaining and asking the question and even when its made clear the wedding is absolutely safe it is still going to start to worry the pre booked wedding that they may get cancelled.

So to no benefit to the hotel they potentially could be undoing their reputation.

I can see your thinking and it sounds doable but there are so many pitfalls. The hotel may want a fee for doing the change, all the main expensive suppliers for the other wedding are likely to be booked so the couple will loose those deposits - so you would have to pay those but that's not just it because these are suppliers that they have researched and chosen and may not be available for the new date and they may end up with their 2nd or 3rd choice.

So there is all of that to pay before you come up with any compensation amount for their inconvenience.

Then there is the issue of them providing proof of the deposits they would loose, some suppliers maybe able to move the date without any loss of deposits.

How would payment be "policed" you would need some sort of a contract so you both have proof of the amounts. I think its just far to complicated to be done, considering that weddings are a massive thing to organise without extra issues on top.

I have seen cases on here of people "selling" their date. They are taking the hit on the supplier deposits but so they do not loose all the venue deposit they are offering it to someone else so long as the venue are happy. Say the deposit is £1000 they could be "selling" the date for something less than this. Not sure if they ever succeeded though.