Wedding Venue Cancellation

[eviveson]

My husband and I had to change the date of our wedding, and the venue that we had already placed a deposit down on didn't have any other dates available for us to change to. So, we decided to book a registry office and have a small do in a pub afterwards, accepting that we would lose the deposit with the venue. We paid a non-refundable £500 deposit, plus a refundable £300 ceremony fee. When cancelling I found out that the following t's and c's apply to cancelling the date:

18. A holding deposit of £500 is required for parties, which will be returned less any cost for breakages.
19. In the event of cancellation, the booking deposit is non-refundable. Additional cancellation fees will be charged as follows:
o Between 12 and 6 months before the date: £500 + VAT.
o Less than 6 months before the date: Balance of hire subject to a maximum of £1,500 + VAT.
o Additional cancellation charges will be refunded if the date can be re-hired on satisfactory terms.

Because the wedding is 5 months away, they sent an invoice for £1,500 minus the £300 ceremony fee. In shock, I emailed them to explain the situation, hoping they would be kind to us.

They have reduced the cancellation fee to £750 + VAT, but we will not get back the deposit or ceremony fee, meaning we have paid them £1,550+VAT for doing absolutely nothing. The entire venue hire would have only been £2,300 anyway if we'd gone ahead with the wedding on that date.

I understand they potentially have lost money, but they haven't actually incurred any money lost yet. I also checked a number of wedding sites and they are not advertising the date on any of them, which leaves me questioning if they are actually going to try and book it with another couple. It is a popular date in August so I would have thought it would have a good chance of re-booking.

Do I have an argument to not pay this additional cancellation fee? I can live with losing the ceremony fee. (and we never thought we'd get back the deposit).

Thank you

[jaguarsuk]

By the wording of the terms you agreed it appears you are liable, but I would challenge them based on this bit as if they aren't advertising the venue as being available then how can they ever satisfy this clause.

Additional cancellation charges will be refunded if the date can be re-hired on satisfactory terms.

Do you have a friend whom could email their general enquiry address to seek availability of dates in August? If they email back excluding your date then you might have something to go on. You could even just set up a throw away gmail address to do it yourself.

[eviveson]

Thank you, I will set up an email and see if they mention our available date. If they do, but continue to not appear to advertise it in anyway, do you think we have any kind of argument against them?

[jaguarsuk]

If they decided to file a claim at court and you could show that they are not making any effort to market the date then you could potentially Counterclaim for the same amount as they claim under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

If they havent made the effort to try to obtain another booking how can you ever have had opportunity to have the additional fee refunded? Therefore it is an unfair term.

I assume these a pre drafted terms and you didn’t specifically negotiate that term?

[warwick65]

Hi
This sounds harsh but in my opinion is right, wedding venues are generally booked up months in advance and they were counting on the revenue . As far as them not advertising the date I am not convinced you can hold this against them unless you offered to cover the costs involved of re advertising which could be considerable if they do not get a booking.

Without knowing the details of the venue, it is possible they will have also incurred costs such as booking a team to dress the room , ordered stock for the dressing etc etc

[eviveson]

Thank you, this makes sense. I will start documenting their lack of advertising the date and ask them what they plan to do to re-book the date too.

Yes, these are standard terms on their contract.

[jaguarsuk]

Things like if they aren’t listing it as available on their website if they list open dates, there’s no cost to them to do that and it’s completely reasonable if you to expect them to take that step.

[eviveson]

Hi
This sounds harsh but in my opinion is right, wedding venues are generally booked up months in advance and they were counting on the revenue . As far as them not advertising the date I am not convinced you can hold this against them unless you offered to cover the costs involved of re advertising which could be considerable if they do not get a booking.

Without knowing the details of the venue, it is possible they will have also incurred costs such as booking a team to dress the room , ordered stock for the dressing etc etc

Yes I completely understand that they will lose revenue from us not having our wedding there, and would have definitely booked the date with someone else had we not. However, they haven't done anything for us, nor have they incurred any costs to date. The date is a popular date in August that I believe they will have no trouble re-booking as a last minute date if they market it appropriately. In regard to advertising costs, the venue are already advertising on Hitched, but not showing as available in August.

[R0b]

Have a look at the following links that might be of use (last one is the Competition and Markets Authority guidance on unfair terms)

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/w...d-to-play-fair

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...contract-terms

https://assets.publishing.service.go...n_Guidance.pdf

[eviveson]

Thank you Rob, I will have a read

[Diana M]

I completely understand that they will lose revenue from us not having our wedding there, and would have definitely booked the date with someone else had we not.

I suppose they could argue that they've lost the business which they rejected because the date/day which you booked wasn't available to others from the time when your booking was accepted until the time you cancelled it.

Although I'm not sure how they could prove that unless they kept details of all/any enquiries which were turned away.

Without knowing the facts it's hard to comment but hotels/venues make money from wedding 'spin-offs' such as guests who stay at the hotel and spend on the hotel's facilities (was the venue a hotel?) which would not be included in your bill for the actual wedding.

I hope your wedding and associated celebrations go well regardless of this annoyance.

Di