Wedding Cancellation

[MT1502]

Good morning,

I wanted to pop a quick post on here to ask for some advice. I've read through previous threads similar to my situation and I think I've got most of the information required however just wanted extra peace of mind.

I'm going to make up dates etc.

So we booked our wedding in 2017 for 2019. Due to financial difficulties we contacted the venue 10 months prior to the date to see if we could hold a small evening reception there on the same date, instead of having a big day. They told us no because they have a minimum spend of £9k hence an evening reception wouldn't meet this. We said we'd have to either postpone the wedding or cancel as we couldn't afford it to which they said a postponement is treated the same as a cancellation ie. same charges applied. They were just really unsympathetic and foul to us which made us not want to hold any part of the wedding there, leading us to cancel.

Sadly we signed the T&Cs which had a sliding scale of cancellations fees, 30% applied to us. We tried to negotiate with them and asked if we could pay a reduced sum if they re-booked the date to which they told us no. They said of course they'd try to re-sell the date however the 2019 market has passed and regardless the cancellation fees would still apply. They asked us why they think we should be treated differently to anyone else who cancels etc. and were just plain rude. They sent through a cancellation invoice and then we heard nothing more.

10 months later and they've re-sent over the cancellation invoice again informing us it's due for payment. After doing some research it's come to light that they actually had a wedding on the date we cancelled and have plastered it all over social media. So my question is why do we have to pay a huge lump sum of money when they made no loss and re-booked the venue? We also paid a £500 deposit at the time of booking which is technically extra profit for them now, or more than covers the cost of the admin work of booking us in.

Any help on what I should do next?

Thank you

[Amethyst]

Do you have the agreement available to post up please?

I agree with you that the deposit covers them, that as they resold the date they had no further loss, and that after the way they spoke to you after you tried to discuss amending your plans you were quite right to cancel with them altogether. But let's see what you agreed to when you booked then we'll have an idea where you stand

[MT1502]

Do you have the agreement available to post up please?

I agree with you that the deposit covers them, that as they resold the date they had no further loss, and that after the way they spoke to you after you tried to discuss amending your plans you were quite right to cancel with them altogether. But let's see what you agreed to when you booked then we'll have an idea where you stand

Thank you! Am I able to post it privately for you?

[ostell]

Private discussions discouraged. Better to have many eyes. Post on the forum but redact out the identifying details.

Get all the details about this wedding on the day you had booked, print it out for safe keeper if it comes to the crunch. Especially anything that mentions the date.

[Amethyst]

Indeed, but if you have trouble uploading feel free to redact and email it to me and I can post up anonymised xx admin@legalbeagles.info

[MT1502]

Amethyst ostell Thanks both. Have collected lots of print screens from all over social media from several suppliers who were at the wedding on said date. Have attached the T&Cs we signed - hope this works?

[Amethyst]

Thank you - yes that;'s perfect

[MT1502]

Good afternoon,

Does anyone have an update or advice re. the above?

Thanks

[des8]

Whilst awaiting the experts opinion the wedding venue may only charge for administration and marketing costs and for any work they had started and loss of profit but no more.
So for you admin costs & extra advertising

Consumer Rights Act 2015 Schedule 2 lists unfair terms in Consumer Contracts
Number 5:
"A term which has the object or effect of requiring that where the consumer decides not to conclude or perform the contract, the consumer must pay the trader a disproportionately high sum in compensation or for services which have not been supplied.

[Amethyst]

Just to add to Des's post, if you have a look also the regulators did quite a bit of work on unfair terms in wedding venue contracts....specifically regarding this kind of situation, excessive cancellation fees/deposits being lost etc... example

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wedding-and-event-venue-providers-letter-from-the-cma-on-contract-terms

Wedding & event venues


The CMA, on behalf of the Consumer Protection Partnership, has issued an advisory letter to over 100 major wedding and event venue providers across the UK. The letter raises businesses' awareness of the potential for consumer contract terms to be unfair and recommends that they ensure that their terms, and in particular their advance payment and cancellation terms, comply with consumer protection law.

which includes

The CMA and the CPP consider that terms regarding advance payments and cancellation charges are less likely to be fair where:

Deposits are non-refundable when the amount is more than that required by the business to represent the consumer’s payment to reserve the services.

Advance payments are more than that required by the business to cover its actual costs.

Non-refundable advance payments and cancellation charges are calculated to cover all of the business’ costs and loss of profit.

Sliding scales of cancellation charges allow the business to recover more from the consumer than the losses it is likely to suffer if the consumer cancels.

If, on cancellation by consumers, the amount kept or charged by the business is too much, or consumers have to pay a fixed amount in all circumstances, the business may be receiving double compensation, and consumers may be paying a disproportionate financial sanction

[MT1502]

Hi all

Thanks for your help so far. The venue left us a voicemail informing us that the cancellation fee was due and said "as per your cancellation letter, you did say you were liable to pay the cancellation fee after the date passed" - this is true, but they conveniently missed out the next line which said "If you can provide us with a full list of your losses and proof of trying to re-sell the venue and failure to do so".

We replied and asked again, for details of their losses and also proof of the failure to re-sell the venue (knowing that they did re-sell it). Two weeks later we've just received a response which states they've passed our wedding file to their solicitors who will be in touch regarding our cancellation and outstanding invoice. Is there anything else we should be doing? Should we be worried? I imagine the solicitors are going to hound us with legal talk which we won't understand or be able to respond to in a 'legal' way.

Thanks

[des8]

That's all right, we're used to playing letter tennis with solicitors.
They charge their client for each letter sent and received!