Negotiating Numbers for reception venue success???

bigmomma051204

Hiya - went to look ata local-ish venue called Dumbleton Hall (Worcestershire) yesterday and it was AMAZING!! Its totally beautiful ....the prices are not completely mad (about average from what i can gather...) AND you dont have to pay for exclusivity (which around here seems like a must for most venues if you want a party in evening past 5pm!!)

BUT - we want an October wedding (i don't deal with hot weather well lol!) and they have two dates left for next October......the wedding lady said that if we want a saturday though, we have to cater for 80guests for the sit down meal.....we think we will probably only be able to "find" 50 for sit down and probably about 80-90 for the evening do......she straight away said that she would possibly be able to bring it down to 70 for the wedding breakfast but thats still way too many for us..... my question is -

Have any of you managed to bargain your venue down on the numbers they "require" you to have and if so...what were your bargaining "tools" LOL???

rene2b

when we booked our venue the manger said if we want a saturday we would have to pay for min 80 for the sit down meal and 150 for the night do
so we went for a friday wedding:D as there was no min on numbers for the meal but had to cater for 100 at the night which is fine with us

if you speck to them about numbers im sure they will move abit

stef240377

The venue we chose had a package priced at £750 for 50 sit down meal, room for 150 on evening, 3 tier cake with stand and knife, toastmaster, wine with meal and bubb;y for speeches.

We told them the most we could get for sit down would be 30 (we have 31now) and 80 on the evening. So they worked with us. I have ended up a choice menu instead of set. No cake but getting my own from M&S and had the buffet thrown in for evening all for £850 with an extra £185 direct to the DJ. We also paid £2 per chair for seat covers and sashes.

We didnt go in to barter or bargain with them so came out looking like the cat who had got the cream.

bigmomma051204

Hi both thanks for the replies! I really hope that the wedding bird will let us come down in numbers as it would be in October after all so am not wanting lee-way on mid summer high season wedding etc!!