Venue problems - advice on writing a letter

abis21

Did you get anywhere with them Bluefire?

After saying all that the other day, I've changed my venue now!! I went to see them at the weekend to ask some questions, and the owner refused to come downstairs to see us as she was 'busy' :mad:

Had another look round the place with fresh eyes, and decided it wasn't as big as I'd remembered it, and wasn't as nice either.

So went to the more common place I was talking about, and found that not only was it available, but it also had new owners and a new pricing structure, so it was now within budget :T :j :beer:

I wouldn't even have thought it possible to get married there. Its normally booked up for ages, and like I say, I know the old pricing structure and it was wayyy too much. So excited now!! Feels like everything is really coming together now.

Hope you get yours sorted out soon xx

Bluefire

picklepick wrote: »

I would call and ask to speak to the lady you're writing the letter to. If she isnt there ask when she will be and call back to speak to her personally. The guy who does the emailing sounds like a numpty!

Tried that, she's either always never there or too busy to come to the phone. I think out of all the times we've rang we've actually had a call back off her once. The other times I guess there's no way of knowing whether she ended up receiving the messages we left.

SplanK wrote: »

Before sending the letter... CALL them and arrange a meeting with them to discuss prices, deposits, arangments and plan of action moving forwards... then see how you feel and take it from there...

Thanks for the advice... unfortunately we'd already sent the letter by the time I read your reply though! I think we'd just reached the point where we were kind of giving up - it's not like we'd just been e-mailing, there phone calls too. I think the fact the owner hardly ever there has put us off just driving over as it probably would have been a wasted journey most of the time!

Bluefire

Glad to hear you've managed to secure a new (and hopefully better!) venue abis21, how lucky for you that the other place had changed their prices!

Well, I've got an update of sorts... as luck would have it as we sent the letter on the Friday evening, they finally e-mailed us the prices & an invoice for the deposit on the Sunday afternoon (before they would have gotten the letter) - typical!

Of course, things couldn't have been nice & simple, that would be too easy. Not only was my name & address on the invoice wrong but more importantly they'd invoiced us for the wrong price, nearly £1000 more than we were expecting.

We wrote back almost immediately, commenting that after 3 months with no contact we'd be very concerned, and attached a copy of the letter we'd sent. Naturally we also queried the price we'd been invoiced.

...that was on Sunday midday & we've heard nothing since. Planning to phone tonight!

zcrat41

Blue fire - this may be a completely random and wrong thing but is it a farmer who owns the barn?

Its just the guy sounds just like my Dad and how he would react!

May help with the approach that's all!

Bluefire

Urgh, what a mess this has all become. We went for a meeting there last night, received no apology for the lack of communication, just 'I don't know what's happened'

The first time we visited was a Sunday at 3pm, at which point they still hadn't finished clearing up from the previous days wedding, partly due to the wedding party coming down late for breakfast. Because of this, we were very concerned about whether there would be a wedding the day before ours, and were assured there wouldn't be as they didn't do consecutive weddings. Yep, you guessed it, we were told last night that there is a wedding booked in the day before ours, and as it's exclusive use until for them until 10.30am they wouldn't be able to start setting up for our wedding until after then. Which means that the cottage we'd booked in the grounds to enable us to spend the afternoon prior to our wedding day decorating is absolutely pointless.

We also had the bomb dropped on us that they're refusing to cater for any less than the entire wedding party in the evening. The idea was that we would get married later in the afternoon, have afternoon tea, then our wedding breakfast around 5-6 meaning we would only have to cater for the evening guests later on. Can't do that, and can't not have any food available in the evening either, so we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Apparently people who have only just finished eating around 7pm are going to be hungry again by 9pm.

So we have 2 plans, the first obviously being to look for another wedding venue. Building wise we're not going to find anything close, as the venue we currently have is perfect for us, but we've reached the end of our tether. Back up plan is to move dates & make the best of a bad situation. Neither of us is happy to stick with the 4th and having to deal with the stress of wondering whether the venue will be ready in time. Plus it also means I can't help decorate, something I very much wanted to do. So we've provisionally moved it to May, and are planning on booking accomodation the night before just for the 2 of us, which hopefully means they shouldn't be able to pull the same act again and book an exclusive wedding in the day before. Even that didn't go to plan though, I rang last night to check the date we wanted in May was free and told it was, only to ring this morning to book it & have the same person tell me she had no idea if the date was available!

Useless doesn't even describe it. Anyone know of any decent barns within a 30 minute drive of Market Drayton in Shropshire?

newidentity

Sounds a bit like our wedding day fiasco which ended up in a long court battle for a similar reason of non-communication (unfortunately, we had paid the deposit and they would not give it back). I had a thread on here (under a different name) with a thread title not dissimilar to yours (made me think it was the same place to start with but you are not in the same area)!!!

So cannot help with other venues unfortunately but just wanted to say it sounds like you had a lucky escape and should thank your lucky stars.

picklepick

So we dont suggest the same place whats the name of the place that you're already booked with?

misscoupon

I'm not in your area so can't help but I would say that if the venue doesn't match your requirements and are being unflexible you should take your business elsewhere!
If they are not flexible to win your business, god knows how they would behave once they have your money
There will be tons of other things to stress about when you get closer to your wedding date, you don't want to have this niggling doubt in your head about your venue.

nickinoo

What a nightmare. You have suggested moving the date, presumably so that there is no wedding the day before? With the way things have happened so far I wouldn't rely on them to keep the previous day free for you.

I think the evening catering is pretty standard. Your day guests may not be hungry by 9pm but perhaps by 11pm after a few drinks? It also depends on what you have as the wedding breakfast, portion size etc. If I was a guest during the day & got told I couldn't have any of the evening buffet I'd be pretty miffed!

Bluefire

picklepick wrote: »

So we dont suggest the same place whats the name of the place that you're already booked with?

I don't want to say at the moment just in case they're in the habit of googling themselves to find reviews - the last thing I need if we do end up stuck with them is getting an even worse service because they've found out we've been complaining about them on the internet. Just don't suggest anywhere in Wem...

misscoupon wrote: »

There will be tons of other things to stress about when you get closer to your wedding date, you don't want to have this niggling doubt in your head about your venue.

This is my worry, I'm so stressed about it already, I was up until 1am this morning trying to come up with a plan of action. I can't quite believe somewhere we're going to be paying thousands of pounds to thinks they can treat us like this!

nickinoo wrote: »

What a nightmare. You have suggested moving the date, presumably so that there is no wedding the day before? With the way things have happened so far I wouldn't rely on them to keep the previous day free for you.

Our hope is by booking accomodation the night before it will have to stay free, as Sundays are on an exclusive basis only, so if we've booked rooms they can't have a wedding. Wish I'd thought of that with regards to our previous date now instead of taking them at their word that there wouldn't be a wedding the day before!

nickinoo wrote: »

If I was a guest during the day & got told I couldn't have any of the evening buffet I'd be pretty miffed!

That wasn't the intention, more we wanted to know how much the £12 per head got each guest (one burger, one hot dog, one piece of chicken for example) and just kind of spread it out a bit, so for example each guest would get a burger each for example, rather than having to cater in full twice. The funny thing is, we'd already talked about this with her & now she's saying we can't do it! Grr...