Reception venue difficulties

M_sarah

Hi everyone, am after some advice please! We've booked our reception venue for Aug this year and all has been going smoothly so far with wedding planning...

However, I'm now feeling very stupid for this but we don't actually have a signed contract with the venue. All offers / agreements have been confirmed by email. The venue are now trying to change what they originally said was included in the hire cost and charge us for the hire of things they had originally included (e.g. Tablecloths, cutlery & crockery).

They're also levying a charge for handling, storage & serving of our alcohol despite not doing any of these things (our caterers are hiring fridges to store & will also serve it). The venue say they're allowed to do this because it is their premises licence.

When we've raised these things with the venue they've been really unhelpful and accused us of not telling them we had booked outside caterers and various other things.

I'm really trying to keep things civil with them as we've paid a deposit which we don't want to lose but am feeling a bit sad about how they're behaving (and know we have probably been a bit naive).

Any advice on how to proceed & where we stand in terms of asking them to honour their original promise would be really gratefully received

floss2

Ask them for a meeting with the manager, print off all your emails, and speak to Trading Standards before you meet with them for some advice.

lettice

You may not have a signed contract but you have documentary evidence of what was offered and what was accepted so this should stand you in good stead.

Best of luck!

74jax

I would go along and speak in person, sometimes emails can be read in the way they weren't meant to be.

Call them up, arrange a meeting and take your emails.

Remain calm, explain your side, listen to their side and then ask how to resolve 'any' issues you still disagree on.