Help negotiating lower venue price

Trixsie1989

Hi everyone,

We are planning our wedding for 16th January 2015 and we have found a venue we love. The hotel has a few set packages ranging from 2k upto 3k, the one that suits us best is 2300 but this is a peak time wedding package. Has anyone got any ideas of how to approach negotiating with the venue for a lower price as its off peak? Really don't want to be spending more than 2k if we can help it. Thanks.

CompBunny

I negotiated with my venue by finding another hotel that offered the same package cheaper and asked them to match it.

However, as you are wanting an "off peak" wedding, it might just be worth being upfront with the venue and saying that your budget is £2,000, you like the look of the package and can they do it for you as it is an off peak date? If they say no show them how other venues offer discounts for off peak etc. If they are really stubborn about it, could you afford to meet in the middle? Eg £2150.

Good luck!

Trixsie1989

I am trying to work out what we want as we don't actually want everything off that package anyway so hopefully we will be able to go to them and say this is what we want can you do it for 2k. We can't really afford anymore than that as we are funding this ourselves. Xx

CompBunny

Thats a good idea, no point paying for things in a package that you don't want or need! Make it very clear that £2k is your upper limit so they can make suggestions for changes if necessary x

Cooliogti

Ask them what dates they have available... We did this and found out that they had no other enquiries even for any Sundays in our chosen month, so we were able to get them to do a deal on lowering their minimum numbers from 75 to 60 for the day (whereas all the fridays and saturdays had provisional bookings at least, so they wouldn't budge). And at £45 per head for the meal, plus £10 for a few drinks per person for the day that was a reasonable saving!

If there are things in the package that you don't want, ask them if they could either, as others have said, simply cut them out and give you a lower price, or change them for something else which they'd normally charge extra for.

Trixsie1989

I've made a list of what we want so hopefully that will help. We've picked the date and booked registry for it as the date is special to us but its a Friday in January so can't see there being many other bookings then. If we can get the minimum number down from 80 on the night, even just to 70, that would help although I'm not sure how were supposed to work out how many to cater for? I don't want to end up with loads of wasted left over food. I thought about asking if they'd switch 1 night in the bridal suite for 2 nights in a executive double room (same price) which would then save 90 as a starting point. The package menus include a huge menu list for the buffet so maybe if we trimmed that down that might save some money too? Hopefully going to a wedding fare at the venue in a couple of weeks so we can have a look at the rooms again and see what their suppliers are like etc. just be glad when we've settled on a price, really stressed out whilst its up in the air! Xxx

mazziem

Best thing to do is just say ' can we negotiate the price a bit as we are having it out of season' say you'll have x amount of guests spending on alcohol and then rooms. They would reset have your business than not and you might be surpised and they offer you less than £300 off.we got £1500 off ours and got extras for free as we get married on a Sunday in feb. I have 80 in the day , do they are flexible especially out of season as there tends to be a lot less weddings (obviously why it's out of season)lol

Peronslly I wouldn't tell them your budget until they offer you a discount, if they say more than £2000 then I would say my budget is £2000.

Good luck xx

Trixsie1989

Mazziem, what extras did you get? I'm trying to work out contingency plans in case they won't budge on price to see what I could get thrown in to help out. Gosh 1500 knocked off was amazing! I'm hoping we can just pay for costs of everything minus room hire, that would save 500 alone! Xxx

lazer

Trixsie1989 wrote: »

I've made a list of what we want so hopefully that will help. We've picked the date and booked registry for it as the date is special to us but its a Friday in January so can't see there being many other bookings then. If we can get the minimum number down from 80 on the night, even just to 70, that would help although I'm not sure how were supposed to work out how many to cater for? I don't want to end up with loads of wasted left over food. I thought about asking if they'd switch 1 night in the bridal suite for 2 nights in a executive double room (same price) which would then save 90 as a starting point. The package menus include a huge menu list for the buffet so maybe if we trimmed that down that might save some money too? Hopefully going to a wedding fare at the venue in a couple of weeks so we can have a look at the rooms again and see what their suppliers are like etc. just be glad when we've settled on a price, really stressed out whilst its up in the air! Xxx

Regarding the rooms - don't ask if they will do this - ask if they will throw in an extra night for you, if they say no ask about downgrading the room and having it for 2 nights

We asked for this and got it - so we had 2 nights in the Bridal Suite (For no extra cost)

Trixsie1989

That's a good idea :-) thank you xxx