Wedding venue catering anger

Astartemaneo

Hi all,

I'm due to get married in November and we're trying to sort out catering for the venue. In the contract for the venue it says we have to use one of their approved caterers so we have arranged one. When it got to costings, they told us that the venue has set a minimum price per head that they are allowed to charge. We were not informed of this by the venue and it is not in our contract. Is it legally enforceable? Are we just going to have to put up with it or is there anything we can do?

74jax

I would maybe call some of the other 'allowed' caterers also and ask what they would charge (just to double check what they are saying is true.

If it is, call the venue and ask why they have this limit - surely the actual caterers set the price, or are the venue gaining from the per head/

PeacefulWaters

The "official" caterers will be paying the venue to get on their list.

Is it legally enforceable?

Probably.

But you could always break the contract and see if they take you to court and argue your case there.

cherryblossomzel

Don't know about the legal side of it, but I would certainly try to fight back if they misled you. Call the venue, ask if it's true and why they didn't tell you about it? After all, if you knew at the time you might not have signed the contract so they "tricked" you into signing the thing. It might fall under mis-selling of a product, which might be against the law. See here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/phones-tv-internet-and-computers/problems-with-contracts-packages-and-offers/product-or-service-has-been-mis-sold-to-you/


Of course all this means is that you might be able to get out of your venue contract without losing your deposit. You would then have to find another venue.

Kaye1

I have catered for lots of weddings and never heard of a minimum price set by the hotel if the caterers are separate.


Big venues often use the same companies that they know are reliable and yes, they often have to pay to be on the recommended list. We do private catering and we had to do a 'test' meal for 30 people to prove that we were of the required standard for that company. We were then included on the list- it was a high end business and they wanted to make sure the companies they recommended were reliable and of good quality.


However, this minimum price is new to me. It has always been up to us what we charge. I wonder if they are just saying that to put the price up? Some places we cater for cost more than others in terms of staffing etc but we are upfront with the customer about this.

Astartemaneo

Hi all, thanks for the speedy replies.

We confirmed with the venue today that they do indeed set a minimum price per head that the caterers can charge. There are only two recommended caterers so as the first tried to charge us a ridiculous amount we are going to approach the second one. With three months to go until the wedding we can't really do much, it's too short notice to find another venue and we would lose a lot of money doing so. We are, however, going to put in writing to the venue how unsatisfied we are with this development and tell them that we should have been informed of this before we signed the contract. We are also going to ask them what their justification is for setting this minimum price.

burnoutbabe

did you not ask the price of each caterer before committing to the place? as they could have been way out of budget, why assume they'd be cheap?

Astartemaneo

We did look at the menus and prices provided by the caterer as well as discussing our budget with the venue and they appeared to be within our budget. We also discussed prices with the caterer before agreeing to a tasting and stressed to them that we wanted to keep costs down. At no point did anyone mention a per head minimum price until it came to actually putting a deposit down, which is when we said we'd have to think about it.

lika_86

It sounds like it could be vertical price fixing (which is illegal) if the caterer is agreeing to charge minimum prices.

Whatever you do, the problem is that you still need to stay on good terms with the venue (presumably, unless you want to run the risk of them being deliberately obstructive on other stuff).

VfM4meplse

Astartemaneo wrote: »

Hi all, thanks for the speedy replies.

We confirmed with the venue today that they do indeed set a minimum price per head that the caterers can charge. There are only two recommended caterers so as the first tried to charge us a ridiculous amount we are going to approach the second one. With three months to go until the wedding we can't really do much, it's too short notice to find another venue and we would lose a lot of money doing so. We are, however, going to put in writing to the venue how unsatisfied we are with this development and tell them that we should have been informed of this before we signed the contract. We are also going to ask them what their justification is for setting this minimum price.

You might be better off accepting the situation but making sure that the caterer does in fact deliver to your exacting standards, and suggesting that there is some financial redress if guest feedback is poor. When it comes to weddings, everyone remembers the food, esp if it is awful, and even the best caterers can get it wrong sometimes.

Lunar_Eclipse

Astartemaneo wrote: »

We did look at the menus and prices provided by the caterer as well as discussing our budget with the venue and they appeared to be within our budget. We also discussed prices with the caterer before agreeing to a tasting.

Why did the prices appear to be within your budget but are in fact much higher than you thought?

Is this because they didn't give you per head figures from the outset?

Prices have always been quoted/discussed on a per head basis in my experience, sometimes with an overall minimum spend (in case numbers are low.)