Wedding Catering want payment ahead of postponed wedding

MBarron

We unfortunately took the decision to postpone our wedding this year which was due to be held on Jul 22nd. The Corona put a stop to that and all our suppliers agreed that we can postpone our date until next year, however our caterers want payment on the original payment date (1st June 2020).
No insurers will cover us if they go our of business due to coronavirus so I am a little uneasy pay them this large sum of money. Especially as they shouldn't have overheads/ need to buy the food for my wedding until next year.  
I tried to explain this to them and they suggested I use a specific insurer, but when I phoned the recommended insurer they said they would not insure me for this. I went back to the caterer and explained and they offered that I pay 70% of this sum on the 1st June 2020. This is still a considerable amount that I am putting at risk into one of the hardest coronavirus hit areas so I am more than a little worried.

Has anyone else run into anything like this/ any advise on how I can resolve this? 

Thank you in advance.
Mike

lincroft1710

Why do your caterers need paying many months in advance when they were previously happy with payment only 7 weeks in advance? Have you asked them? What will happen if you don't pay?

daveyjp

Their income has dried up, they will still have plenty of overheads (food will be a small percentage of their business cost) so generating cash is their priority.

I personally wouldn't risk payment.  There is still no certainty the event can happen next year.

[Deleted User]

Had you paid your caters last year in advance of this year do you think they would be refunding you... Of course not! Just because you may well have booked them, you not going ahead with your wedding will highly unlikely mean they loose out on other weddings going ahead around the same time as nearly all wedding for summer are being put off until next year. Fact is they probably have no income now and reliant on people like you to just stump up. If they can't wait for payment nearer the time then they aren't worth having. 

JoeBloggs72

Daveym79 said:

Had you paid your caters last year in advance of this year do you think they would be refunding you... Of course not! Just because you may well have booked them, you not going ahead with your wedding will highly unlikely mean they loose out on other weddings going ahead around the same time as nearly all wedding for summer are being put off until next year. Fact is they probably have no income now and reliant on people like you to just stump up. If they can't wait for payment nearer the time then they aren't worth having. 

I agree 

Hermann

Do you have an agreed contract in place with them? If so what does that say?

MBarron

Hermann said:

Do you have an agreed contract in place with them? If so what does that say?

Hi Thanks,

the contact we have says payment 20 working days before the event. so as we have moved it it should be beofre the event, but there are clauses in there that say an invoice takes precedence and if we were to just cancel then the clauses about paying 75% the value could come into play.

[Deleted User]

How was the booking taken in the first place? Over the phone or via email or website? 

Rabbitcatcher

The CMA has very clear guidance (albeit directed to venues specifically) that basically suppliers cannot charge a cancellation fee over and above what they already spent and ‘losing’, regardless of contract. Contracts mean nothing in a court unless they are deemed fair. 

If they keep pushing for payment now and continue to indicate the cancellation charge I’d recommend politely pointing that out (google ‘CMA wedding’) and stick to your guns. Obviously emphasising you still would love to work with them but cannot commit that payment now. 

If they don’t play ball then they decide if they want to peruse legal action and you can report it to the CMA. I doubt they will want to incur legal costs and I also doubt they would come out on top of they did. 

Ps I’m saying as a ‘friend’ - not a lawyer, although I’ve been reading up on little else for a month!