Wedding venue restricted numbers - reduced venue hire charge?

hoth0416

Hi everyone

My wedding venue is planning for social distancing measures and their initial indication is that the capacity could be reduced from 250 to c.120.

I'm wondering whether we have any legal basis for claiming that the venue hire should be reduced, as we entered into our contract on the basis the venue could hold 250? As you'd expect, there are no specifics in the contract which govern such a scenario (bar a standard force majeure). The contract did state our expected numbers however - which helps that is was documented.

Of course this is all dependent on whether ceremonies of that size (or any size!) are allowed at that point, but I am due to speak to speak to the venue to discuss plans. I will mention reducing the venue hire fee to see if they are flexible, but wanted to know if anyone had any insight to whet legal backing I had if I wanted to put some weight to my argument.

Thanks in advance!

gettingtheresometime

I think it will depend on how the contract is worded so, for example, if it states hire of the room as a separate item to the charge for food & drink for the 250 people, then I think the venue could argue that you are still hiring the room so that charge isn't affected whereas the charge for the 250 people is affected so I would expect that to be reduced.

If the contract states room and food/drink as one item then you may have some grounds for a reduction but again, I would only expect the reduction to reflect the reduced number of attendees.

Personally I think your biggest headache may be trying to work out who you dis-invite