What are your rights to a refund if you need to change or cancel a wedding? New guide

MSE_Jenny

With wedding and civil partnership ceremonies now allowed to go ahead in some form, things have got a little more complicated than when you just couldn't marry. What are your rights if you can get hitched, but can't have the day of your dreams?

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Wedding refund rights

Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply.

LynnSpriggs

Hi I am currently trying to resolve a complaint with my Daughters wedding venue and have come to a stale mate where the venue are not willing to review the amount they will refund, they have agreed to give a partial refund which I agree for services used but feel the amount they are asking for her to pay is unjustifiable and don't know where to go from here, the CBA have suggested an ADR but I am struggling to work out how this works even though the venue have agreed to go down this route, is there an Ombudsman for this type of complaint? any help will be appreciated.

[Deleted User]

What is the complaint?

rosiesposies

ADR and Ombudsman are the same thing it depends who they are a member of. 

silvercar

So today (31/7) the government has announced that receptions for 30 people that were due to be allowed to go ahead from tomorrow are on hold for at least 2 weeks. Any wedding parties planned for tomorrow would have already had venues buying food and calling in staff etc. Seems very harsh to have such short notice.

Aylesbury_Duck

silvercar said:

So today (31/7) the government has announced that receptions for 30 people that were due to be allowed to go ahead from tomorrow are on hold for at least 2 weeks. Any wedding parties planned for tomorrow would have already had venues buying food and calling in staff etc. Seems very harsh to have such short notice.

In the context of other measures, where we've usually been given around two weeks' notice of implementation, it is unusually tight.  However, anyone booking a wedding in a pandemic should expect disruption.  It's not as if it's an essential gathering and couldn't be delayed a year or two.   Too many people expecting the rules to work around their own wants and needs is one of the reasons we are in a mess.

LandS85

My other half and I live in England but our wedding was due to take place on 39th August in Scotland. We have made the difficult decision to ask our venue for a refund of monies paid as opposed to accepting a new date for next year as they had very few dates to choose from, none of which we were happy with and the venue were also not willing to refund us any venue hire charge for choosing a cheaper date next year than the one we had paid for this year (minimum of £1,500 difference in cost). 

The contract says that if they have to cancel due to a ‘force majeure’ then they will refund all monies paid, however they have come back today to say they are not cancelling our wedding and can still host it, albeit it with restrictions on numbers and therefore if we choose to cancel we will lose all £7,500 we have paid to them.

My query is that our wedding has 90 guests and therefore surely with the restrictions in place in Scotland for wedding ceremonies and social gatherings for the reception part, the venue cannot reasonably say that they can host the wedding we have planned and paid for can they? Surely they do have to admit that they cannot fulfil their contractual obligations and give us our refund? 

Does anyone know where we stand on this please? Also any advice with regards to what area of law I need to find a solicitor in who can best help me with this? 

Thank you,

spiro

LandS85 said:

My other half and I live in England but our wedding was due to take place on 39th August in Scotland. We have made the difficult decision to ask our venue for a refund of monies paid as opposed to accepting a new date for next year as they had very few dates to choose from, none of which we were happy with and the venue were also not willing to refund us any venue hire charge for choosing a cheaper date next year than the one we had paid for this year (minimum of £1,500 difference in cost). 

The contract says that if they have to cancel due to a ‘force majeure’ then they will refund all monies paid, however they have come back today to say they are not cancelling our wedding and can still host it, albeit it with restrictions on numbers and therefore if we choose to cancel we will lose all £7,500 we have paid to them.

My query is that our wedding has 90 guests and therefore surely with the restrictions in place in Scotland for wedding ceremonies and social gatherings for the reception part, the venue cannot reasonably say that they can host the wedding we have planned and paid for can they? Surely they do have to admit that they cannot fulfil their contractual obligations and give us our refund? 

Does anyone know where we stand on this please? Also any advice with regards to what area of law I need to find a solicitor in who can best help me with this? 

Thank you,

They can host the wedding, it may not just be as big as you planned.
What does your wedding insurance company say?

LandS85

spiro said:

LandS85 said:

My other half and I live in England but our wedding was due to take place on 39th August in Scotland. We have made the difficult decision to ask our venue for a refund of monies paid as opposed to accepting a new date for next year as they had very few dates to choose from, none of which we were happy with and the venue were also not willing to refund us any venue hire charge for choosing a cheaper date next year than the one we had paid for this year (minimum of £1,500 difference in cost). 

The contract says that if they have to cancel due to a ‘force majeure’ then they will refund all monies paid, however they have come back today to say they are not cancelling our wedding and can still host it, albeit it with restrictions on numbers and therefore if we choose to cancel we will lose all £7,500 we have paid to them.

My query is that our wedding has 90 guests and therefore surely with the restrictions in place in Scotland for wedding ceremonies and social gatherings for the reception part, the venue cannot reasonably say that they can host the wedding we have planned and paid for can they? Surely they do have to admit that they cannot fulfil their contractual obligations and give us our refund? 

Does anyone know where we stand on this please? Also any advice with regards to what area of law I need to find a solicitor in who can best help me with this? 

Thank you,

They can host the wedding, it may not just be as big as you planned.
What does your wedding insurance company say?

We don’t have wedding insurance

mattyprice4004

LandS85 said:

spiro said:

LandS85 said:

My other half and I live in England but our wedding was due to take place on 39th August in Scotland. We have made the difficult decision to ask our venue for a refund of monies paid as opposed to accepting a new date for next year as they had very few dates to choose from, none of which we were happy with and the venue were also not willing to refund us any venue hire charge for choosing a cheaper date next year than the one we had paid for this year (minimum of £1,500 difference in cost). 

The contract says that if they have to cancel due to a ‘force majeure’ then they will refund all monies paid, however they have come back today to say they are not cancelling our wedding and can still host it, albeit it with restrictions on numbers and therefore if we choose to cancel we will lose all £7,500 we have paid to them.

My query is that our wedding has 90 guests and therefore surely with the restrictions in place in Scotland for wedding ceremonies and social gatherings for the reception part, the venue cannot reasonably say that they can host the wedding we have planned and paid for can they? Surely they do have to admit that they cannot fulfil their contractual obligations and give us our refund? 

Does anyone know where we stand on this please? Also any advice with regards to what area of law I need to find a solicitor in who can best help me with this? 

Thank you,

They can host the wedding, it may not just be as big as you planned.
What does your wedding insurance company say?

We don’t have wedding insurance

I feel this may be an error that will cost you dearly. 

You should always have insurance to cover any loss you can’t afford to take the hit on yourself, a wedding included. 

Ultimately there’ll be a clause in the contract for this I imagine - as it’s outside of their control it’s not a loss they have to take, and it’d be an insurance matter.  

a1my

Hi, 
We've had our wedding postponed twice now and most suppliers have been great at moving over and not charging us where they can't do the new dates. We booked a videographer for our new date in Sept and are now having to postpone again until we know when a new date will be more suitable with the current situation. I've emailed the videographer who has a £200 deposit of ours but they have said as it is within 3 months of the wedding date we still owe them 100%  of the total but as a gesture of goodwill will reduce it to 50% so they want £440 from us in 2 days time. As we aren't using the service and don't know when we will do we have to pay them that amount? I had settled on the fact we might not get our deposit back but was not expecting this?