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

Kayz_22

Hi, We’re in a similar place as MissW99 - we were due to get married in June 2020 but have postponed at no extra costs to May 2021 due to the pandemic. Now that we are closer to 2021, my fiance and I now want to have more clarification on what kind of wedding we might have for next year as we are more than likely to have a micro wedding instead of having 150+ guests. I’ve emailed our venue and asked for guidance as this would impact our caterers etc but they said it is too early to give guidance as laws keeps changing they have offered to move our date again to end of next year at no extra costs but to be honest we don’t really want to keep changing our dates as we want to start a family soon.
I guess my question is;
1. Do I wait it out closer to the date to see how it plays out? I understand from

CMA guidelines that if the wedding can’t go ahead we could be entitled to a refund as the contract has been frustrated.
2. Can I start negotiating price reduction since we are more than likely to have smaller number for our wedding or is this too early? (I’m thinking earlier the better isn’t it?)
Just to note - we have already paid the venue in full and we have not got a wedding insurance unfortunately . Thank you in advance for any advice.

mattyprice4004

You can try and negotiate, but bear in mind they hold all the cards as they don't have to give you anything back (unless cancelled by them).

You'll only be entitled to a refund if you can't have a wedding at all, not if the numbers are lower due to Gov restrictions.

Wilby88

Help!

so we have a problem with our Tipi supplier for this year. Our wedding was originally going to take place on July 10th, however we have taken the decision to push this back by a year since we have little confidence of weddings being back to normal by then, and we don't want a wedding being governed by predictions and "what ifs"

luckily most of our suppliers have agreed to rearrange at no extra cost of fuss, however the Tipi supplier are refusing to change the date until at least 3 months prior to the original date, stating that they are adamant weddings will be back to normal. We have stressed that we cannot be sure they will, especially since my parents have to travel from abroad and so we are relying on air bridges and travel restrictions being lifted as well etc 

We are not sure where to go from here, since the supplier are holding onto a £1,500 deposit that they will not return.
So far we only have the choice to cancel with them and cut our losses

Kayz_22

mattyprice4004 said:

You can try and negotiate, but bear in mind they hold all the cards as they don't have to give you anything back (unless cancelled by them).

You'll only be entitled to a refund if you can't have a wedding at all, not if the numbers are lower due to Gov restrictions.

Thanks so much for this! We will have another review with the venue in Feb, hopefully will negotiate something out. I will let you know how it goes!

Foreverhome2020

Hello,
We have previously postponed our wedding from October 2020 to June 2021. Our wedding was planned to be a large gathering of over 150+ guests and we do not want to have a socially distanced wedding - we want to wait until we can have our wedding the way we planned it. The way things are going, we are pretty certain we are not going to be allowed to hold a wedding of this amount of guests in 4 months time and frankly it would be irresponsible. Most of our suppliers have refunded our depost except for one who will not refund due to the terms of their contract being non refundable and "not knowing what the restrictions will be in June". Apart from applying common sense in understanding that restrictions will most likely be in place in 4 months time - what else can i do please?Thanks

lw388

Hi,
Wondering if anyone can help (not sure if this is the right place to post).
I was due to get married last March 28th, five days into the first full lockdown. At the time, we asked our venue for a refund as the wedding could not go ahead and they refused, only offering us the option to postpone. If we did not postpone, they would see this as us cancelling the wedding and keep all our money (as we were so close to the date everything had been paid in full). As we had no choice, we postponed to March 20th this year.
We are now still in lockdown with only 5 people allowed in Scotland and no receptions so we emailed asking if there was any chance of a refund and they refused.
I know it's a different situation this year as weddings are technically allowed, but I'm wondering if we have any standing for arguing that they acted illegally by not offering us a refund for the wedding last year?
Thank you for any advice you can give!

Amba12

Hi,
we were due to get married abroad last year, postponed and have to now cancel due to travel restrictions. We have insurance cover via John Lewis who have advised that we cannot claim as the venue is still able to hold the wedding, despite us not being able to get there. We’ve not paid balances yet but looking likely to lose deposits for venue & vendors... Any suggestions or advice greatly appreciated! 

beckycwalker

Hi, 
Me and my partner are due to get married in France 18 May (this was meant to be in June last year but postponed to this year), with the current restrictions in place we’re unable to travel to France for our wedding on this date. We have wedding insurance for an abroad wedding through John Lewis but they aren’t interested that we’re unable to travel to attend our wedding so saying we can’t claim. We’re also unable to get a refund from any of our suppliers or wedding planner as some of them have no money to refund us and others are saying we signed a contract so no! They have said we can change the date to later on this year but 1. If we moved to summer it would cost us more and it’s still not guaranteed we’d be able to travel and 2. We don’t want an autumn/winter wedding we booked and paid for a wedding in spring this year that we can’t have. 

So at the moment we’re looking likely to lose all the money we’ve spent out on the wedding and we’re at the point now where we refuse to move the date again and put more money into something that may not happen if restrictions carry on.
Is anyone else in the same position or know if there’s any other way of being able to get some money back from our insurance company? 

Thanks 
Becky 

[Deleted User]

Your insurance either covers or it doesn't - so check it carefully to see whether you have any chance of making a claim.

If not, move the wedding back.  You'll still be just as married if your wedding is in the autumn as in the spring and that really is the important thing. You can always book a spring-time party for another time.

sheramber

If the venue is available then you would only be covered if your insurance covered travel restrictions.
I  expect the wedding insurance only covers the actual wedding taking place so being unable to travel will not be covered?