Wedding registrar

Stuartwishart

Hi.
My son has lost a great deal of money as the company he paid a full deposit for his wedding to has gone bust.On top of that they paid £550 for a registrar to attend .The wedding could not go ahead because of covid,but the local authority say that the payment is non refundable. Surely in a case of a pandemic this is not reasonable. Anybody got any thoughts.

[Deleted User]

The pandemic doesn't have any bearing on the refund. You need to check the terms of the booking, in particular the clause around cancellation.

MattMattMattUK

Stuartwishart said:

Hi.
My son has lost a great deal of money as the company he paid a full deposit for his wedding to has gone bust.On top of that they paid £550 for a registrar to attend .The wedding could not go ahead because of covid,but the local authority say that the payment is non refundable. Surely in a case of a pandemic this is not reasonable. Anybody got any thoughts.

You will probably find that whilst the wedding you planned was impacted by Covid, the registrar was still able to provide their services on that day and legally conduct a wedding, hence the refusal for the refund. 

Brie

how did he pay for the deposit?  can he claim if it was done on his credit card?

MattMattMattUK

Brie said:

how did he pay for the deposit?  can he claim if it was done on his credit card?

Only if he has a legal basis to do so, paying via a credit card does not remove the legal obligations from the contract. 

[Deleted User]

Only if there has been some failure on the registrar's part.

sheramber

Could the actual wedding ceremony not go ahead

or

was it a case of it being restricted to 5 people and they didn't want to go ahead.

If the former then the registrar was available and able to conduct the wedding but couple chose not to go ahead.

Stuartwishart

It was a paid for formal gathering of 50 people which was not allowed under covid

ThisnotThat

Stuartwishart said:

It was a paid for formal gathering of 50 people which was not allowed under covid

But the registrar could have performed the service of marrying them as that was still allowed under the COVID rules.

sheramber

The wedding company and the registrar are separate entities.

If he had wedding insurance he could claim on that for the wedding company's money

If he paid by credit card he could claim from his credit card.

He cannot claim anything for the registrar's fee if weddings were allowed, although there were restrictions.

A   friend got married despite the limit of 6    people  and is having the  celebration festivities in September.


Weddings were banned rom March 2020 until 1 July 2020.

TBagpuss

sheramber said:

Could the actual wedding ceremony not go ahead

or

was it a case of it being restricted to 5 people and they didn't want to go ahead.

If the former then the registrar was available and able to conduct the wedding but couple chose not to go ahead.

This is key.
If the situation was that the formal gathering for 50 people was not permitted but they could have had the ceremony with 6 people, then there's no reason why the registrar should refund him, as they were willing and able to do their part (and probably could have done so at a different physical location, if the venue was closed)

If the wedding was due to take place between March and July last year then he would have a stronger argument assuring that period weddings were not permitted. 

Did your son and his fiancé/e  have insurance or pay any part of the deposit using a credit card? If so, then they may be able to claim back the money lost due to the company having gone bust