Is this fair?

gooblegoo

We booked our wedding two years ago and were told we had to use the cafe on site to cater the wedding- we were told they could cater to anything but to have a look at the cafes menu for an idea of what we might want. We were told that “as it’s a wedding we should expect to pay a bit more than the menu price”. 

Fast forward 2 years- we’ve asked for fish and chips. This is served on their regular menu at £18, so in our heads we assumed around £23-£25 per head would be a fair price for a wedding. We did ask for a quote 2 years ago but no one got back to us and the people we spoke to at the time said that seemed fair and reasonable to expect. Anyway the cafe is now under new management and they’ve got back to us today and said that the price per head is £30, because of “the set up costs of hiring in specific equipment to enable us to deliver the food”. 

So in other words-we HAVE to use them to cater the wedding, but they’re not actually equipped to cater a wedding- therefore we are having to pay an additional cost. Is this something they’re allowed to do? Force us to use their catering which apparently isn’t suitable to cater for 45 guests without hiring extra equipment (even though the cafe seats far more than this?) and then pass on that cost to us? 

This probably sounds really moany but it seems like a lot of money for one course?
thank you for any advice!

SpeakingFranglais

Is it because it’s fish and chips? I would imagine mass producing battered fish would require a very large fryer, in the cafe they could probably cook a couple of fish in a domestic fryer. 

Even our local chippy can do a batch of about 8 fish at once.

Maybe choose a different lean that could be made in large quantise such as pie?

atemple492

Hi, so sorry to hear this your wedding day really shouldn't have to be this stressful. 

Have you explained your concern to them I assume? ChatGPT helped me create this response for you: "Our concern is that we are obliged to use your catering services, but it appears that the cafe is not adequately equipped to cater to our wedding without additional costs, which were not communicated to us earlier. We believe this places an undue financial burden on us as customers who have committed to hosting our event at your venue."

Then see what they say in response, as clearly being fair and reasonable. 

Then potentially ask for a cost breakdown or check any contract you have. 

Sorry this is so stressful for you.