Negotiating the venue - help needed!

Rosielocks

Hello good people of the Irish Internet,


I’m ashamed to say this is my first ever post on Boards – have been lurking ‘round this little corner of cyberspace for quite some time but, typically, I’ve only got round to signing up now that I need a little advice. It’s not that I didn’t want to chat with all you lovely folk, I just haven’t had the time for a new online addiction recently, plus I can be quite opinionated at the best of times and I’d be afraid I might log on with a few drinks in me some weekend and offend the entire nation. I’ll be good, though, promise


Anyway, I suppose I should really get to that aforementioned advice… So the story is my poor suffering boyfriend of 14 years and I got engaged around three years ago with the intention of being married within the year. Ha! Needless to say, things haven’t exactly gone to plan, but we’ve now decided to bite the bullet, throw caution to the wind, get the show on the road, and whatever other cliches I can’t think of right now. We’ve picked our church and reception venue, and we’re hoping to maybe possibly go along and book the places this week sometime, unless we change our minds – again! To be honest we’re a bit too laid back about the whole thing, lazy even. Which is why we just need to book it and be damned.


And that’s where you kind and helpful people come into it. Basically, I’m looking for a little guidance on the whole etiquette regarding the negotiations on the venue. We’ve decided to go down the whole traditional route not because that’s what we really want but because we’ve both got massive families and are blessed with a really wide circle of wonderful friends. It’ll probably be the first time in our lives that either of us have bowed to convention, but at the end of the day we want everyone we love with us for the occasion and, after looking into it a lot, the typical traditional country wedding really does seem to be the easiest way to achieve that (did I mention we’re quite both quite busy and quite lazy?).


We’ll probably have around 250 guests on the day – and believe me when I tell you it’s going to be tough keeping those numbers at that. Himself has a particularly large family; he’s had two brothers and a sister marry in recent years, each with 320+ on the day, and their other halves had small enough families. I always thought my own family was huge until I met Himself, so you can imagine! As I said, though, we want everyone we love there and if we’re going to go down the traditional road despite ourselves, we may as well go the whole hog, as they say.


Anyhow, I’m not rambling needlessly here, I just want to point out why I’d be really wanting to keep the price per head down for the reception. The hotel already offers a really good package (at least I think it’s really good). It includes a sparkling wine drinks reception, five course meal with wine, chair covers, and evening buffet for around 40 quid per person. The thing is, while we’re both quite outspoken usually, I know from past experience we’re both a disaster at bargaining on things. Personally I think that’s already a good deal and would feel a bit cheeky asking for more! What do you folk think? Is there much room for negotiating there? Honestly, the only thing I would like extra on top of that is a canapes at the drinks reception. Do you think if I asked for a reduced evening buffet (there’s never any need for too much food at that stage in the evening, it’s before the meal that most people are starving!) they’d throw the canapes in free? Or would that be while cheeky to ask?


We’re not the most wealthy couple in the world, but we’re really lucky in that my aunt and uncle are professional wedding photographers, and we have three different people already vying to make the cake. I’ve already bought my dress in a vintage shop about a year ago, and we’re only having a best man and my sister as the bridesmaid. I’m also planning on making all the decor, invitations etc (I’m evening considering doing the bouquets myself, but I’m still a bit apprehensive on that one). I’d say we’ll probably have to skip cars, honeymoon etc . So basically all we have to pay for is the venue and the band – incidentally, the band we really want is around 2,500. That’s for ceremony, drinks reception, full band and a dj. Is that a bit pricey? Everyone says not to compromise on the band, I just have no idea what a good one should cost.


One last thing, we’re hoping to have it on the last Friday of October next year – do you think we could get some sort of discount because of the time of year? (I’ve already asked and the hotel doesn’t have any bookings at all for next October). Also, is a year enough time to get everything organised? When I’ve been peeking it at wedding forums around the place every seems to be booking around two years in advance – thinking maybe we should do the same, but we’ve just waited so long already I’m afraid if we put it off any more we’ll never get around to it!


God, this whole wedding craic is a lot of work. You never know, I could come back on here next week to tell you all how we eloped Sorry for the big long post, I’m making up for lost time here. Any replies/comments/advice would be very greatly appreciated.

pwurple

That's a lot of questions.
First off, it is plenty of time. We had our wedding 4 months after we got engaged, and you have the dress sorted, adn the guestlist done. Those are the time consuming bits.

For negotiating, yes, asking for one less course and a set of canapes is a really good idea. Do that.

Other things you can do are ask for reduced room rate for guests, and an included night for yourselves, or someone else.

You can ask to get a late bar included.

You can do things with wine, like corkage, or discount on their wines.

On the price itself, what we did was pay the deposit and agree the price per head. Then about a month in advance we went in with a further installment in cash to finalise numbers, and asked for a discount of 2 euro per plate. Then the week before in again, more cash in hand, and ask for another euro off per person.

Senna

Ask for canapés to be included in the €40, don't offer to remove something unless they are really sticking to their guns on the price. keep saying "well if you wont give me X, then give me Y", the more you ask for the more chance you have of getting something thrown in.
You also have a good sized wedding at 250, and the hotel doesn't have a single other wedding in October 2013, so you are in a very strong position for negotiations. If €40 is the price on the menu (assuming they haven't dropped the price for you already) then i would be telling them you have worked out your budget and €36 is what your willing to pay. Let them come back to you with a counter offer.

pwurple wrote: »

On the price itself, what we did was pay the deposit and agree the price per head. Then about a month in advance we went in with a further installment in cash to finalise numbers, and asked for a discount of 2 euro per plate. Then the week before in again, more cash in hand, and ask for another euro off per person.

I wouldn't recommend planning for that, do your negotiations before you pay the deposit. By all means ask for a more closer to the time of the wedding, but one month before the wedding the hotel knows you aren't going to change venue so they're not going to do much on the price unless you are paying more than what they currently charge.

Rosielocks

I knew posting here was a good idea - thanks so much for the tips! All very, very helpful. I'd totally forgotten about the late bar, will definitely be asking for that. And that's so true about the more you ask for the more you'll get, think I'll adopt that as my mantra for when we're talking to the girl. I'm just a bit nervous that I'll get down there and I'll be too soft and feel too cheeky to ask for much. I know it's silly - especially with money so tight! - but Himself is as bad as I am that way so we'll be screwed if we don't toughen up a bit. We're now planning on heading down on Saturday, so we've nearly a week to build up to it Think that's why I came on here, you two have already given me more confidence in knowing what to ask for. We don't have very many married friends and his married family don't live nearby (plus I'll be torturing them enough in the coming months, don't want to start wrecking their heads too early!) so I really don't have that many people I can chat to about this. So thanks again!

p.s. Sorry my initial post was so long - I didn't realise how long it was until I posted it. Bad habit, that rambling of mine. Probably why I've never really been too hot on Twitter

ronn

Remind them that your having 250 people and most of the aren't married and some of them are looking at venues, Tell them that if every one spend e50 on drink the hotel will make a fortune and if the rooms are cheap the guests will stay,

we got a deal for our guests to stay 2 nights were having a bbq the 2nd night