Stick or Twist - Venue will be a construction site

Walter H Price

So we recently found out the venue we have booked will be undergoing some major construction works for almost the next two years including when we have our wedding booked (Late 2017).

The Hotel are trying to assure us that the works will be unobtrusive etc.. and we were fine with that up until last weekend. You see one of my best friends is a trainee architect and the firm that is undertaking the construction on our wedding venue is his firm.

He was assigned to the project 2 weeks ago and gave me a shout friday night to say he had spent the day reviewing the package of works and that the hotel were way greatly under exaggerating the extent of the disruption from what i had told him they had said, for example the leisure facilitys , spa etc will also still be closed and while he did say that a sizable budget had been put aside to mask the construction site there is no way with its size and the stage of completion it will be at next November that it wont be visable from our ceremony and reception rooms.

Needless to say we were a bit annoyed with the hotel , when we booked 6 months ago they never once mentioned that they had a planning application in and they seem to be constantly downplaying what look like major works.

I know from a legal standpoint there should be no issue getting the deposit back as they never disclosed the works but what i want to get a view on is weather ye think its a good idea to cancel and change at this stage :P

Toots

If it were me I'd probably cancel. I don't know would it be worth all the extra hassle and stress leading up to the day. Wedding planning can be stressful enough without having to worry about stuff like that along with it.

clint_silver

Toots wrote: »

If it were me I'd probably cancel. I don't know would it be worth all the extra hassle and stress leading up to the day. Wedding planning can be stressful enough without having to worry about stuff like that along with it.

tough call but agreed here. Twist for me. As long as the deposit can be got back. if it cant, maybe stick.

then again, you could stick with an agreed level of disruption, for example the spa would be open. If there was anything outside that level of disruption then thered be financial penalties, maybe some free rooms, free round of drinks, bar extension paid for, stuff like that. Depends how easy going ye are

Walter H Price

Toots wrote: »

If it were me I'd probably cancel. I don't know would it be worth all the extra hassle and stress leading up to the day. Wedding planning can be stressful enough without having to worry about stuff like that along with it.

clint_silver wrote: »

tough call but agreed here. Twist for me. As long as the deposit can be got back. if it cant, maybe stick.

then again, you could stick with an agreed level of disruption, for example the spa would be open. If there was anything outside that level of disruption then thered be financial penalties, maybe some free rooms, free round of drinks, bar extension paid for, stuff like that. Depends how easy going ye are

Yeh weve e-mailed and rung the hotel 5 times now since monday and whats really worrying me is the radio silence , previously they always came back within an hour or two but since the first mail monday i've heard nothing.

Starting to lean towords twist the longer they stay quiet , feels like they've been rumbled and don't know what to say , not impressed at all

SarahMollie

Yeah I'd maybe start quietly exploring other options. Are there other venues that you liked initially? If so maybe ring around and ask about availability?

Are you dead set on the one date or is there some flexibility? Given that your invites won't have gone out, could you move it by a few days/weeks to get the right venue?

Also, make sure to ask if other venues are planning any works!

oppiuy

If you see my Thread about Ennistymon below, i would advise to cancel. We were not made aware of the works in the first place but these things generally get delayed and over run and its a really horrible experience dealing with something like this on the run up to the day.

Best of luck with it though

Walter H Price

SarahMollie wrote: »

Yeah I'd maybe start quietly exploring other options. Are there other venues that you liked initially? If so maybe ring around and ask about availability?

Are you dead set on the one date or is there some flexibility? Given that your invites won't have gone out, could you move it by a few days/weeks to get the right venue?

Also, make sure to ask if other venues are planning any works!

We really want to get married on our anniversery so idealy we would stick to our dat in November but yeh we've a good budget and we will be having a humanist cermony in whichever venue we go with do pretty flexible in tems of where , if not when at least

oppiuy wrote: »

If you see my Thread about Ennistymon below, i would advise to cancel. We were not made aware of the works in the first place but these things generally get delayed and over run and its a really horrible experience dealing with something like this on the run up to the day.

Best of luck with it though

Yeh my concern is that they are underselling already like it wasnt just my mates view hes gotten some of the senior guys in there to look at the package of works and they are saying its way bigger then what we've been told to expect already with any delay etc.

To be honest had they told us at the outset that they had a planning application in we would have held off booking , just seems sly to be honest.

Walter H Price

Hotel have gotten back to us to say the works will be more intrusive then they may have first estimated (shock Horror) and that the maagment would be offeing dicounts in Octobre once the packe of works have been released to the public in addion there is no issue with refunding our deposit , Happy day's.

So i think to be honest i'm going to take yer collective advice and my own gut fealing and Twist , maybe o for a destination wedding outside Dublin

Miaireland

I think you are doing the right thing. If they are underestimating at this stage it really shows that they haven't a clue with how bad it is going to be etc. Also normally with these kind of jobs something goes wrong/delayed etc so really they cannot predict exactly that it will not impact on your wedding day.

I am glad to see there is no hassle getting the Deposit back. Best of luck with the new venue.

Walter H Price

Miaireland wrote: »

I think you are doing the right thing. If they are underestimating at this stage it really shows that they haven't a clue with how bad it is going to be etc. Also normally with these kind of jobs something goes wrong/delayed etc so really they cannot predict exactly that it will not impact on your wedding day.

I am glad to see there is no hassle getting the Deposit back. Best of luck with the new venue.

To be fair to them when they did come back they were totally professional acknoleged thatat they shout have told us that a planning application was in and fully understood our reservationas about going ahead with the wedding there.

Your dead right its not worth the stress for the next 14 months waiting to find out how its progressing delays etc its a shame because it was the hotel we really wanted and it was a great package but i just dont think its worth it .

weve the date provisionaly held in 3 new places outside dublin now , goin to go view them in the next few weeks and pick one of them i think