Wedding venue cancelled

I have heard anecdotal stories of hotels cancelling weddings due to them housing refugees.

It's a strange move. It really shows a lack of understanding for the bridal party and their big day, who might not be able to find a replacement. But from the hotels pov, they have the chance to have 100% occupancy for maybe a year or two, no doubt at full price on the taxpayers expense. They can't turn that down.

Tell you what - the frustrating thing is, contract or not, the hotel sure as sh1t wouldn't refund you if you pulled out of the wedding this close to the date

It’s a frustrating situation, but they have refunded you the total amount, so it isn’t double standards.

Stated in op, deposit has been returned.

Think of the opposite.

If you cancelled the wedding this week, what would you think was fair.

1 - Forfeit just the deposit

2 - Hotel insisting on full payment as "compensation"

Unfortunately we are in difficult times. Hotels and other places are needed for Ukrainians who have literally been ravaged by horror. Personally I think its a small price to pay so that those fleeing atrocities can have a safe place and within a "community" of other Ukrainians.

BTW - I would suspect a hotel would make a far far far larger profit on weddings as the amount of alcohol consumed in addition to the wedding costs makes weddings the most profitable part of a hotels operation. Your remarks on the hotel making a "nice profit" is a very cheap and rather nasty bit of snideness and is uncalled for. Remember, many hotels have had an utterly appalling two years

Is the hotel hosting the refugees at nothing more than cost price, I seem to have missed that announcement. OP is entitled to compensation if commercially the hotel is going to absolutely cream it. The government should have some conditions in place with who they have made these arrangements with that those with existing contracts are compensated.

Entitled?

Depends on the terms of the contract, but yes, they probably are. Given that the op’s deposit has been returned, hard to see what else he/she would be entitled to. It is very bad form, but the situation is a unique one.

By being paid by the government.

This is one of those situations where the Government/State are damned if they do and dammed if they don’t. We have to accept some Ukrainians displaced by the war, and if we do, we have to house them somewhere. If hotels aren’t used, can you think of anywhere else? And if hotels are used, then of course the hotel is entitled, as a private, profit dependent business, to charge whatever the going rate is for use of their facility. Why would they charge less if they could make more from tourism/events?

Taxpayers will be picking up the hotel bill, but Irish taxpayers have received a lot of support from taxpayers in other EU countries, so don’t be a hypocrite, there is a war and these people are coming here with a suitcase and the clothes on their backs.

Put in an FOI and let's know how you get on.