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Could you talk to them about scaling cost down based on number of guests?
I.e. if you guarantee 100 can they cut the cost to 70 a head?
Sometimes if you are willing to guarantee a larger number they will provide cost breakpoints.
Is the £80 inclusive of the reception food also or just the wedding breakfast?
When we looked at venues we e mailed places and asked them to ask the chef if they could provide us with a different menu so that the price per head could go down. Also, to have 3 courses with no 'palate cleansers' in between etc. Some venues were really flexible.
£80 a head is expensive but it depends how much you love the venue. In comparison, for our wedding breakfast, we're paying around £32.50 a head and the menu is soup, salmon/chicken and a choice of 2 puddings.
@ticatica: Is it that expensive if the venue price is included though? That's what I'm not sure of. I've seen lots of £50-80 per head menus. By reception food, do you mean an evening buffet? That would be priced at £14 per head, which I'm also not pleased about because we'd likely have more evening guests coming than our day guests and £1500-2000 for a buffet is beyond extortionate.
@VickyAurea: What day of the week are you looking to get married? Friday and Sunday weddings usually get you a price break.
Also the month you get married will help with cost. I chose March because my venue gave a discount for the 'off-season'. to get married at the same place in April would have been at least $30 more pp.
Could you have them not do the menus and do them yourself? May take a little off the price??
Good luck!
Venue hire included does help a bit, and you are getting a fair amount included for the price, but if the food bill in total is over 10k all in (excluding your own alcohol), I think it is quite expensive....however there are only 40 people coming to my wedding breakfast and a further 30 to the evening so I'm not comparing like for like...
I think you hit the nail on the head with your first post....either the food price needs to give, or the guest list needs to come down....maybe you could work on both. If you can cut 40 people from the 150 you originally planned to invite to the ceremony, and see if the venue can negociate a food price with you, then you can re-evaluate the cost. Ask them for a sample menu and then see if they could do something with it to reduce the cost of the price per head i.e chicken instead of duck or something.
Is it the venue of your dreams or could you keep looking for something a little cheaper? How quickly do you want to set a date?...i.e are you happy to save up for a year or 2 to get everything you want?
Just FYI, there are places where the pph is much less but you aren't necessarily compromising on the venue. I originally wanted somewhere that was going to be more expensive but I also didn't want to wait another year to save so we compromised a bit and found our current venue. Somewhere less 'modern and trendy'. We have a manor house to ourselves for the day (hire of the place was £950 on top of the food bill and the evening meal is a bbq with sides at £12 a head).
My bridesmaid is an events planner and she actually found our current venue for us....if you want to let me know where you are based I can e mail her and ask if she knows anywhere in your area that's reasonably priced......?
Good luck and let me know how it goes!
@Stammie16: Well, we want the wedding to be outdoorsy and sunny, so we're restricted to the peak summer months. As for days of the week, it's all very well to have Friday and Sunday weddings but some people are going to have a book a day off work for that and I don't really think it's fair to guests to expect that (also I have been to a Sunday wedding before and the majority of people left really early so they could get home for work because they hadn't wanted to use a day's holiday). So ideally Saturday, as it gives people time to travel on the Friday evening. What do you mean by make the menus myself? That sounds interesting but not sure what you mean exactly. Do you mean choose the food and they make it or do you mean find another caterer?
@ticatica: It's not the venue of my dreams, no, which is why I struggle to accept such high numbers. It's pretty close to what I want but not for that price. I think I can get a venue I'd sort of prefer for around £7000 (the garden hire for about £2000 and tipi hire for around £5000), but that is without catering, and catering can cost literally thousands with such a big guest list. I've heard about people asking restaurants to cater but I just don't know where to begin with stuff like that. As for setting a date, no, there is definitely no hurry, which is great because it means I can really think about it all and we're saving up. I was actually wondering whether places give you a discount for booking far in advance though and whether they'd give you a second discount for paying upfront in cash. I think maybe I could get discounts for booking all accommodation rooms, too. Your bridesmaid sounds great! Would you really not mind asking her? We're looking for places around our hometown, around 40 mins' drive away is ok, up to 60 mins I'd have to consider, and dream venue would be somewhere outdoorsy, so nice views, nice gardens are great, somewhere to pitch a giant tipi but that also has toilets (e.g. guest houses/B&Bs/pubs have toilets inside but fields in farms often require you to hire portaloos - farms with accommodation and indoor toilets would be fine). That's a lot to take into consideration though!
Every venue that I was interested in possibly renting for my wedding, I always negotiated the price. The place that my fiance and I finally both agreed upon negotiated w/ me (yea I did all the negotiating, not my fiance... and he has the business background). This is what I always did, I always wrote an email to the venue coordinator (was easier to write an email than discuss this over the phone or face to face and plus you get everything in writing that you can always refer back to later). Then I had mentioned that we are both college students, attending a private university and paying for the wedding ourselves. I then began asking if they could charge us something else at a cheaper rate. Let's say that per meal, it will cost me $79 (USD), then I will ask if they would be willing to charge me let's say $70 per meal instead. And then usually the venue will try to work w/ me because they want my business. I would also ask if there is a discounted rate for children (if you are allowing children to attend) and your vendors you have to feed. Not every venue does this, but a lot of them do have a special discount. Or you could always order a seperate and different plate for your vendors, that would be cheaper than what you are serving your guests.
From there, you can slowly ask for other things to be discounted and see if the venue will be willing to work on you w/ those things.
Then finally when the venue coordinator finally says they cannot offer you any other discounts, then you know it is time to stop asking for them.
Another thing to help cut cost is perhaps not having an open bar if you are planning on having out... I know it's a bit tacky, but having your guests pay for their own alcohol would be cheaper. Or you could pay for an open bar for the 1st hour or 2 and then let guests pay for the rest themselves. You could also just have bottles of wine at each table and let guests drink that, which will help cut cost possibly. If this is the case, you can ask if the venue would be willing to waive the corkage fee or give you a discount. Also ask them not to tax you on the corkage fee.
If you have a wedding during the day, people are less likely to drink as much, so that may also help cut cost for you as well.
And lastly, ask if the venue would be willing to give you a discount if you pay cash. The same goes for your vendors. I actually hired a videographer and got a great price because I will be paying him cash.
Oh and if the venue is not willing to do any of those price reductions, then maybe see if they would be willing to throw in some things for you for free... like an extra hour of set up, and extra hour of event time? A free hour or drinks? Etc.
Remember, these venues and vendors will work w/ you because they do want your business, especially in the economy we are in, they should understand.
Good luck!
@meowmix318: Thanks for your tips; you've covered some stuff I'd never have though of, like vendor discounts and reductions per head (I'd feel so cheeky). You sound like a brilliant negotiator - I wish I was more forceful.
Open bar isn't normal here and paying for your own drinks is the norm, not tacky, so I wouldn't dream in a million years of paying for an open bar.Also, weddings here run generally from around mid-day to midnight, so yes they're in the day but yes people do drink lots - not that it matters when I'm not paying for the drinks, I'm just telling you out of cultural interest.
Thank you for your kind words. But I wasn't this focused w/ all the reductions right away. One of my bridesmaids' coached me and then I came up with the discount w/ paying cash. As for vendors and children, some venues I have seen offered discounts (but not all venues volunteered this information... you have to ask... but some venues don't offer a discount at all. But you can just order a cheaper meal for your vendors.)
Good luck w/ everything. All you can do is ask and the worse they can is no.
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We were looking at venues together last night in an attempt to work out just how much we really do need to save up before we can afford the wedding that we would like.
We found this place, which offers this:
The price for the above is around £80 per person (min. 80 people) and includes the venue hire charge. If you pay additionally to hire all the bedrooms, you have exclusivity of the venue.
Now, I have a huge family, and we were thinking of having somewhere between 120-140 people. That works out at this venue costing us £9600-11200, which is far too much for us. So, my question to you is, how can we cut the cost down?
The obvious answer is probably invite less people. I get that, I have considered it, don't worry. But what I'm really looking for is bargaining tools that I can use with this venue to convince them to give us money off, as I've heard you can always negotiate prices in the wedding industry but I just don't know where to begin. FYI, we would look to book the venue at least 18 months in advance if you think that helps our negotiating position. Thanks for any tips, bees!