Wedding Venue HUGE tip!!

[CatN1p]

A Wedding based AIBU...

We are booking our wedding venue for next year and have got a package with the usual bits included - food, drinks and venue etc. It is the most expensive thing we've ever bought apart from our home (£15K) and is basically the bulk of our budget, but we have been saving for years and the venue is perfect. They have just sent us the invoice breakdown and there is a 15% service charge included which we weren't told about in advance, that we would be asked to pay with the final invoice after the wedding. This equates to £2250 on top of the fee.

The invoice says the service charge is "optional". Obviously we would expect to tip the waiters and staff etc, but AIBU to not pay this? How do we know it will even reach the staff who work on the day? I feel it is a cynical ploy for them to get more money out of us, but I have no experience of this so I don't know if AIBU or if this is normal. We were thinking about discreetly handing an envelope with cash to each of the waiting staff on the day.

Any thoughts?

[trevthecat]

Give your own tip. As you say, the built in service charge may not reach the staff working that day

[Joinourclub]

No way would I pay that! Why should a service charge include a percentage of the venue hire? I’d do 10% of the food/drink cost.

[MrsJane]

That’s so cheeky!! We paid the staff a tip on the day but cash straight to them and certainly not a couple of grand! Ridiculous.

[LucyInTheParkWithDragons]

That's dreadful!

We gave an envelope of cash to the head waitress on the day, and made sure that quite a few of her colleagues were around and we mentioned the amount to make sure that it was all divvied up.

I did this because I've waitresses at lots of weddings, where the junior staff never got a sniff of a tip. I'm absolutely sure they wouldn't if it went straight to the venue

[ThanksHunkyJesus]

Never heard of tipping a wedding venue. You're paying them a small fortune for god sake what the hell do they need a tip for?

[tlmummy]

I've never heard of a service charge being added to the final invoice for a wedding venue, seems cheeky! We just tipped the staff on the day. I think that's the norm

[DressDrama]

Did it mention anything in the T&Cs small print about service charge on top? Either way, if its optional then it is just that - I wouldn't pay it. They're making profit already - understandably as they're a business - if they needed the extra £ they'd adjust their prices accordingly.

We tipped the bar staff direct, €50 between them, and that was all.

[Dychmygol]

I'd make a point of not paying the optional service charge and let them know you prefer to decide the value of a tip once you've received excellent service rather that in hope of it.

Cheeky gits!