Can our wedding venue do this??? Any lawyers?!

[RedWineRage]

Posting here for traffic....and also some perspective/help/ideas!

Getting married this summer. Reception venue is stately home-type place which is open to the public but also does weddings, has done successfully for years. Top listed wedding venue in various magazines etc and very good reviews. So - not some shady outfit.

Email out of the blue this week - all rather breezy - due to several incidents at recent events, just to let you know we will no longer be serving red wine at all, with immediate effect.

But don't worry, we'll just swap that out for rosé in your drinks package.

What???

My mum only drinks red wine. Several family members prefer red wine. We planned to have beef as a main.

Totally unacceptable, right? They appear to be relying on some woolly clause in the contract around "it's a historic building, changes may need to be made to your wedding plan that are out of our control due to operational reasons" etc.

We're genuinely considering trying at short notice to get another venue, and trying to claim money back through small claims. Has anyone done this? Any ideas on how likely we are to be successful?

My mum can't not have an alcoholic drink at my wedding. Sorry I'm ranting and probably not being very rational.

Perspective and advice welcome!!

You’d change your whole wedding just because of the colour of wine that can be served? Talk about Bridezilla. If your Mum can’t manage a day without red wine, then I suggest you’ve got a bigger problem than what wine can be served.

I’d be 100% pissed off as I only drink red wine as do all my social group

i can’t stand white or rose

Could you offer to take out an insurance policy to cover any damage caused by red wine?

Red wine is a total dealbreaker for a winter wedding, but a summer wedding I am sure it would be fine without, but I have never ever heard of anywhere not serving both, but I think you can get around it (if you want to)

Legally speaking, this is a matter of contract law. There's a legally binding agreement that they will supply a service and some products, and you're legally bound to pay them and follow other terms set-out. They want to change "red" in your contract to "rosé" the agreement there is between you.

The clause they're relying on is pretty vague so, if it came down to it, a judge would really have to decide three things:

1. Whether this is "out of their control"


2. Whether this change is for "operational reasons".

If the judge thinks "yes" to both of those then the venue can continue you and you're bound by the contract (i.e. will lose your deposit if you pull out and are liable to pay for the wedding).
If the judge decides no to either 1 or 2, then it goes onto question 3:

• Is this change (from red to rose) a significant enough change in the contract to be considered altering the terms of the contract and, therefore, a breach of contract.

I think the likelihood is that it's not a big enough change to be enough change to be considered a breach of contract - if they were saying they're switching your beef main for coco pops then that would probably be a big enough change. I could be wrong here though, it depends on the entire interaction between you and the venue - if you chose this venue specifically for their selection of wines (i.e. it's a vineyard) then you could probably win in court.

So, legally, I think the venue would win this if it came down to an actual dispute - although I understand it's frustrating.

Things you can do:

• Ask them to make an exception for your mother


• Ask them why they've made this change and, if it's due to damage caused by spills, offer to pay a damage deposit


• Ask to switch your beef dish to one that works better with rose


• Try to get a reduction in the price you've paid.

I know it's frustrating, I'm sorry. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do.

This is boardering on Bridezilla territory honestly.

Take a deep breath, its really not that big a deal and with hindsight you'll laugh about how unhinged your irrational response of binning a whole venue due to the rant of 'My mum can't not have an alcoholic drink at my wedding' is when there is indead alcohol on offer.

They don't even need that clause to get out of it. Supplying a different wine would not be considered material breach. And, again, what is the loss you have incurred?

Look, people who try "go legal" over this sort of thing will cause nothing more than eye roles (and maybe some laughs) from the venue's lawyers. Appeal to their better nature (as others have suggested) or their reputation.

Chances are though that all they will offer you is a fee free cancellation "as a gesture of goodwill"

Sadly I imagine some guests at a previous wedding have a had a spillage and I assume they have marble floors or white carpets and the damage has been substantial.

we looked at a couple of historic venues where high heels couldn’t be worn nor red wine drunk. Didn’t put me off them and I understood the reason (I work with historic buildings so maybe I’m more sympathetic).

if they have marble floors the cost to clean a red wine stain would be huge. I guess you could ask that you put a cleaning deposit down (££) and have red wine but don’t get weary if a guest spills and you have to pay, or go with it or change venues.

20 years down the line and I can remember we had wine at our wedding and ate lamb but not the specifics!

Tell your mum to wrap a box of red wine in wedding wrapping paper, bring it into the venue and place it under her seat. Rip the paper slightly to free the tap and voilà!

Get your mum little bottles of red to keep in her handbag 😅 x

Does this mean vimto is out too? The humanity!

And when she's drunk enough it and spills it on the floor, they can sue their arses off. Fab.

But don't worry, we'll just swap that out for rosé in your drinks package

I'd be insisting they 'swap that out' (🙄) for Champagne.

Gosh. I don't drink and I enjoy beef. What a stupid thing to say.

Without being rude to the majority of people, clearly most replies are from people who know very little about food and wine and the cost of a stately home wedding. It's unacceptable. I would either ask for full refund or tell them it will be a small claims court issue (not sure that would cover your cost though? Wouldn't for a lot of those type of places).

You could agree it will just be red wine with the meal at a push. However this woukd be a deal breaker for me.

Don't be walked over, it's your wedding you should be able to drink the appropriate wine for your meal. You CANNOT have rose with beef!!

I'm with you OP, FWIW.
This should have been stated at the time of booking - not the woolly phrasing they used. Rosé or white with beef ? Ugh.
I'd try to negotiate a substantial reduction in price, rather than try to change venue at this stage.

I would cancel. We're all red wine lovers. It's part of what we do and before an

But also gb.portovino-store.com

Sorry posted too soon. Before anyone jumps on me nobody in my family is an alcoholic.

Such an outmoded idea that red meat needs red wine. Almost as odd as the insistence that all rosé is disgusting.

I can absolutely understand the venue's stance. Find a full-bodied white wine; you'll be reet.

Change your menu and ask for a discount to make up for the inconvenience. Tell them there's no way you'd have booked it if you'd been told about this rule at the outset.

Id also be annoyed but they will be covered by that clause- one of the perils and considerations of planning a wedding in a venue like this.

'And when she's drunk enough it and spills it on the floor, they can sue their arses off. Fab.'

Sorry I should have added KLAXON THIS IS A LIGHT HEARTED POST

I 100% agree with you that the idea of serving a beef main with rosé wine is pretty unappealing, and of course you want your Mum to be able to toast you at your wedding. Lots of people would not understand that, as is evident from the responses, but I am guessing that many of your guests will be like-minded with you.

I think that the venue have done themselves no favours by sending you a generic email and not even really explaining properly. It suggests that they don’t really understand how much the details of the wedding mean to you, which will make you feel pretty undervalued as a customer. In their position I would have been calling you up and explaining the exact reason- which is indeed likely to be related to the risk of unrepairable damage and unavailability of insurance- and saying that I understood how inconvenient this must be. I would probably have pre-empted the beef/rose issue and said that we were also revamping our menu to pair better with the wines that we were able to serve, and suggested that you come in to do a tasting.

I guess you need to take a step back and ask yourself “what would I have done if the venue had told me before booking that red wine was not an option?”. Would you have booked somewhere else? Of course, the alternatives will no longer be available, but if you realise that actually there are many features of the venue that you’d have missed in a red-wine-friendly venue, you might be able to come to terms with it. Would your Mum not touch champagne?

They won’t have taken this decision lightly and it’s unlikely they will be able just to change their minds. Legally you could possibly force them to refund the deposit if you were to cancel completely, by showing that the availability of red wine was fundamental to the event, but you’re not going to be able to force them to serve red wine. Forget that. If they have a half decent set of Ts and Cs that excludes/limits liability you’d also be on shaky ground trying to get them to pay you the extra that it would cost to book a more expensive venue at short notice, even if one were available.

It sucks but think you’re just going to have to accept it as a downside of having a lovely venue.

Perhaps a compromise could be reached whereby they allow red to be served during the meal, the likelihood of spillage causing damage would be lessened compared to times where guests are milling around. Maybe worth an ask?