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!!

I can’t believe some of these comments. Food pairing is a big thing for the OP, as is having red wine to offer their guests. This would really annoy me too. Yes a wedding is one day, but it’s one day that has been planned for ages. I imagine if the hotel said, they could only serve cold food/no bands or dj, etc., the responses wouldn’t be this rude. Wanting to have a nice glass of red wine with your beef on your wedding day doesn’t make you a raging alcoholic - even by mumsnet’s standards!

A bottle of red wine was spilled at our wedding. Tho outside on the grass 😂

can’t stand the stuff tho dh drank lots of it that night

is white or rose so bad with beef

I love gin but If venue said no gin I would have kicked off drank something else

yes you want your wedding day to be perfect

but if you cancel you won’t be getting married this summer as unlikely to find anywhere asap

does that bother you

We had our wedding cancelled twice due to covid restrictions so I do think you are a bit over the top with it

we went from think 160 people to 75/80 due to numbers and people dropping out due to covid

it’s the people who are there that count. Not the booze

Going against the grain a bit. YANBU IMO @RedWineRage . You would have paid a lot for your wedding, and them calling the tune and saying you can NOT have red wine is bullshit. I'd tell them to fuck off personally. You should be allowed to pull out and get any deposit back. Just out of order IMO.

YOU are the customer and YOU are giving them the business. If they are so fucking precious about red wine being spilt, and making a 'mess' then they shouldn't be in the pissing wedding business! OR they should make it very fucking clear that NO RED WINE will be allowed because of their precious snowflakey premises!

As IF they are not allowing you to have red wine, like you're naughty children!

Some of these types of places are arseholes; they draw you in with all they have, (allegedly,) and then change things. The son of a pal of mine is getting married in October, and it's a vegan menu. They showed the couple a choice of 7 vegan meals. Once they had paid their £750 deposit for the £8,000 wedding (incl 55 guests,) they piped up that they had to pick ONE of the 7 meals for all 55 guests. That was definitely not mentioned when they were 'selling' the wedding package!

They were fuming, but couldn't pull out without losing the £750. They came to a deal in the end (after much understandable complaining,) and they are providing THREE choices now! But not after 6 weeks of to-ing and fro-ing. Fucking ludicrous.

I'm sure they'll soon realise it is a silly business decision.

Not if they've just spent 100k on repairing a floor, or an irreplaceable painting has been destroyed! I doubt this is something they've done on a whim.

Also, yes ROSE wine is minging!

I hate red wine, but if they banned my favourite drink I would be having the same thoughts. Our wine we picked after visiting a vineyard and then a fun tasting evening with friends. So yes it was kind of important to us.

First world problems...

Yes. Yes I would. Because from what the OP has said, id guess she's going to be paying £8-10k for this venue to host her event. As part of that she would have had to specify how much wine per head would be served and how much more would be available. If they'd failed to stock that, id be very angry and expect them to go get it before the meal was served.

OP - another poster suggested asking for a compromise of only serving red with the seated meal, not having it available in the drinks reception before or after. That might work. You could get some cocktails served at the drinks reception so its not so obvious there's no red wine available.

God this thread is depressing. Imagine wine being the most important thing on a wedding day.

I would be annoyed by this. It sounds as though it is a 'posh' venue and I expect you are paying a lot for this. To receive email is crap customer service, they should have telephoned you in person and had a proper conversation and explained the situation. They must know how important a wedding day is.

Frankly though this doesn't surprise me, these days businesses just do what they like, stuff customer service, if you don't like it, tough. If find it interesting and amazing how many posters just say 'oh well', well I don't actually you've only got to look at how this country is being run to see how it has become acceptable to say/promise one thing and then do what you like.

I would be asking for a face to face meeting, an explanation and what they are going to do. Otherwise OP people will arrive and it will be 'where is the red wine', you need to get this sorted and communicated out to your guests.

I'm a little bit incredulous that beef is being served at a wedding reception in 2022.

If it were my Manor house I'd be happy to serve red wine but only my friends and family would come and I would be sure they could be trusted.

My wedding reception was at my grandparents' home. We had salmon. I can remember the Pimms and good quality sparkling wine and champagne for the toasts. I have no recollection of the wines we had with dinner. The starter was a venison pate and a red may have been served with it.

DS is getting married in the early autumn. It's all fish, white meat and goats' cheese. So bloody sad really. The venue doesn't embargo red wine either.

On the bright side: I went once to a champagne dinner at The Ritz. Every course was served with champagne - we were all amazed by how well lamb went with rose fizz!

Everything about the contemporary wedding industry and the people who buy into it is depressing. But yes.

Friend managed weddings at a castle. Some guests do go on a rampage. Sneaking into closed off rooms for sex, sex amongst flower beds. Spillages, breakages. Broken glass in the ponds. She had to call the police once

i wouldn’t be happy with that at all and I’m amazed that anyone would be. I’m also far from convinced that that clause covers them.

I would make a huge fuss in your shoes, op. Frankly they’ll put themselves out of business as a venue with this policy as I find it hard to believe anyone would agree to it.

as a last resort, I’d off a deposit against any damage your guests do with red wine. But you shouldn’t need to.

I would be pissed off too.

It's not about not being able to enjoy a day without wine. Nor substandard wine with the dish chosen for the wedding meal.

If I'm having a lovely meal, I want a lovely red to accompany it. I dislike rose and white.

Have they given a reason? Yeah it's messy if spilled but no more so than jd and coke.

I'd just get your mum to bring a large handbag and sneak a bottle in, other guests will be fine with white or rose.

It’s nothing to do with wine being the most important thing 🙄 If you’ve chosen a menu with care and wines to suit it, it’s obviously a problem. Only an absolute alcoholic would say “rose or red, who cares?”

Fucking ridiculous risks, so people only get drunk on red wine?

Not white, gin, vodka blah blah!

Ignore the alcohol haters OP!

Has she claimed that?

She's paid for an event, she's chosen a meat that goes with red wine, people look forward to a tipple at a wedding, and for many a glass of a quality red wine is something to look forward to. People are allowed to be disappointed, I'd honestly be disappointed as a guest if I couldn't have a glass of red wine, yes I'd still enjoy my day and I'd get over it, but having the red wine would add to the day and its a shame to miss out on that.

There hasn't been a claim it's the "most important thing" but its definitely something that justifies being a little disappointed.

*rule

YABU
Keeping a historic home red-wine-stain-free is more important than your mum going without a bottle of red for one day.
I can’t imagine you’d be particularly happy paying thousands to have your wedding in a place covered in red patches, or the cost to be doubled to cover stain removal etc.

OFFOD!

This is extremely usual at historic properties such as English Heritage / National Trust etc.
given you didn’t know this at the time of booking I’d ask if there was leeway to serve limited quantities during the seated meal (if your menu is red meat) but I’m not at all surprised it won’t be served to “mingling” guests.