Cancelling a wedding

[Lacey2019]

Hello all

I am in the process of cancelling my wedding. I should have been walking down the aisle in 4 months time. We have paid 4500 venue hire fee already...and in the contract their is a 4500 cancellation fee :( has anyone been in this situation. I know the venue is losing out, but this seems extortionate!

In addition I have a honeymoon booked through virgin for sandals. We have paid £350 deposit. Does anyone know how this works? Do I have to pay the rest

Thank you

That small print at the end of your confirmation email is actually your contract. That is what you should be reading.

As above... your contract with them is just that.

When I cancelled my wedding, we had actually paid £10,000 and cancellations less than 2 months prior to the date meant a return of 20% of this.

It's a business. They saved that date for you. Made all the provisions. They have to protect themselves.

Yoir holiday does not need to be paid further however, you cannot get your deposit back.

Well done on making the decision. Its rough but it's the right one.

First of all I'm sorry that you're having to cancel your wedding.

I've been there and it was a horrible time, so although I don't know your circumstances I know it can't be an easy time so

4 months seems quite close to be cancelling if I'm honest. I cancelled mine a lot further ahead which if I remember was about a £1K ish deposit I lost.

I'm pretty sure the closer we got to the date, the more payable was due upon cancellation. I suspect because they risk losing that date completely and not hosting any wedding (although personally I don't believe this to be true)

Was £4500K your total bill for venue hire, or was it more?

I don't think it would do any harm to contact the venue and travel agents to explain what's happened - I was told it happens all the time.

Find out exactly what's owed, see if you can come to some kind of agreement and then take time to heal and move on.

All the best.

Is there such a thing as advertising your venue in wedding chat forums and suchlike?

A sort of second hand venue with a discount?

Hello

The 4500 is the venue hire itself
The 4500 in the contract is for cancellation of wedding

I wondered if as we had already paid 4500 they may see this as the cancellation :(

I would assume the £4500 already paid, is deemed to be the cancellation fee; so they wouldn't be expecting you to pay a further £4500. It might be worth phoning them and asking if they have a waiting list, or agreeing that if someone else takes your day, they will repay some or all of that fee.

I would imagine the £4,500 is a deposit, so you lose the deposit. You don't have to pay £9k, you just don't get your money back.

It’s cheaper than a divorce though.

That’s very true. But finding 9k I just don’t have. So going to have to take out a loan

I agree with those who are saying that it is likely that the £4500 cancellation fee is not going to be an additional fee, just means that the already paid venue hire fee won't be returned.

I assume you don't have wedding insurance ?

Seems very odd the deposit is £4500 and so is the cancellation fee. Do they give you that back when if they rebook the date?

You need to clarify with the venue, and also read the small print again, or post it on here if you can.

But it probably says that the cancellation fee is 100% or words to that effect, so whatever you have paid, you lose.

Yes, it is a lot of money, but the venue will have possibly turned away lots of others couples and are unlikely to refill the date at such short notice when a lot of people plan a couple of years in advance.

The 4500 is the venue hire fee.

The 4500 is the cancellation fee as the contract says is the venue is cancelled under 6 months before that has to be paid

Sounds steep! I'd double check.

Yes, but you are no longer hiring the venue.

So I would take it to mean that cancelling with less than 6 months to go means you can't get the hire fee back - ie it becomes the cancellation fee.

If people have to pay more to cancel than to go ahead, they would just pretend they were going ahead and then not turn up, wouldn't they? Or am I missing something?

Ouch

There is the vaguest smidgen of a chance you could persuade a small claims court that the cancellation fee is so onerous that it counts as a penalty clause, hence is unenforceable, and should be reduced to reflect the actual cost to the venue of your cancellation (which may be nil except for some administration time if they manage to book someone else). Perhaps run this past the CAB?

The £4,500 cancellation charge is likely to be the money you've already paid, not another £4,500. However, for that "cancellation charge" to be enforceable, it has to satisfy the test of not being a penalty charge. The law changed on this not long ago following the Supreme Court's ruling in Cavendish v Makdessi / ParkingEye v Beavis. In summary, for a clause like this to be enforceable, and not a penalty, the party seeking to enforce it has to show that it is not out of all proportion to the legitimate interests of the innocent party.

So, if it would be quite easy for the venue to re-hire for that date at a price the same as or greater than your £4,500, then the clause would be likely to be a penalty, and therefore unenforceable.

As you have already paid this money, they may just say they are not giving it back. For that kind of money though, I would certainly argue the Makdessi principle, and ask that the venue should try to re-hire for that date, and give you back your £4,500, or at least a significant proportion of it.

Sorry you have to cancel the wedding.

Thank you for all your help. I understand it is close to the date. But it does seem a lot of money ontop of 4500 already paid!

It does, which is why a number of us think you might be misunderstanding.

Were there other fees due to be paid to the venue on top of the 'hire', or was that due to be it?

As it's a date in summer and 4 months away, there might be a reasonable chance of the venue getting another booking.

Hope the chat with your other half about cancelling your wedding went okay, I know from your last thread you were concerned about letting everyone down, but you have absolutely fine the right thing. Lots of love x

www.cancelledweddings.co.uk/

few others to

I agree with the other posters, I don't think you have to pay a second £4500

I think you basically just have to say goodbye to the £4500 you've already paid

Well done for being so strong x

I sadly had to cancel a trip to DLP last year a few days before we were going. The cancellation fee was 100% of holiday cost. So I didn’t pay more, I just lost what I had paid. Luckily I had insurance so got it back.

But that’s why I think you are maybe reading it wrong, you don’t have to pay it again, you just don’t get it back as what you have paid is now turned into a cancellation fee.

However, if the total cost is £9K and you’ve only paid half then maybe the rest is due as a cancellation fee? The contract should show total hire cost.

Silly question but I assume you didn’t take out wedding insurance?.....