Minimum numbers!

[Lilypad15]

We’re currently in the process of looking for a venue. We’ve already drawn up a list of potential guests for day and night but we don’t really know a lot of people. We’ve managed to scrape together a maximum of 50 day/60 evening. But every single venue we’ve looked at/considered have minimum numbers above that. For example, I’ve fallen in love with a place but the minimum evening guests is 80. I just don’t know 80 people! Is it ever possible to compromise with venues on this? Or is it a case of if you don’t have the numbers then you can’t have your wedding there? Or is it maybe even possible to say that I only have a maximum of 60 evening but would be willing to pay the extra? I know that seems silly, paying for people who aren’t there but it seems to be our only possible option at the moment seeing as minimum numbers everywhere tend to be much higher than we can muster!

Are you looking at 'traditional' wedding venues? From my experience such caveats and rules are quite annoying but common in these places.

Are you flexible with dates and times? Look for somewhere a bit different, a small hotel hosting a wedding on a weekday in winter are likely to be much more flexible (and in fact I didn't pay room hire at all, just paid for food and corkage for my smallish number of guests). If you have your heart set on a place then just ask them? If you are picking a popular day and time then they might not agree, but if the venue would otherwise not be booked they will likely meet you on your request.

Ex wedding planner here :)

As I'm sure you've probably figured out, minimum numbers are there to protect the venue's profits. I would definitely have a chat with the venue and explain the situation, if you are willing to pay the difference they would be being very unreasonable to not let you :) I wouldn't worry about it

Look at more venues would be my suggestion our venue there is no minimum numbers and this is with exclusive use. Often this is more common where is a venue fee and then catering on top. The venue fee covers their costs and profit and then catering is a bonus for them.

I had a slightly different issue, but a very specific need.

I went on the council website and found all the venues licensed for weddings (we wanted all parts of there day in one place), and went through systematically looking at what would work.

We found an amazing venue in the end which ticked all our boxes, but we wouldn't have found otherwise as, despite being licensed it doesn't really market itself for weddings.

Perhaps try something like that?

If you’re getting married out of season or on a weekday most will reduce their minimum numbers. Unlikely on a Saturday in summer however as they would simply lose too much money.

I enquired at a really popular venue called Hampton Manor in Solihull. They charge £125 a head and have a minimum number too. I wanted to book for this May and enquired around 4 months ago. As the date had not been booked up the we were offered all sorts of discounts and flexibility to try and secure the booking. We ended up not booking as we are doing it next year instead but its definitely worth contacting them to discuss.

And this is why we went abroad with ours. A combination of having to have a school holiday ( went for October to give us time to plan and guessed summer too expensive/ booked solid), somewhere we knew, fantastic food and drink and beautiful surroundings.
Anywhere local charged a fortune, was rather formulaic in that it had set wedding prices/ catering/arrangements.
Do you. Whatever you see as a lovely way to celebrate your marriage. You don’t need to do a wedding the same way as anyone else.

Contact the venues. Ours has different minimum spend for different days.

We’re getting married out of season, we told the venue our numbers and preferred rough date I.e. ideally a Saturday in x month but can be flexible

We’ve ended up with a Sunday before a bank holiday and a better package (more food& drink) than we’d have chosen in order to meet the Sunday minimum spend plus the venue have thrown in some extras that would have cost us extra on top of the Saturday minimum spend and importantly overall it’s still less than the advertised saturday rate for the same number of guests you want to invite