Wedding venues. What a rip off. « Singletrack Forum

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Wedding venues. What a rip off.

86 posts & 56 voices | Started 2 years ago by Ewan | Latest reply from dave_rudabar

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stevomcd - Member

We got married in Loch Lomond youth hostel. Beautiful building and grounds. All our mates came and stayed in the hostel for the whole weekend. Not cheap to hire the place for 3 days, but we charged a few quid to people who wanted to stay and it made it pretty reasonable.

Sensibly priced caterer, he provided the bar (no charge to us), we provided table wine and fizz (he chilled/served/etc for minimal corkage).

Ceilidh band then tunes on various iPods until the wee hours.

Best day of my life, no question. That's why it was worth a big chunk of cash.

Posted 2 years ago #
AlasdairMc - Member

If you do decide to go for a hotel type wedding, shop around and barter.

We had an idea of the kind of venue we wanted for our reception, and were looking at 50 people. My wife found somewhere really nice, but they wanted £3k for the venue, plus food. Increasing the numbers to 60 (I think we ended up with 67) meant we got the venue for free.

All in, I reckon it was about £4.5k plus cars/photos/dresses/rings, but it was a truly excellent day and everyone loved it.

Posted 2 years ago #
user-removed - Member

We got married in Loch Lomond youth hostel. Beautiful building and grounds.

Up until last year, that was run by my mate Davie Watt. He's now at the Pitlochry hostel. Once a year, he used to block book it for members of the ephotozine photographic forum - ah, happy days....

Posted 2 years ago #
Ti29er - Member

Stevo - seriously, did you make money off the back of your family & friends attending your own wedding?
"but we charged a few quid to people who wanted to stay and it made it pretty reasonable."

Posted 2 years ago #
bruneep - Member

it's a girl thing.

Yup I was only there to make up the numbers

Posted 2 years ago #
Grimy - Member

Stevo - seriously, did you make money off the back of your family & friends attending your own wedding?
"but we charged a few quid to people who wanted to stay and it made it pretty reasonable."

I bet he didnt "make money" I'm guessing he just asked for a small contribution towards a room for the night. If ive ever gone to a wedding and stayed over i've always paid for my own room. TI29er, are you seriously surgesting I pay for all my guests acomodation?

Posted 2 years ago #
AdamW - Member

Cut back the numbers and that should help. Invite only those who are important, and not an entire extended family who you either don't know or don't like. I got married in 2006. Invited 15 people. Went to registry office then a reet posh restaurant for lunch, which came to £650 (including alcohol) then at the end of it everyone piled into cars/taxis and came back to our house and played on the playstation until late into the night then went home.

Total cost (excluding honeymoon) was about £1400, including rings.

Since then people have told me it was the best wedding ever!

Posted 2 years ago #
AndyP - Member

Many ways to cut costs if you look into it and do a bit of lateral thinking.

buy your own booze- that's ok but the hotels will charge you 5-10£ bottle corkage

We saved an absolute fortune on booze by heading over to France, loading up the car, and paying corkage costs at the venue. Even with £8 per bottle corkage, you could get a decent bottle of wine for less than the house ~~blue nun~~ white.
The best bit about this - well, it didn't specify the SIZE of bottle that the £8 applied to. So we got jeraboams Check the wording on the price list...

Posted 2 years ago #
Ti29er - Member

One wedding I went to only served sherry at the bar. Only wine at the table.
The guests went out and bought in bottles which they secreted under the tables!
If you're paying corkage - get a jeroboam or a nebuchadnezzar bottle of champagne.
One of my assistants was an usher in the first of those TV programs where the groom was given £11k to arrange the whole wedding, which he almost managed. Again, don't skimp on the bride's dress and flowers are a given, regardless of the cost - it's cost of the venue that you'll need to be the most careful about.
I know one well known venue in Essex that charges £35 to borrow their cake stand and knife - so make sure you know exactly what's in with the price you are paying or you'll be in for a dreadful shock.
You have countless wedding fayre at this time of the year, including Olympia and the NEC in February. Go and strike a deal - so few Brits seem willing to barter - there's a rather good advert on TV at present that alludes to just this. The Jewish & Greek communities here in N London expect to haggle and knock the starting price downwards.

Posted 2 years ago #
AndyP - Member

The guests went out and bought in bottles which they secreted under the tables!

of course most venues are wise to this and regularly confiscate bottles at weddings...

Posted 2 years ago #
Ti29er - Member

In 14yrs of being a serial wedding go-er it's the first time I've ever witnessed it.
I think the staff let it slide as sherry was all that was on offer at the bar. Wine at the table & you can bet your bottom $ it was ditch-water.

That said, I only usually get asked to the smartest locations, don't you know!

Posted 2 years ago #
meehaja - Member

We looked at wedding venues, but as you say, its really expensive and IMOyou have to adapt your plans to fit them. For example, I don't eat meat, yet none of the venues had a decent veggie option, and none of them were very flexible. Also, I like good music and didn't want their crappy Dj, didn't want to pay a fortune for cheap wine and wanted it to be somewhere where my friends could afford to have a good time (e.g cheap local hotels/taxis/beer)

We went to the local liberal club. It looked worse than phoenix nights, but when the lights were down, what we got was a huge venue, with a cheap, well stocked and well staffed bar, big stage for our own band, sound system for our own dj, plenty of parking and loads of tables. Local curry place did a great buffet. best of all, the venue just charged us £50 for cleaning!

Band £300
Food £300
Own Champagne £250
decorations £150
and thats all...

lets face it, once youre drunk no one cares what colour the seat covers are! They'll keep harking on about it being thebest day of your life and implying that if the flowers aren't the right colour your wedding is cursed. It should be the best day as you are celebrating your love with the woman you love and all your friends and family, you are more likely to have a happy wedding of you are not increasingly aware of your own bankruptcy!

Posted 2 years ago #
twiglet_monster - Member

That said, we got married in the place that mean't the most to both of us, not on price.

Yes!

How to do our wedding only made sense to me when I realised its not obligatory to do what the Wedding Fairs tell you to do.

Lots of great ideas on here.

Us? Youth Hostel, Marquee, BBQ, A quantity of Surrey Hills Gilt Complex to drink, best friends and best family. A completely excellent day.

Best of luck with it and Congrats!

TM

Posted 2 years ago #
Jenga - Member

Most weddings are organised to show off the bride's mother. She is usually the main driving force behind all the fancy goings on. My sister has just married off her two girls, and for the best part of three years all we've heard from her is wedding, wedding, wedding. She seems lost now that she's nothing left in her life.

Posted 2 years ago #
Ewan - Member

Most weddings are organised to show off the bride's mother. She is usually the main driving force behind all the fancy goings on. My sister has just married off her two girls, and for the best part of three years all we've heard from her is wedding, wedding, wedding. She seems lost now that she's nothing left in her life.

Me and the future Mrs are paying, therefore we decide!

Posted 2 years ago #
dave_rudabar - Member

A mate from work had a hog-roast at his wedding for evening guests. He had to pay £65 (i think) so that the pig-suppliers could plug the spits into the venue's electricity supply!

He was the last one to hire the venue that was allowed to use their own caterers for the evening, the venue now imposed their own people on everyone...

Posted 2 years ago #