Hotel venues - getting prices down?

blondie29

Hi guys!

Just wondering what couples are being quoted nowadays for their wedding packages and are people getting the hotels down much from the original price given?


My fiancee and I are looking around at venues (based around North West) at present. Most 4* hotels are doing packages for approx. 50euro where a majority of them are including in their package:

• meal (starter, soup, main course, dessert, tea/coffee)
• wine (glass plus top up)
• evening buffet,
• chaircovers,
• majority include champagne/sparkling wine reception in the price
• and all the rest red carpet arrival, etc etc

Now while i appreciate they are good prices compaired to "back in the boom days" but as our numbers will be quite high (250-300 guests) we would like to bargin them down to as much as possible as they will be making a fortune at the bar with big drinkers (youngish wedding) and possibly alot of people staying. There will be alot for the afters too!

Would like to hear from others how they bargained down and what ye said/done to get them down or get extra's thrown in?

Cheers!

lazygal

TBH I think you're getting a pretty good deal at 50 quid a head for those kind of meals and 'extras'. A hotel won't be making a huge amount of money charging that kind of price. Also, hotels are well wise to people drinking before they come to evening receptions and a lot of people don't stay over any more due to being on a tight budget so the room occupancy rates aren't what they used to be. I've been to weddings where the couple had boasted in advance of the 'bargain' 35 quid a head deal they got but it showed on the day in bad food and service.

When we were planning the wedding and visiting hotels we found they had a baseline, usually around 50 quid a head, below which they wouldn't go because it wouldn't be worth their while in terms of profit. They might throw in a few extras, like free rooms for the parents of the couple and the bridal party, food in a residents bar and sandwiches on arrival during the drinks reception but I'd be wary of paying too low a price. The other option is to cut your guest list, as well as being aware that even though you're asking 200-300 people you will get a lot of declines, especially if people have to travel. From experience, you might also find a lot of people asked to the evening reception won't bother going, I know a lot of people see them as 'the dregs' and don't go.

Sleepy

Definitely the way to go seems to be to express an interest in their base-line package, remove anything you don't want from it and ask for what you do want: e.g. more free bedrooms, evening food etc.

One I did hear recently was a bride getting a champagne reception thrown in because she was prepared to put down a much larger deposit than usual.

blondie29

Thanks for replys.

We have big family, alot of friends and have been to huge amount of weddings ourselves so our number is going to be high..list is 350+ so i know some people wont be able to make it but we are expecting 250-300. All the weddings we have been too/are going to are up on these numbers too.

That is why we are trying to get hotel down as much as possible because of the take in's at the bar that day and also alot staying over.

Any other advice/experiences people???

garhjw

i think €50 sounds liek a pretty good price. what you want to work on with the hotel is getting reductions on any extras you want - free rooms, etc etc.

good luck

londoncailin

My moto for my wedding is that I'm not paying full price for anything if I can help it!

For the reception, we went for the middle tier package, it was €50 a head but I got it down to €39 a head. It was based on a min 100 people originally but then I asked what happens to the excess money if only say 60 or 80 people go. They've kept the price based on a min 60 and anyone above that will be at the same price which is great. the guests get a choice between salmon and beef for the main and loads of nice extras. I just asked nicely if that was the best price and they were great- I even haggled corkage down from €12 to €8.

The rooms in the hotel were €119 B&B, I said that was a bit expensive for some people, again, reduced down to €99 a night.

4 star hotel in county dublin. I got a tiny discount on the band when I spoke to them today.

Just use your lovely Irish charm, be confident when asking but not arrogant and they should be flexible. You have quite a large group so I would say to have the moto to get a deal, you are giving them some serious business, they should give you some flexibility.

blondie29

Thanks Londoncailin.

Ya it's defo no harm in haggling it's amazing how much places we've visited have come down from their original price..you would be mad to pay the asking price!

Does any one know how much sparkling wine costs for guests roughly? One package we've been offered are dropping 5e p/p if we don't go ahead with sparkling wine...I wonder if we source our own would it make more sense as their not charging corkage.

blondie29

Thanks Londoncailin.

Ya it's defo no harm in haggling it's amazing how much places we've visited have come down from their original price..you would be mad to pay the asking price!

Does any one know how much sparkling wine costs for guests roughly? One package we've been offered are dropping 5e p/p if we don't go ahead with sparkling wine...I wonder if we source our own would it make more sense as their not charging corkage.

Sleepy

Check if they'll allow it first but you'd get a decent bottle of Cava/Proseco for a tenner and it'd do 5/6 glasses.

Our hotel don't charge corkage and have no problem with us bringing our own bubbly for the toast but said they'd have to charge corkage if we wanted to use if for a champagne reception. They were pretty upfront about it: people not having tea/coffee at the reception buy pints and if they're not making money at the bar, they have to make it off you on corkage instead...

sakani

hi,

I'm not sure where you are looking in the NW, but I got some very reasonable quotes in Inishowen compared to other locations we checked out around the country.

We were looking for somewhere nice also (mostly 4* places).

PM if you want some more infomation as some websites dont actually display the wedding pricelists.

PCPhoto

OP.... best advice I can do for you is do your calculations - know the numbers before you discuss anything with a wedding venue.

One thing to concentrate on is that there are other venues and you must be willing to goto venue number 2 if the hotel is not willing to drop the prices to suit you.

you say you have approx 250-300 guests ?

- How many will be staying over night ?
- will there be kids at the wedding ? if so, does the hotel provide baby minding service or is there a place for the kids to play...going slightly off topic there.

- Are both families heavy drinkers ...or light ? calculate roughly how much they will drink conservatively ...lets say average person drinks 5/6 pints and 2 shots over the entire night (we're talking from when they come in for pre-dinner reception till the closing of the residence bar), anyway - lets base the calculations on 250 guests:

250guests approx 5pints = approx €4 per pint - thats approx €5,000 that your guests will spend on alcohol during the night - and 2 shots approx €4 per shot ...works out at 2K.

Conservatively lets say 50% of your guests stay overnight - this works out at approx 125 guests ...at €100 (total guess on room accommodation costs) - this means your guests will spend a further €12,500 on accommodation.

so ... on top of what the venue want you to pay for the usage of their hotel - you are bringing approx an extra €18K of business for the one day - minus staff costs (which even if they had 30 extra staff would probably be less than 3K for the day)

know the value of what you are bringing to the table - they are offering you a lovely dinner/venue/reception...at what cost ??

remind them that its also in their best interest to ensure the place looks fantastic on the day and staff are on their best behaviour - simply because wedding venues get recommendations by word of mouth and if a guest thinks the place or staff were bad - they will tell their friends, but if they think it was an amazing day then ...complements to the chef and staff - and further business will come from it.

let the hotel offer extra's for free (chair covers/sashes, candlebras, tea lights, canope's, sandwiches, tea/coffee , extra rooms for bride/groom, wedding party, parents of bride/groom etc)

Ensure that if they are offering extra's ...its for all guests and not 50%, 60% etc .... you could always use some of the reception food (on arrival) for after
the meal/dancing has started..... ask if the bar can be set prices (cheaper than normal to make the night cheaper for your guests) - ask if they are willing to offer all guests free breakfast the following morning - not all people will wake up for breakfast so they may not be loosing out on too much !!

have_a_go_hero

remind them that its also in their best interest to ensure the place looks fantastic on the day and staff are on their best behaviour - simply because wedding venues get recommendations by word of mouth and if a guest thinks the place or staff were bad - they will tell their friends, but if they think it was an amazing day then ...complements to the chef and staff - and further business will come from it.

firstly i must say that is terrible advice...coming from the industry i can say that anyone who says that to a hotel makes them get their defences up straight away and there wont be any movement on prices,,,its also extremely condescending for example you wouldn't go to a mechanic and say ''you better change the oil properly" you trust people to do the job they are being paid for and if the service isnt as it should be then after the service experience would be the time to say it.

ask if the bar can be set prices (cheaper than normal to make the night cheaper for your guests)

for one its illegal to change your prices more than once every 24 hours(open to correction with exact law but as far as i can remeber thats the law) so that would result in other guests of the hotel receiving the same prices if there was a wedding the next day then the loss would be substantial....
THAT IS ALL

Stuck Cone

I heard travellers have a hard time booking hotels and bad prices is this true?

Sleepy

It's certainly how they portray in on "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" and almost every hotel we've looked at has had a condition in the small print specifying that they must be dealing with the bride/groom themselves (along the lines of "we reserve the right to cancel any booking made by a 3rd party").

Since such a significant minority of travellers cause problems for a bar and with the traveller tradition of all and sundry being welcome at one's wedding (no guest list, no table plan etc.) which would lead to indeterminate final numbers etc I'd say there's a justifiable need for a hotel to charge a premium for a traveller wedding and could understand a hotel not wanting to host one at all.

During my college days as a barman I had three regulars in a bar I worked in who were travellers and absolute gentlemen. Honestly, the only time I saw any hint of aggression from these guys was when a couple of drunks kicked off in the bar and I was struggling to contain it (no security in the bar in question). The three lads stood up, one said loudly "[Sleepy], is there a problem here boss?" and the two lads being argumentative took one look and scarpered out the door. Unfortunately, not all publican's experience of travellers drinking in their bar would be as positive as mine was.

slowmoe

Op can i ask you to pm me the name of your hotel? Thats exactly the kind of package i'm looking for for exactly my budget and i've struggled to find it. Sleepy and londoncailin would you mind letting me know where your venue is too pretty please?? Thanks so much!

Pcphoto 125 guests would probably not have a room each, its likely they'd share so its probably more like 6000 they may spend. Although recent weddings i've been at i would estimate 20-25% stayed at the hotel depending on the rate and the distance home and the rates of other hotels in the area.

Also with your drinking estimates just from experience of recent enough weddings, i'd say only about 10% take shots, and myself i would only drink about 2 additional glasses of wine after all the wedding wine, oh would maybe have another three pints, but also know a few that would annihilate your 5 pints plus 2 shots estimate, op can probably have an idea from their guest list. Don't mean to knitpick just trying to add my 2 cents from my own experience

blondie29

pm sent there slowmoe

With regards to people drinking at the wedding there will be big drinkers there..bar better stock up!

Sleepy

slowmoe, we're going with the Riverside Park hotel in Enniscorthy.

Senna

blondie29 wrote: »

With regards to people drinking at the wedding there will be big drinkers there..bar better stock up!

This is a real common misconception. Every bride and groom thinks their wedding are going to be big drinkers, i've yet to meet a couple who say, "no my crowd cant drink to save their lives":D. The problem in the last few years is simply money is tight, guests at a wedding have already forked out for presents, clothes, bedrooms etc, they just cant afford to drink as much at a wedding as they would on a normal night out.

The real trick to getting a good deal from the hotel is to be completely open on date. A couple looking for a Saturday in August wont get as good a deal as a Friday in June. The amount of people who pick a random date and pay over the odds without even knowing it, they might have went for a May wedding had they know it would be cheaper, but the hotel wont say anything if they agreed to full price. If the hotel knows they will sell a date, they wont be as open to deals. Ask the hotel what dates they have free that they could reduce the price for***important*** get a price for a high season wedding first, then they can only move down (or not).

€50 would be the "middle package" in most 4* in the NW, but these packages might have options in them that while they would be nice to have, you could cut them and cut the price. For example, the number of choices adds to the price, so one starter might be enough.

Have you thought about an after party? Hotels love couples who want to have an after party the next day (some throw in free finger food & DJ if you have one). Its a good bargaining tool as well, if you tell them you'll have X number of people drinking at the hotel the next day as well, if its a Sunday night they might thrown in a room or two.