wedding negotiations, please help!

jmmg

I was wondering if anyone can help me!

I am recently engaged, and we are hoping to have our wedding in April 2015. Ideally we would like a venue where we can guarantee exclusivity and are being drawn towards the "country home" style places with a permanent marquee in place….trudder lodge, ballybeg, lisnavagh, etc.

Each of these venues have prices listed for rental, my question is, how negotiable are these prices? Are we talking 5% or 20%
Obviously the exclusivity comes at a price, but 8000e before feeding a person seem a little crazy!

Regards in advance!

Everything is negotiable! Go in and say your budget is x, what can you do for me?

We paid 15-20% less than the asking on Ballybeg last year. Be careful though, it books up early.

Milly33

We found recently that there is little to no negotiation with venues. We looked at a few and the two we picked didn't really budge a bit. Even after telling one crowd that we would take them if they offered a good enough deal. We didn't push it much I must say but they did not seem very willing to give in..

Were abouts in the country are you looking for

jmmg

we're aiming to stay within easy driving distance of Dublin

sweetie

jmmg wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone can help me!

I am recently engaged, and we are hoping to have our wedding in April 2015. Ideally we would like a venue where we can guarantee exclusivity and are being drawn towards the "country home" style places with a permanent marquee in place….trudder lodge, ballybeg, lisnavagh, etc.

Each of these venues have prices listed for rental, my question is, how negotiable are these prices? Are we talking 5% or 20%
Obviously the exclusivity comes at a price, but 8000e before feeding a person seem a little crazy!

Regards in advance!

We had a lisnavagh wedding in 2008. No negotiation back then and we had to organise the marquee and everything ourselves. There may be some leeway now but at that higher end of the scale they won't devalue their product too much as word of mouth would spread.

I wouldn't let my dream venue slip away for the sake of a grand or two unless it were the breaking point of budget. Save money elsewhere if possible.

blindside88

Most places won't negotiate much on price (maybe a couple of percent) but may throw a couple of extras in. I know lisnavagh now has its own permanent marquee. Prices have also dropped in the last number of years

Uriel.

Recently booked my own venue for a may 2015 wedding. As the poster above echoed, our experience was that they won't budge on lowering prices, but rather would throw in extra.

The approach the venue tool with us was pick the lowest package and work up with extra and negotiate the cost of the extras rather than picking a moreeexpensive package and looking for a per head reduction

We were very happy with our deal and got just shy of ten euro per head cheaper and didn't lose anything that we wanted from the more expensive package

Flippyfloppy

There's a place in the near side of Cavan, not sure if I can post name, but they have permanent marquee and don't charge rental. They do need a guarantee that you will fill all houses with your guests, and upon negotiations with them for a leftover day they had,they budged about 5%. It's better to negotiate on extras, as in not have to pay for two meal choices, forfeit something to have toast drinks, mess around with menu that way.

jmmg

could you pm me the name?!

Flippyfloppy

Sent!

jmmg

thanks a million flippyfloppy - I've looked at that venue and its actually working out more than private venue plus outside caterer!

Reati

Depends on the venue and day you have your wedding. I got my place down a fair bit bout 15% with a few nice extras but I booked 2 years out and for a Monday. Had some friend try there recently and they wouldn't budge on price as they are now super popular and busy (they were on don't tell the bride).

kkcatlou

We negotiated prices with three private venues (Cloughjordan, Uppercourt and Borris - worth visiting all three!). Uppercourt were least up for negotiation, but the others budged slightly on venue rental (like 5-10%, very little really, but the token effort was worth it). We did manage decent negotiations on food, corkage, etc. though, so if you go with their caterers and don't bring in your own, they can make it worth your while.

Try everything anyway, and try to talk to at least two places at once, that way you can use the bargaining power from the other place in your negotiations!

Milly33

sorry cant be of more help id be the Cork side I do remember looking up Slane castle after seeing Don't Tell the Bride and that is surprisingly not that pricey.. Not what you think it would be..

I hope you find something now to suit, it is so hard finding a fitting venue but when ye do ye will know it.. Things also aswell end up pricey even if you try and not to go down that road.. I had a dream once I could do it for €5000 haha that was shattered pretty quick, unless you just have a small crowd perhaps in a restaurant..