Just about to book my venue......

MildredW

Hi all,
I am just about to book my venue and was wondering if anyone had any tips for haggling or just things in general to double check before I hand over my hard earned cash! It's Leixlip Manor. Thanks a million. any advice appreciated!

Toomelady

Hi we sat a date in Feb gone for our wedding in Oct this year decided on Thurs Oct 23rd reason our daughter is on mid term the following week so it suits with the honeymoon. def haggle, was quoted 50 Euro per head, when asked for better said they couldn't do it i then asked was the Fri Oct 24th free said it was, she then said she would drop to 45 Euro per head if we stuck to the Thurs. BINGO! they are not busy on a Thurs but very busy on a Fri so it suited them to drop a few pounds . I know some people don't like getting married mid week but i have been to 2 weddings on a Thurs and it was fine also in my case we are going to canada for honeymoon on the sat so it gives me the fri to recover and get organised. best of luck

Milly33

Ask about bar the bar extension see if they charge for it, a lot of places seem too, and how many rooms ye get for the close wedding party...

michellie

Also if you don't want something they have on the package can you get something else instead? For us it was the ice sculpture I just don't like them so they gave us more free rooms instead.

And a free bar extension, the other hotel we viewed was charging us €500 for that.

lazygal

Get everything in writing before you hand over any money.

kitty3kids

MildredW wrote: »

Hi all,
I am just about to book my venue and was wondering if anyone had any tips for haggling or just things in general to double check before I hand over my hard earned cash! It's Leixlip Manor. Thanks a million. any advice appreciated!

Hi we got married in Leixlip manor in April. They were very hard to negotiate with and wouldn't budge on corkage bar extension etc because their packages are so inclusive. All we managed to get were 2 extra comp rooms.

Having said that we had an amazing day and they looked after us really well.

MildredW

kitty3kids wrote: »

Hi we got married in Leixlip manor in April. They were very hard to negotiate with and wouldn't budge on corkage bar extension etc because their packages are so inclusive. All we managed to get were 2 extra comp rooms.

Having said that we had an amazing day and they looked after us really well.

Thanks for all the tips girls. @Kitty3kids Glad to hear you had a lovely day, hope you are enjoying married life!

Did you have many staying in the hotel the night of the wedding? I was hoping to at least get the bar extension off, as the majority of my guests will be staying in the manor and surely they would keep the bar open as a residents bar anyway? Also, I forgot to ask when I was there, how much was corkage please?

It really is a lovely venue though and considering you have exclusive use, the price is still very good.

Thanks again.

kitty3kids

MildredW wrote: »

Thanks for all the tips girls. @Kitty3kids Glad to hear you had a lovely day, hope you are enjoying married life!

Did you have many staying in the hotel the night of the wedding? I was hoping to at least get the bar extension off, as the majority of my guests will be staying in the manor and surely they would keep the bar open as a residents bar anyway? Also, I forgot to ask when I was there, how much was corkage please?

It really is a lovely venue though and considering you have exclusive use, the price is still very good.

Thanks again.

We filled all the rooms and didn't have anyone extra to the afters so on that basis it didn't make sense to pay for a bar extension just so the music could play for a bit longer! The residents bar stayed serving til 04.45am and we just had our iPod hooked up and it was great craic.

Corkage I think was €12 not too sure.

stinkle

Corkage is 8.50 for wine and 11 for champagne there I think. Ours is later this month, so excited! We didn't end up haggling too much cos we're happy with our package and are terrible hagglers! We did go with the bar extension even though we've filled the accommodation, reading the comments here I'm sorry we did that, but at the time we had no idea who'd be staying so no real harm done!

We got credits for using our own DJ and for bringing our own wine. In laws are providing that and paying corkage so we aren't gonna get stung there thankfully!

MildredW

Thanks again girls. @Stinnkle....you must really be getting excited now! Hope your day goes brilliant for you.

Sorry to wreck you heads with all the questions (I'm so new to all this) but....

Is it worthwhile getting the wine yourself then, any idea how much they charge per bottle of house?
That's really good if your in-laws to do that for you, one less thing to worry about!

Yeh I'm not a great haggler myself tbh but hopefully that's where my h2b will come in handy-he has no shame! Even if they throw in a few extras rather than money off I would be happy. The packages on offer are really good, especially the Diamond one.

Milly33

We got with the corkage that, if you are into your wines and want a particular wine or are a bit fussy with wines then it is worth it. As you know how much they mark them up.

If not then I wouldn't be too bothered about it.

If you are having champers or prosecco is it worth it, maybe try to get them to waver the corkage charge or get the corkage on it if their prices are quite high for it. It might work out cheaper to get your own in an off licence and pay the corkage charge to them, rather than buy it from them.

stinkle

Yeah the inlaws are into their wine so it was lovely of them to offer. Otherwise we wouldn't have bothered due to hassle - I'm on record as saying it was a great idea as long as they were happy to arrange the order and delivery as we have enough on our plates in the days before the wedding!

Basically we got €5 per head off for bringing our own. €10 (enough for 2 people) was the going rate for bottles that the in-laws were interested in. They got added discounts then for buying in bulk and during a sale so good for them. But with the corkage added on it wouldn't have been worth our while if we were paying ourselves.

Edit - I never responded to your q about the house wine. It's included in our package, and as I said, we got money off for sorting our own. The festival package doesnt include wine for example, and the brochure I have says their wines start around €20 a bottle. The wines we had at our menu tasting were grand - nothing special but nothing wrong with them whatsoever.

kitty3kids

Hiya just wondering if you booked and how you got on?