Wedding Cost and Time of year

fox65

Hi All

I have been trying to find some general information about how the time of year affects the price or cost of a wedding?

We are looking at a March or October wedding next year however March seems so close while October seems far away. We have discounted summer wedding for a few reasons including cost. We have always been told that summer weddings are a good bit more expensive than other seasons. Is this true? I know that it depends on venue but does anyone have any rough idea on how time of year affects price.

We would be looking at 150 guests on a Sat, maybe Friday.

Appreciate any help or shared experience

dori_dormer

When I was looking time of year didn't affect price. Day of the week affected it a little but not much. But there was no difference between a fri and sat wedding price. We were looking at some very popular hotels though.


Why don't you ring or check out the websites of a few hotels you might be interested in and see if there is much of a price difference?

fox65

We are going to start doing this, pick a few venues and get a feel. We are trying to get a feel for it, first in the family and friends getting married so its all new and exciting!

January

Where we had our wedding (chain hotel with different locations around Ireland), there was absolutely no difference in price for time of year or day of the week. Same price no matter what.

Frog Song

Time of year made no difference to the majority of the hotels we liked. And the same as above, Friday and Saturday were the same price. Some were cheaper for a weekday wedding but we wanted a Friday/Saturday wedding so didn't look in to it.

clint_silver

was only talking to a hotel owner about this last week, he said he had 280 weddings this year which included a run of 37 days in a row in the summer. He can afford to stick to his prices.

you might get a tuesday in march off him for a bit less than going rate but thats about it.

More boutique venues will offer discounts for off season months and days. But you could be talking 110e a head down to 90e a head more so. Still high level.

Other Service providors will alter their rates accordingly and depending on day, you could leave it very late to book to max the discount but then again, if youre going for a tuesday or wednesday for cost reasons only, your guest attendance may be affected.
Another factor is honeymoon. 2 weeks away in march will cost way less than summer.

stargazer 68

We looked at 4 or 5 places recently and they all had 'seasonal' differences in prices. Summer is higher and that includes September/Oct.
Once place had this:
50 Per Person - Any Date - January, February & November
€58 Per Person - All Midweek Dates & Weekend Dates in March & April
€65 Per Person- Weekend Dates- May, June, July, August, September, October & December

and this was another one

Low Season/Midweek: 10% discount off the €70.00 wedding package.
Low Season/ Midweek: Special Hire Fee of €1000 for House
(Low Season Months: Jan, Feb, Mar, Nov & Dec. Excludes Christmas & New Years)

An Bhanríon

For pretty much the same thing the difference between peak and off peak at our venue was €50-€65. There may have been an extra glass of wine in with the €65 package but not much beyond that. A lot of other venues we checked were similar.

Friday and Saturday was the same in any venue we checked. Mid-week was cheaper.

And, although it was in the depths of winter, we had lovely weather the day of our wedding!

rainbow kirby

A few of the places we looked at had a cut-down package (set meal etc) for a low price (40 ish per head) between October and March.

tinkerbell

clint_silver wrote: »

Another factor is honeymoon. 2 weeks away in march will cost way less than summer.

Not true - that's only if you're assuming the couple honeymoon in the likes of Europe and the US. It's way more expensive to go to the likes of the Maldives, Australia, etc in March than it is in July.

clint_silver

tinkerbell wrote: »

Not true - that's only if you're assuming the couple honeymoon in the likes of Europe and the US. It's way more expensive to go to the likes of the Maldives, Australia, etc in March than it is in July.

Thats a fair point. Was only looking at holidays earlier this year and was getting more than double for june than march. Wasnt thinking further way than I was looking at in europe.

Milly33

Congrats to ye being the first of family and friends must be very exciting for all

From looking around at a few places I don't think it does matter too much.. Unless lets say it is November or like that a mid week wedding.. When we were planning we were thinking October as I thought it was out of season and it would be cheaper, but it was exactly the same as having it in July/August, as it was still seen as a popular month..

What won for us was the thinking that you have extra daylight during the summer months.. Especially for any outdoor weddings it makes a big difference I think...

Defo take yer time and make a list of places ye like... I keep hearing the You know its the one with dresses (still yet to find it) but defiantly got the this is the one feeling with the venue.. Don't rush it when trying to decide.

Toots

My brother in law is getting married this year, and having looked through a load of hotels with his fiancee there seems to be a fairly even split between ones that have seasonal 'packages' and ones that don't. One of the managers she spoke to in a hotel that didn't have seasonal packages basically told her that although they didn't have a specific reduction in price for mid-week or low season dates, there's certainly much more wiggle room as regards haggling and/or getting a few extra bits thrown in.

When I was getting married the hotel I used had May-September, and also the last 2 weeks in December as high season, then within that there was one price for a Sun-Thurs wedding, and then another for a Friday or Saturday.

Jan-March and November-Mid December were low season, and March and October were mid season. Again, within that the price differed for mid-week or weekend.

We got married on 9th of October (a saturday) and there was an indian summer that year, so the weather was fantastic on our wedding day. That was the date we had wanted regardless of prices, but out of interest we compared it to what a Saturday wedding would have cost in the high season, and for our numbers and the same standard of package it would have been about €1500 in the difference.

PhoenixParker

We negotiated the price on our package down a fair bit and they reduced their minimum guest numbers for us even though we're a bank holiday weekend in summer.

Now that might be because FH is a decent negotiator and it might be because we worked down from their top end package but I got the feeling that it was because we were negotiating in December for a May wedding. They felt there was less chance of them selling the date. Most people in Ireland booking big hotel weddings are at least a year out, often 18months +. With a vacant or cancelled Saturday in the schedule at six months to go, the hotel just want to offload the date.

Basically what I'm saying is that if you find a hotel with a date available, you might find it easier to negotiate a cheaper rate for a wedding in October 2015 then a wedding in 2016.

Pistachios & cream

PhoenixParker wrote: »

We negotiated the price on our package down a fair bit and they reduced their minimum guest numbers for us even though we're a bank holiday weekend in summer.

Now that might be because FH is a decent negotiator and it might be because we worked down from their top end package but I got the feeling that it was because we were negotiating in December for a May wedding. They felt there was less chance of them selling the date. Most people in Ireland booking big hotel weddings are at least a year out, often 18months +. With a vacant or cancelled Saturday in the schedule at six months to go, the hotel just want to offload the date.

Basically what I'm saying is that if you find a hotel with a date available, you might find it easier to negotiate a cheaper rate for a wedding in October 2015 then a wedding in 2016.

I'd agree with the above. My sister did the same booked hotel in December for wedding in May and she got a very good deal because the hotel wanted to fill that date.

We got a good deal when we were negotiating our too but we were 20 months out from our wedding. I think the hotel wanted to get a few weddings on their books for the next year so we're happy to negotiate.

Gatica

When we were looking for a venue we did find that many hotels offered a good bit discounted packages for the winter months, but you're talking Jan/Dec (except NY), and depending on hotel maybe the months either side.
There were also discounts for midweek weddings, which were usually Mon-Thurs. Friday is as popular a wedding day as Saturday, with Sunday less so.
Statistically September is the most popular wedding month to get married, followed by one of the summer months (I can't remember), so as usual, anything high in demand is gonna be higher in price IMO.

Liam McPoyle

Our venue offers cheaper rates "off peak" and they charge more for Saturday's over Friday's or midweek all year round.

fits

It didnt make a difference at our venue. But they dont offer weddings during peak summer seasin.

fox65

Thanks for all the replies. We spent this weekend doing some hardcore research. Eyes are square!! Seems like it depends on the popularity of the venue. The more popular venues ie Ballymagarvey have a shorter off peak season.

On the discount front, varies widely between 10 to 25% choosing off peak

TheBigDay

We were looking at a November or December wedding. While the price was the same, the hotel offered us a decent freebie for going with the November date (a free second choice main for guests). That made the choice for us as we didn't mind either way.

One point also to remember - we've found sourcing suppliers quite easy as "November is a quiet month". Very few suppliers were contacted were already booked for our date which has made things a lot easier.

athtrasna

TheBigDay wrote: »

We were looking at a November or December wedding. While the price was the same, the hotel offered us a decent freebie for going with the November date (a free second choice main for guests). That made the choice for us as we didn't mind either way.

One point also to remember - we've found sourcing suppliers quite easy as "November is a quiet month". Very few suppliers were contacted were already booked for our date which has made things a lot easier.

November is a lovely time to get married, we did and had blue skies, a real crisp beautiful day.

Our reasoning was two fold, one being that some people don't like November, think it's a depressing month - so why not put a big party in the middle of it. The other reason was cost, a little for us but more so for our guests who were travelling from abroad. Flights and accommodation were cheaper.

Robbie32

Good morning.
I have just been reading through the thread.
I am getting married in June and booked it Feb 2014.
I found that there wasnt much difference between on and off peak prices, but mid week was cheaper and winter was cheaper over summer. Both were in our budget so went with June.
Our issue was availablility thats why we booked so far in advance. or so we thought the year and a half has flown in. So the Oct wedding is not that far away...

The one thing I would stress is the contract. Make sure what ever venue you go with, you get them to make a contract point by point.
We did that rather then their usual contract. Since We booked our venue the prices have gone up 35%.
Last week they came to us and said that we would have to revise the quote as pricing has gone up. I had a meeting with them, when I took out the contract to go through, they got quite sheepish and then said that it was no problem they had made a mistake, that our pricing was fine. I think they were trying it on... Hopefully everything will go ok on the day, nd if it doesnt everyone will know about it.

Anyway thats just a bit of advise from my experience...