Covid implications for Venue Contracts- Summer 2021

That sounds illegal, what they are doing to you.
Get a lawyer to check your contract for you.

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Hi! I wanted to check in if you had any updates on how this turned out? We're in the process of reviewing a venue contract, and I'm researching what to be careful of should the worst happen and we have a significantly reduced wedding attendance than we planned for.

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I would love to hear the outcome of this as I think it's important for couples to know what our options are if they can't fulfill their contract. Thank you for sharing and I hope things work out in your favour.

Hey everyone!

Thanks for your feedback! Just an update, we are going through legal options right now. I think a lot of couples do not realize the power they have and don’t challenge their venue. It it definitely worthwhile to explore your options. A venue cannot make you postpone your wedding if you don’t want to. It sucks having to deal with this stress on top of the uncertainty with the pandemic though. But thank you all once again!

Talk to a lawyer. They can’t feasibly hold you to the original specs of your contract without some sort of real compromise ($40/person isn’t a good compromise).

View quoted message So essentially their offer is not even a compromise. If for example, you’re only allowed to host for 50 guests then your room rental fee would equal 14,000$. Soo, their offer is a no from me since that $14,000 is basically a really empty space. I’m so sorry you have to go through this. I really hope this works out for you though.

View quoted message Yeah it sounds like they’re trying to take advantage of you. Especially because they’ve already backed down somewhat but still want a large amount of money for nothing. Has it been long since you last heard from them? If they’re going silent and you haven’t resolved this they might be playing chicken and hoping you’ll cave.

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Funny enough, they have not responded yet to our last email. We are very reasonable people and are trying our very best to be cognizant of the situation businesses are faced with because of the pandemic. However, this just doesn’t sit well with us.

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They can't charge the room rental based on "missing people." That's a crock of bull. What did they say when you wanted to move to a different room?

Hey everyone!

Thank you all for your feedback! It has been very stressful to navigate. Here is their compromise, They want us to pay $40/person for every person that cannot be there out of the 400 guaranteed guest. So if we are allowed to have 100 people we would pay the per person cost for that 100 plus $40/person x the 300 guest that cannot attend. And when asked what this cost was for they said it’s the “cost for the space/room rental”. We have been in communication with them and they are now saying they will pay 1/2 of “this cost” but that still leaves us paying an additional $6000 plus tax, which I still think is ridiculous. We just want the space for what we can accommodate and to pay for who we have in attendance and just have our wedding.

It's too bad they're being so uncooperative with you. Like others have said you should take a good look at your contract and bring it to a lawyer or a law savvy family member or friend if you're having issues understanding it fully. I'd be surprised if you're on the hook for 400 people no matter the circumstances. There's probably a force majeure clause in there that describes what happens if someone is unable to hold up their end of the contract. Something like this would probably be covered under that, but you may need to get some legal advice to know for sure if it applies to you.

The room we booked has a minimum of 80 people however, if the government doesn't allow us to have 80 people they will only charge us for amount of people in attendance. While I'm sure your venue would love to charge you for the full 400 I'm not sure that they legally can. I would ask a lawyer. There are lots of them that will give you the first hour free....

I don't know the specifics of what your contract states. But they can't force you to pay for more than what's allowed. They can't just arbitrarily charge you for 400 people even though you're only allowed 50. If they're demanding you pay for 400, then they better be willing to produce 400 people's worth of food. If they don't, then that's illegal and can open themselves to lawsuits, not to mention being reported to the province to be fined for price gouging.

And yeah, if they persist, negative media attention on them might change their tune.

I know some venues removed their minimum guarantee then added a room rental fee which is calculated by the difference in guests. I find your venue is being extremely unfair if you are still being charged for a 400 person minimum, when that number is compromised due to a state of emergency order/ pandemic. I would argue that with them and would walk away (depending how much deposits you have paid) and even bring this up to the media if the venue does not try to compromise.