Venue cancelled on us months before wedding date - legal action?

View quoted message I’m so sorry this happened! I’m glad to hear you’re getting your deposit back though!


I hope you find a new venue quickly that can accommodate you!

View quoted message

Thanks Kelsie,

We were actually out of the country when it happened and now are just returning back. We've taken your advice into account and the deposit will be returned back! But I think they had a major event happen to their venue because they cancelled their taster menu for all wedding couples and all the scheduled weddings for 2020. With that, I know that there's a lot of couples just like me who feel upset and anxious over losing the venue and they will have enough to deal with without us taking legal action. We've yet to speak to them face to face but definitely we'll try to get them to pay for our invites to be re-done.

Thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through some of the details involved!

I would call the venue and ask for your deposit back, find a new venue ASAP and boook it. then sent out revised invitations and tell all your vendors that the venue has moved. this sucks i would be SOOO pissed if this happened to me. good luck with everything! !!

So, first and foremost, I'm so sorry this happened to you - what a ridiculous venue to basically reject people who have booked with them in favour of renovations.

Second, don't email other venues - call them! You need help! Vendors are notorious for taking forever to respond or not responding back at all. Call other venues and explain your situation and see if they can help you out.

Third, how is your venue being? I would tell them they firstly need to give you your deposit back - that's insanity. They also should pay for you to have your invitations re-done. If they can't host you the least they can do is pay to have your invitations replaced.

I agree with Caitlyn, being involved in litigation is a pain-in-the-you-know-what. I work with litigation lawyers and even Small Claims Court is a pain. B.C. actually has a fairly decent Small Claims Court system in place in order to make your claim and get judgment, it's pretty simple and straight forward to do yourself.

However, even if you sue the vendor, they may not pay you. If they don't pay you, you have to go through this exhaustive process of examining the vendor in order to get their financial information to garnish your funds back. Of course, the vendor will likely not even show up to the examination (which is illegal but it's not widely enforced).

So my non-legal recommendation, to you, is to try to sort this out without the legal system. Call up or go visit your current venue and explain the situation - you want your deposit back and for them to pay for your invites to be re-done. If they aren't receptive - determine whether the money you lost is worth going through the legal system where you will need to spend money to maybe not get your money back at all.

Please update us with how the search for a new venue is going!

First, I would ask them for your deposit back or get them to accomodate you on a different date. You have stated though that you've attempted to contact them and have received no response, but keep trying.

In terms of legal action, as Megan said, it can be a long drawn out process and can be expensive as well. Depending on your deposit amount you'd very likely spend more in legal costs to hire someone to defend your case than your deposit may be. You could defend the action yourself or ask for your legal costs to be paid as part of your claim (but you could the court not deciding to give you all your costs/no costs at all). In BC it looks like for a claim of more than $5,000, but not more than $35,000 you sue through the small claims court. If your deposit was $5,000 or less than it looks like you file an application through the Civil Resolution Tribunal. Sometimes though getting a judgement in your favour is the easy process, once you have that judgement the venue may not still willingly pay up so that may involve more time waiting and filing writs for enforcement. Just saying, this can be a long and expensive process, such are the woes of the court system. If you choose to go the route of suing remember to mitigate your losses and start looking at other venues and options!

Hi Leanne, that sounds incredibly stressful! I looked up a few things online and asked a friend of mine in law school what your legal options are. (This isn't official legal advice but just her musings about it).

You've said that there was no cancellation clause in the contract that you signed. I'm assuming this means that your venue has already refunded/made plans to refund you the money. Get in contact with your other vendors immediately and let them know what happened. Not only can they help prepare their services to help you out, but they might have recommendations about where else you could hold your wedding.

If the venue has not made plans to refund your deposit, you need to get on them about that ASAP. If there is really NO mention of cancellation policies in your contract, then they cannot keep money without providing the services signed for. It's as simple as that. So your entire deposit, in full, should be given back to you from the venue. I know it feels like they should be doing more, but technically they are under no obligation contractually to pay for possible extra incurred expenses if you yourself demand it (though it wouldn't hurt to cry a little in front of that building manager to see if you can play on their heart). However, there would be grounds for you to seek additional compensation. The problem is, you would have to go through court for that, which would be long, tiring, and expensive. But if that is something that you want to take on, there are legal grounds for you to be compensated. I don't know your contract so I can't say whether you personally would have a shot at winning a suit, but people have in the past.

Give yourself some time to cry, and give yourself some time to make choices, but try your best not to do them at the same time. I can't imagine how stressed you must be about this. You'll make your best and most rational decisions when you have a clear head. When something really bad happens, I like to see my mom or a girlfriend, and set aside the time as cry time. You could even do it with your partner, to just yell and sob and get all the bad feelings and anger out. That way, hopefully you can exhaust most of it out and move forward to find a different venue and not hold on to this resentment at your cancelled venue as a dark cloud over your wedding day itself.

I hope that this helps a little bit. I've also linked a couple of articles that you might find helpful.

http://www.theweddinglawyer.co.uk/2017/01/18/a-5-step-guide-what-to-do-if-your-wedding-venue-cancels-on-you/

https://www.besmartlywed.com/when-your-wedding-venue-cancels/