Negotiating the price with venues?

roxygrrl101

Hi! I'm planning my wedding for Sept-Oct 2012 and am going to look at venues tomorrow. Some of the place I am checking out are the Estates of Sunnybrook, The Richmond Hill Golf Club, King's Valley Golf Club, King's Riding Golf Club, and Oakview Terrace. Does anyone have any experience with any of these venues? Also, I heard you can negotiate pricing to a certain degree, and I was wondering if anyone has any advice or experience with this? Thanks!

whatyoudotome24

I don't have experience with any of those venues, but I can tell you about my experince with negotiating price at the venue FI and I have booked.

We went with FI parents (because they are helping us pay), and we ended up going to a venue that is run by a Polish lady (FI and his family are Polish).

FFIL is a very blunt man, and just came right out and said 'what can we do about price' and I don't know if it is because they were both Polish, or because the lady we were dealing with saw that there would have to be some wiggle room in order to get the booking, but she offered us half the taxes off.

It's not huge, but it will save about a  thousand dollars, which is always nice!

Not sure if we would have been able to get more off if further negotiations happened, but FFIL seemed happy, so we were happy.

Jewel224

Well, let's put it this way - if you don't ask, you won't get it.  Don't tell them what your budget is beforehand otherwise you lose the battle - usually with sales, you try to go low than what your budge it so you can get your desired price.  So for instance, if your budget is $100 per person, ask for $90 so that you can eventually meet in the middle - but ask for it after you tell them what it is you want for your reception/ceremony, etc.  So let them tell you what they can give you.  If they ask what your budget is, be vague and say something like, "As low as possible..."

The easiest way to negotiate with them - get a wedding planner/co-ordinator because they can get inside pricing because they know the owners and bring business to that venue.  We hired one just to acquire a venue and negotiate the contract for us.  We went from being quoted $120/head (before taxes and pre-wedding planner) to $85 per head.  So she already saved us quite a bit of money. Definitely worth the money we paid her since she not only saved us money but time as well.