What would you do? Ask venue for refund?

PreppySailor

Some of you may have heard about our power outage at our wedding reception on May 8th. The power went out as the first course was being served, and didn't come back on until we got in the car to go to the hotel. 5 hours total. Everyone made the best of it and had a blast anyways.

While the venue dealt with this extremely well and went out of their way to make things easier, there were some things we paid for that we didn't get. FI thinks he should contact them and ask for 10-15% of our money back. I feel like we should just let it go, because I think they'll say no, and I don't want to look back on our wedding with any bitterness.

Some of the tangible things that were effected by having no power:

-no A/C and it got fairly warm and the cake wasn't too happy when they cut it
-food service was rushed (to keep warm things warm)
-our open bar was 1.5 hours shorter than it was supposed to be
-whole wedding ended at 11 instead of 12:30 as planned
-late night buffet only had pastries and could not have flatbread pizza as paid for
-our DJ drove 45 minutes to get a generator so we could have music
-very difficult for all guests to go to the washroom (dark except for candles)
-no cappucino, espresso, coffee bar as paid for
-bar service was slower as their "soda gun" couldn't work and they had to open cans of soda to mix drinks.

What would YOU do if this happened at your wedding?

FutureMrsTR

I'd probably only ask for a refund for maybe the 1.5 hour of open bar because obviously your guests weren't consuming alcohol during that point and the pizza and the coffee bar.  Actual things that you did not get/use.

Was it the venue's fault or the weather's fault?  If it was the weather, I wouldn't ask for a refund for the A/C problem or the washroom problem because what could they really do about that?  And there also might be some Act of God clause in your contract as well.

lizstill13

I would definitely ask for a refund on those items that you paid for and did not receive, or only received partial service on, like the open bar. I understand that it was out of their control, but they basically got more money than they earned.

shellydiane820

Is there anything in your contract about refunds because of things like this?

if its not in your contract, I would definitely say something.

SpookieCat

I am hours late to this party but my family does do catering.

I would definitely think you could get your money back for the alcohol and possibly the coffee service but I would like to point out that food (such as the pizza) was probably already prepared and they had already spent that money but were unfortunately unable to serve it.  I doubt, due to food safety issues, that they would have been able to save it to serve to someone else later.  So that was an unfortunate casualty of the power outage.

I just want to point out that if you include this in your list of non-deliverables they may come back fighting.