Is it rude to ask the venue this question?

raeah219 · March 2014

I'm looking at a venue that I really like and is within budget...sort of. I thought they were in budget until they sent me their contract. It says that the first 10 tables are included in the price. The additional tables are $20/each. The tables and chairs arent being rented from a separate company. They belong to the venue. If I'm not using them they will be sitting in a storage room somewhere so I dont understand why they are charging for them. I wanted to email the director and ask her why they are charging extra for the other tables, but I feel like its rude. Like I'm haggling with them. Is it rude to ask them why they are charging for the tables? How can I word the email if it's ok to ask?

KickAssMOH · March 2014

Negotiating is your right as an event planner and it is not rude. It's your money, and you should feel confident in the way it is being used at your wedding venue (or any function for that matter). Through negotiating, I was able to obtain free rooms and suites for myself and family members, discounted rates for certain items, free chair/linen upgrades, additional hotel reward points, and several other things that were never offered to me in my venue's first event proposal.

When you're spending a ton of money to host a function, a venue would expect you to ask several questions, and negotiating is normal.

ktjanesmom · March 2014

That makes no sense to me. Ask away!

Maggie0829 · March 2014

It is certainly not rude to ask those questions. But as someone who has planned a few events for work related things, the reason why they charge money for items they already have is due to the maintenance and replacement of those items over time. The venue bought those tables and they were most likely paid for after about 2 events, however, when those items are used over and over and over again they start to break and need to be replaced, hence why they end up charging you a rental fee even though they own them. I mean the same could be thought of from a party rental place. They own the items so why do they charge for you to use them? Because of the upkeep and replacement of those items, along with covering overhead expenses in the rental price.

But there really is no harm in asking.

grumbledore · March 2014

raeah219 said:

I'm looking at a venue that I really like and is within budget...sort of. I thought they were in budget until they sent me their contract. It says that the first 10 tables are included in the price. The additional tables are $20/each. The tables and chairs arent being rented from a separate company. They belong to the venue. If I'm not using them they will be sitting in a storage room somewhere so I dont understand why they are charging for them. I wanted to email the director and ask her why they are charging extra for the other tables, but I feel like its rude. Like I'm haggling with them. Is it rude to ask them why they are charging for the tables? How can I word the email if it's ok to ask?

I would absolutely ask. I've asked all of our vendors for contract changes - so far, not one has said no. We negotiated a lower rate with our dj, had the deadline for final numbers changed with our rental company, got extra time for set-up and breakdown from our venue, got our caterer to add items that aren't on their normal app menu, and had an additional clause added to our bartender's contract.

A decent vendor is going to expect these kind of requests - they may not always be able to accommodate them, but they expect to be asked.

grumbledore · March 2014

It is certainly not rude to ask those questions. But as someone who has planned a few events for work related things, the reason why they charge money for items they already have is due to the maintenance and replacement of those items over time. The venue bought those tables and they were most likely paid for after about 2 events, however, when those items are used over and over and over again they start to break and need to be replaced, hence why they end up charging you a rental fee even though they own them. I mean the same could be thought of from a party rental place. They own the items so why do they charge for you to use them? Because of the upkeep and replacement of those items, along with covering overhead expenses in the rental price.

But there really is no harm in asking.

True, but in fairness, the rental fee her venue is charging is obscene. I've yet to see a rental fee over $10 for a banquet table, and that's from legit rental companies that have to transport the tables to a new location. I'd at least try to negotiate for a much lower rental fee.

Maggie0829 · March 2014

grumbledore said:

It is certainly not rude to ask those questions. But as someone who has planned a few events for work related things, the reason why they charge money for items they already have is due to the maintenance and replacement of those items over time. The venue bought those tables and they were most likely paid for after about 2 events, however, when those items are used over and over and over again they start to break and need to be replaced, hence why they end up charging you a rental fee even though they own them. I mean the same could be thought of from a party rental place. They own the items so why do they charge for you to use them? Because of the upkeep and replacement of those items, along with covering overhead expenses in the rental price.

But there really is no harm in asking.
True, but in fairness, the rental fee her venue is charging is obscene. I've yet to see a rental fee over $10 for a banquet table, and that's from legit rental companies that have to transport the tables to a new location. I'd at least try to negotiate for a much lower rental fee.

Yeah it is a lot, but I was juts giving insight into why they charge for items that they already have in their possession.

I had to pay $16/table at my venue. I needed the tables so I paid it. I would have been thrilled if they had comped the first 10 tables and only charged for tables after that. Honestly that is probably why the cost is so high, they are trying to cover the costs of the first "free" 10 tables in every rental after that.

grumbledore · March 2014

Bingo. I just hate it when a venue says, "The rental fee is x, but if you want all the things you actually need, add x, x, x, x, x, x, x and x." It's stupid. Just up the rental fee. It makes it look like they are trying to rope people in with a low fee who don't think to ask questions before signing.

JennyColada · March 2014

grumbledore said:
Bingo. I just hate it when a venue says, "The rental fee is x, but if you want all the things you actually need, add x, x, x, x, x, x, x and x." It's stupid. Just up the rental fee. It makes it look like they are trying to rope people in with a low fee who don't think to ask questions before signing.

But not everyone needs extra tables or chairs or a dance floor or whatever else.

They would limit a lot if their lower end business to include everything in the standard price. Hence the additional charges.

phira · March 2014

Nothing more to add, except the venue isn't going to drop you as a paying customer just because you asked a question. My partner has anxiety about rocking the boat by negotiating with vendors, so I've had to remind him of this a lot.

KickAssMOH · March 2014

phira said:

Nothing more to add, except the venue isn't going to drop you as a paying customer just because you asked a question. My partner has anxiety about rocking the boat by negotiating with vendors, so I've had to remind him of this a lot.

My husband was mortified (and, eventually impressed) with my negotiation tactics as well! He thought, at first, that it made us look cheap. When we were staying at a beautiful Marriott in Paris FOR FREE on our honeymoon which we booked with the extra reward points I asked for, he wasn't so embarassed anymore.

sofakingmad · March 2014

It never hurts to ask! Normally they have to charge more because of wear and tear and people there has to be staff to move and clean up extra tables. That's where the charges come into play.

And when I was planning, I always offered to pay cash and asked for a discounted rate and if I remember correctly, every vendor was willing to give me around 5% off.

tcnoble · March 2014

Our venue has 6 pieces of gorgeous white leather lounge furniture... that they want to charge us $4500 to use. Just like OP said, it's THERE and you're going to have to put it somewhere else because we are not paying that much for couches. We found a rental company and are getting 8 pieces and end tables for less than $1,000... so have fun moving your stupid furniture. I don't understand why venues do this?!

grumbledore · March 2014

Jennycolada said:

Bingo. I just hate it when a venue says, "The rental fee is x, but if you want all the things you actually need, add x, x, x, x, x, x, x and x." It's stupid. Just up the rental fee. It makes it look like they are trying to rope people in with a low fee who don't think to ask questions before signing.
But not everyone needs extra tables or chairs or a dance floor or whatever else. They would limit a lot if their lower end business to include everything in the standard price. Hence the additional charges.

Right, but if they want to nickel and dime me, I'll go elsewhere. And that's what we did with several potential vendors. I don't personally think it's reasonable to charge extra for tables that are already on the premises, so I would never work with a venue that wanted to, regardless of their rationale.

phira · March 2014

@tcnoble Like @maggie0829 mentioned, moving furniture and using furniture does result in wear and tear. Not only that, but you're also paying for set-up/break-down and labor to move everything. I'm not saying that the charges are reasonable, just that it doesn't cost the venue $0 to let you use the furniture.

tcnoble · March 2014

@phira Oh I definitely understand that, I know they've got to make money somehow, and don't expect to be allowed to use it for FREE, but expected a little bit more reasonable price that would've made us more likely to use it. So now they have to vacate it from the space anyways, instead of negotiating a price that worked for all of us (which we tried).

Mandafly84 · March 2014

@tcnoble - Yeah, $4500 is stupid expensive. May as well buy it yourself for the amount.

I'm bandwagoning by this point, but I HATE when venues charge extra for things that are already there. One place we looked at had 3 tiers of reception packages, and the lowest started at around $85/pp. If you booked the lowest package, you had to pay an extra, non-negotiable $185 for them to set out the wooden dance floor over the carpet. No dance floor fee for the upper packages.

Needless to say, I didn't book them. $185 is such a small amount of money in the grand scheme of your wedding but it was borderline offensive to me (in my already stressed out bride brain) that we were looking to spend a significant chunk of change, and yet we'd STILL be nickel and dimed for petty little crap. NOPE.

phira · March 2014

tcnoble said:

@phira Oh I definitely understand that, I know they've got to make money somehow, and don't expect to be allowed to use it for FREE, but expected a little bit more reasonable price that would've made us more likely to use it. So now they have to vacate it from the space anyways, instead of negotiating a price that worked for all of us (which we tried).

Right, yeah. It's a little bit ridiculous how much crap costs. Like, REALLY, it costs THOUSANDS of dollars for us to use the couches? You could buy that many couches from IKEA for that cost.

CrazyCatLady3 · March 2014

One venue I looked at which was supposedly all-inclusive wanted to charge me $450 to have a coat check attendant, which you could not opt-out of using. How much do you think they were paying that person per hour? $10 max? I did not go with that venue.

I've also seen things like outrageous cake-cutting fees of $10 pp.

lyndausvi · March 2014

Sure there can be arguments that some venues may charge excessive amounts, but they are in business to make money.

Not only that, but there are way more expenses to running a business than just the visible ones. Just because someone makes $10 an hours does not mean that is all the business pays to employee the person. Taxes, insurances, sick/vacation, etc often add in upwards of 40% of an employees salary of expenses.

It in fact costs more labor to setup/breakdown 10 tables then 20. That could be the difference in number of employees you need. Storage alone costs money. Of course, wear and tear costs money also.

Do I think $20 a table is a lot? Yes, more than likely they up the rate knowing people will talk them down. But there are costs involved with storing, setting up and breaking down equipment.

Many, many business go under everyday because they do not take those little things into consideration.

OP - definitely negotiate the costs of the extra tables. I paid about $10 for mine. We are renting tables for a party soon and they are $8 a piece.

CMGragain · March 2014

Do not confuse etiquette with business.

kitsunegari89 · March 2014

NEGOTIATION IS NEVER RUDE. TAKE NO PRISONERS!

Is it rude to ask the venue this question?

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