How to negotiate with a wedding venue (and other suppliers)

What is negotiable at a wedding venue?

Everything a venue is not sure of selling. An empty Friday in November is worth nothing to them the day after it passes, so they will deal on it. A Saturday in June is sold twelve times over and needs no help from you. The list below is where couples we hear from get real movement.

What rarely moves

• Saturday hire from May to September. Popular venues sell every one of those days, often 18 months out. There is no discount because there is no risk of an empty room.
• Per-head food and drink at venues with their own kitchen. Staff, ingredients and the chef's Saturday cost what they cost. You can change the menu; you cannot much change the price of it.
• The VAT. It is 20 percent and it is not the venue's to give away. A quote that suddenly drops by a fifth has usually just lost the VAT line, which is a red flag, not a saving.
• Anything at a venue that already has a hold on your date from another couple. They will let you win the date, not the price.

So aim your asking where the diary is soft. What a UK wedding venue costs by month and day gives you the baseline, and the gap between a Saturday and a Friday at the same venue is your opening.

Get a second quote you can honestly compare

A negotiation without a comparison is a request for a favour. Before you ask a venue for anything, have a written quote from at least one comparable venue, for the same guest count, the same kind of date and the same package, including VAT. Ask for it by email so it exists on paper.

Comparable means the venue you would genuinely book if this one said no. Not a cheaper barn two counties away. Venues know their competitors and will know within a sentence whether you are bluffing. The quote is not a threat you wave; it is what lets you say 'we are choosing between you and one other' and mean it.

Then work out the like-for-like total for each: hire, food, drink, service charge, corkage, supplier meals, accommodation you would need anyway. A venue whose hire is £2,000 higher but includes the drinks package may already be the cheaper wedding. You negotiate on the total, not on the line that looks biggest.

How to ask by email without souring it

• Ask after the viewing, when they have met you and want the booking. A discount request in the first email is a discount request from a stranger.
• Say what you love first, and mean it. Coordinators are people who chose to work in weddings; they respond to couples who are excited.
• Ask for one thing. Corkage, or the deposit, or the Friday rate. A list of six demands reads as a couple who will be hard work for eighteen months.
• Give them a reason to say yes: you can be flexible on the date, you can decide this week, you will fill the accommodation.
• Never open with your budget. Share it once you are negotiating with a venue you actually want, and share the true number.

If the answer is no on price, ask about the schedule. A deposit of 10 percent instead of 25, and the balance due four weeks out instead of twelve, changes nothing for the venue and a great deal for your cash flow.

Negotiating with photographers, caterers and florists

A venue is a building with empty dates. A photographer is a person whose price is their skill, and asking them to charge less for the same work is asking them to value themselves less. It lands badly and it should. With suppliers, you negotiate the scope, not the rate.

• Photographers: fewer hours (eight instead of ten), no second shooter, digital gallery only with the album bought later, an off-peak or midweek date. Their day rate stays intact and your bill drops.
• Caterers: sharing platters instead of plated courses, two courses and canapés instead of three, a seasonal menu, a smaller evening offering. Ask what they would cook for the budget rather than what they would knock off the quote.
• Florists: seasonal and British-grown stems, fewer but larger arrangements, ceremony flowers moved to the reception, no flowers on tables that will be covered in wine glasses within the hour.
• Bands and DJs: a shorter set, a smaller line-up, a weekday, or arriving after the meal instead of playing through it.
• Every supplier: ask about a payment plan before you ask about the price. Almost all will spread it.

What not to do

• Haggle on a supplier's craft. 'Can you do it for £1,200?' to a photographer quoting £2,200 is not negotiation; it is telling them they are overpriced. Change the scope or choose someone else.
• Invent another quote. Venues in the same county talk to each other, and suppliers all know each other's prices. One invented number and you are the couple nobody quite trusts for the next eighteen months.
• Plead poverty and then upgrade. A venue that gave you £800 off and watches you add the chair covers, the fireworks and the extra course has learnt something about you.
• Ask for a discount before you have asked for the price. Get the full quote, including VAT, then talk.
• Negotiate after signing. The contract is the end of the conversation. Anything you want in it goes in before.
• Offer 'exposure' or your Instagram following in place of money. Nobody has ever paid a florist's rent with a tag.
• Run down another venue to the one you are talking to. It reads as a couple who will run them down next.

Get every concession into the contract

A discount agreed at a viewing, or in a phone call, or by a coordinator who has left by the time you marry, is a discount that does not exist. Ask for a revised written quote listing each change: the corkage at zero, the Friday rate, the deposit amount and the instalment dates. Then read the contract to make sure they made it in. The venue questions worth asking before you sign include whether the price can rise between booking and your date, and a capped price is the last thing to negotiate and the easiest to forget.

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