cancelled wedding

My sister and her boyfriend had planned to get marrited in June 2006. In Feb/March of this year they booked their reception and paid 1,000 euro deposit. They have since split up. Initailly the person they were dealing with said that she would refund the deposit but now (after not taking their calls for a month) they have been told that they won't refund the money "and if we did it for you, we'd have to do it for everyone" Strictly speaking it was a non refundable deposit but you don;t go into these things planning to change your mind. Anyone got any advice to offer??

monquest said:

Strictly speaking it was a non refundable deposit

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Is this written down somewhere - e.g. on a receipt or booking contract? Or was this mentioned verbally at the time? If so then they are perfectly within their rights to retain the deposit and all that the customer can do is try negotiating with them to get some or all of it back. Otherwise there is no comeback or statutory entitlement to a refund.

Most hotels make the deposit non refundable and the hotel we used for our wedding had this clearly stated on the booking form. So as Clubman has said the hotel are well within their rights. Could your sister contact the manager/owner and try again? If they won't give them a refund maybe she could persuade them, as a goodwill gesture, to agree to refund the deposit if they get another wedding booked for the same date?

monquest said:

Strictly speaking it was a non refundable deposit

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I don't understand why you're asking the question then. You/they knew the conditions of the deposit, so why try to backtrack on it now. If they didn't like the terms up front, don't pay the deposit and go somewhere else instead.

Take another example. Rules of the Road - Drive on the left. "I know it says drive on the left, but I want to drive on the right"........

If you know the conditions/rules etc., anywhere in life, you can't just decide to change them later on because you don't like them, or they don't suit.

Hi,

As far as I know it was written on a brochure that the deposit was non-refundable. I know that this is law. Why I posted the question was to get constructive advice like Kiddo's, regarding negotiating if the date is re-booked by someone else. I also though that other people may have experienced this and may have been able to tell me what outcome thay had. My feeling is that there is still a year utiil the date and the hotel has plenty of time to get someone else, they have not been out of pocket for anything.

I also wondered if the wedding assistant's verbal offer to return the deposit was worth anything. She offered it before my sister's ex asked for it back (I think she said she would have to check witht the manager but didn't see a problem).

Ronan_d_john, as I made the point, they booked the wedding not foreseeing that they would be cancelling due to relationship breakdown. I am just looking for advice for them on the best approach to make to try to see if someone will bend the rules slightly - the difference between this and the rules of the road is that if you drive on the right you are putting someone else's life in danger. I don't think 1,000 would exactly be life threatening for the hotel in question. There are some rules in life that are non-negotiable and some that are. I am trying to find out how negotiable this one might be so I still feel justified in asking the question and would appreciate any other advice.

Perhaps you could persuade them to give you €1k in credit to be spent in the hotel on other goods/services?

If it's a popular hotel, drop a new thread into www.weddingsonline.ie - giving the details of the hotel, & date it was booked for.

Perhaps you can give the booking to another person, and they can then give you the €1k. I'm sure that someone would be interested.

HTH

I don't think that they have any case against the venue but if you/they do then you could always contact the [broken link removed] or for advice or even take it to the . To be honest I think that the best that they can do is to try negotiating for a full or partial refund in cash or kind (e.g. as suggested by RainyDay). Otherwise write it off and learn from the mistake.

Hi monquest

I think the best bet is to go to the hotel and speak with a manager. There really is no point in speaking to personnel who have no authority to make decisions.

Put down everything in writing and rehearse it before you speak to the relevant person. Explain what had been or may have been verbally agreed.

I would expect that any decent business would be able to re-evaluate. After all, one might require the venue at a future date.

Marion

To me it seems that there is little difference between this situation and the one I previously posted on re. restaurants (other than the fact that the breakdown of an engagement is distressing for those involved).

I think that if the hotel can fill the date without any extra expense to themselves, then the deposit should be refunded-what has the hotel done to earn the €1000? Fair enough, if they say that it is non-refundable in advance, should you expect to get a refund? Probably not. Is this reasonable? Probably not (assuming that the hotel can fill the date in question).

It is easy to be objective about things when you are not invloved, but if it was your €1000, you would feel pretty bad about it.

CCOVICH said:

It is easy to be objective about things when you are not invloved, but if it was your €1000, you would feel pretty bad about it.

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Nobody here has said otherwise - but, in my opinion, the sort of objective and dispassionate assessments of the situation posted above are useful feedback for the original poster. The fact that some people (including myself) have stated that there are probably no statutory rights to any refund in this situation should be read as a pragmatic/realistic assessment and not an unsympathetic one.

I think Marion is right- the best approach is a personal meeting with the manager. Ask for the money back or if this is a no no, ask for a credit note for the hotel. The reason hotels ask for a non refundable deposit is that they hold this day for that wedding- doing so may have lost them other potential business on that day.

ClubMan said:

Nobody here has said otherwise - but, in my opinion, the sort of objective and dispassionate assessments of the situation posted above are useful feedback for the original poster. The fact that some people (including myself) have stated that there are probably no statutory rights to any refund in this situation should be read as a pragmatic/realistic assessment and not an unsympathetic one.

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I don't disagree at all ClubMan-objective advice is the best kind.
I wasn't necessarily having a go at any of the posts or posters in this thread, maybe I was just trying to remind people that this sort of thing could easily happen to us all at some stage or another, no matter how savvy we are.

Fair enough. I just thought that you might have been objecting to the lack of touchy-feelyness. It has happened before you know!

Hi Monquest

I'm afraid that you are depending totally on the goodwill of the hotel in this matter.

I can see where the hotel is coming from as it does happen that couples double-book weddings. I know of two cases in my own circle of extended family in the past 3 years. Double-booking is a serious financial risk for hotels and they use deposits to protect themselves against this. If they have been burned on this front previously they may be reluctant to entertain your pleas for a refund. It certainly wont do any harm to talk nicely to them. Hopefully it will work out for you.

Yes, yes, yes. Ive a bit of experience of this. Talk personally to the manager as its entirely at his whim. Explain theres a bit of hardship involved with the relationship breakup and make your case as strong as you can from a human standpoint as this is the managers side that you will be appealling to.

Auction the Reserveation on Ebay.ie.

As you get a little closer to the date it might be worth a lot more
than €1000.

Ring up Gerry Ryan and explain the story (if you can cry it'll be even better). I guarentee you'll have 10 offers to pay you the €1000 to take over the reservation.

Or best of all, when you meet the manager explain that you are considering these ideas and when you go public and name his hotel it won't be worth the €1000 to him and he should just refund you now.

Remember he only wins if he gets to keep your 1000 AND get's another couple to pay full whack. If someone else takes up your reservation he's no better off than if your sister got married.

Be creative. When your given Lemons.....Make Lemonade.

-Rd

There are certain groups/sections of our community that find it very difficult to get access to Hotels/Pubs for their family occasions. Perhaps if your sister was to contact the hotel manager and explain if the the deposit wasn't refunded she would have to take up on an offer form one of these groups to take her booking and use the hotel for one of their weddings. See where this gets you!

A small point is that the hotels consent is possibly needed to transfer the reservation to another party.

Exactly right. Booking is between sister/ex and hotel and would need their consent. I have some experience of this also. Threatening bad PR, g ryan etc will get you nowhere as if you follow the case to the letter you have no case and an experienced manager will know this and also remind you of the laws of liable/slander in any dealings you may have with the media or worse still put it in the hands of the hotel solicitor. Follow earlier advice and make a strong rehearsed case appealing to his/her human side saying you will only take back deposit if they get another booking on that day so hotel don't lose out but rather gain as they end up with many satisfied customers in your sister and extended family. Good luck and let's know how you get on.
MPH