Did you know that a wedding venue is not obligated to book your wedding just because you want to book their venue? A wedding venue has every right to decline to book you as a client and sometimes they should. Why The Venue Doesn’t Want To Book Your Wedding: find out some of the reasons you could lose out on the wedding venue of your dreams.
The average wedding venue books about 50 weddings a year. California (for example) hosts about 122,000 weddings a year. For contrast, Virginia hosts about 36,000 weddings annually. If California has about 1500 wedding venues (guess based on my research), each venue would host 81 weddings. If most venues are seasonal or only host one wedding per weekend, they would likely host about 40 weddings a year or less. What is the point of sharing this wedding nerd data (again, based on my research)? The point is that once a venue is established and has a set number of weddings they host each year and will not go above that number, they can turn down clients that are not a good fit. Engaged couples are coming into the wedding process without a lot of history or knowledge about weddings. Some engaged couples think that just because they want to book a wedding venue that venue is theirs for the taking. As more wedding venue owners begin to connect and share knowledge, they realize that turning down clients that are not a good fit for the venue is the best way to continue to love being a wedding venue owner.
In the past wedding venue owners might change their policies and tried and true format to fit the couples needs or demands. But with bad review extortion and review revenge at an all time high, wedding venue owners are realizing that the more they try to adjust their venue to fit each couple the less satisfied a couple will be and the more at risk the venue will be for a bad review and over all bad experience. I know this is not going to be a popular opinion but wedding venue owners enjoying the experience of hosting weddings, is equally as important as the couple enjoying the wedding. I know, wedding blasphemy, right? It’s been common practice that no matter what, a wedding service provider should bend over backwards to give couples exactly what they want, no matter how the request increases liability for the venue or may increase dissatisfaction for the wedding guests. “The Customer Is Always Right”, In my opinion, its time to do away with this policy. It’s abusive and leaves both the client and the company dissatisfied with the event management experience. In my opinion wedding venue owners and service providers should absolutely be able to enjoy their working relationships with clients and to do so they must say “no” to booking guests that are not a good fit. Venue owners must set boundaries and say “no” sometimes! That’s right, they should say “no” to contract changes and policy change requests that will disrupt the tried and true good policy standards you know work best at your venue. Wedding venue owners are starting to work together to develop standards of practice that protect them against much of the issues they have faced on their own for years. In the Wedding Venue Owners & Managers Community Group on Facebook, venue owners are uniting to adopt policies across the board that help them protect their venues and enjoy being a venue owners. With 2022 being completely sold out at many venues due to increased demand from Covid delayed weddings, venue owners are more empowered to be selective with the weddings they choose to book. I sincerely hope this is a trend that continues and that couples will develop a better appreciation for how hard wedding venue owners and wedding pros work to make sure their wedding day is a success.
What are some of the red flags wedding venue owners are looking for that might have them passing on booking your wedding? There are a lot of reasons a venue might turn you down but below are a few of the most frequent reasons wedding venue owners in the Wedding Venue Owners & Managers Community say they turn down weddings.
When the couple shows more interest in the bar services and alcohol policy than anything else. One venue owner recently share in the Wedding Venue Owners & Managers Community that they passed on a couple because the groom brought up wanting shots at the wedding and before the wedding in the grooms suite. According to the venue owner, the groom kept bringing it up even after being informed that there are no shots allowed at the venue. The venue has banned shots at any of their weddings. This is becoming common practice because hard liquor increases the odds that guests will be completely drunk early in the event. Drunk guests start fights, vomit all over, risk guest & staff safety and increase liability for the venue. Drunken guests are more likely to damage property and violate venue policy. When a wedding guest damages the property, vomits, urinates, etc… the venue will likely use the couples damage deposit to cover the costs of damage or clean up. While these policies are clearly in communicated in the contract and justified, once a couple is informed their damage deposit will not be returned they often begin threatening the venue owner and then slandering the venue via social media. They also go right to bad review revenge tactics, not only publishing a bad review that is usually embellished or false, they get their friends and family to bad review. Venue owners are reporting that they will get as many as 20 or more bad reviews when a deposit is not returned. This is disgusting behavior and the review platforms do little to protect small business owners from review extortion and review revenge. Venue owners are looking out for red flags like this one so they can avoid alcohol related issues that linger on months and years after the wedding hangover.
When the couple wants to change the venue contracted terms & policies. The venue knows what works best at their venue. The venue knows what their staff and event management team can facilitate properly. That is whey their contract is written the way it is, because its the best practices for their venue. When a couples requests changes to tried and true methods, the alarms start going off. This is a wedding fact, the more a wedding venue owner bends over backwards to make exceptions and give in to a couples demands, the less appreciative and less satisfied the couple will be in the end. It NEVER fails, you make one exception, more change requests will follow. The change requests very often lead to logistic issues and overall event dissatisfaction. Even though these changes were the request of the couple, the guests don’t know that and when they have a bad time you know have the potential for 150 bad reviews. I am going to guess that never in the history of weddings has the couples made the following announcement at their wedding, “Guests we just want to apologize for a serious of bad planning decisions we made during the planning of this wedding. The wedding venue owner begged us not to do it, they explained all the reasons we shouldn’t do it. But we went against their advice and you suffered because of it. So, please give us all your bad reviews, please don’t take it out on the venue”.
You ignore the contract and talk about sparkler exits, confetti, rose petals and glitter. Wow, this is such a big deal. Wedding venues provide a list of items that are banned at the wedding. Often couples ignore this section until they get close to the wedding and realize something they want is not allowed at the venue. If you mention these items during the wedding venue consultation, if you even bring it up a venue might want to pass on your wedding. When an engaged couple brings up banned items in the beginning, it usually means it is a big part of their wedding vision. Sometimes the couple will say, “Oh its banned, ok, well no big deal we don’t have to have that.” But then the couple sees all the images of other weddings with sparker exits and decide they can’t live without it. That is when they either start harassing the venue to change the policy or they start scheming ways to do it anyway. Like the good old, “oh, Aunt betty brought those sparklers. She didn’t know it was banned and we had no idea she was going to arrange a sparkler exit, with confetti and rose petals”. So many venue owners have had this happen, it’s not an original idea. If you try this option you will lose your deposit. This creates so much animosity from the couple to the venue owner. Why would a venue owner want to deal with this issue? If you bring up banned items during the consultation process, don’t be surprised when the wedding venue you fall in love with informs you that they can’t host your wedding.
You want your family and friends to take the role of essential vendors. If you want a DIY wedding there are lots of fire department halls, parks and recs venues and outdoor budget venues that will likely allow you to do what ever you like regarding vendors. If you want a beautiful, professional wedding venue, then you must use licensed and insured vendors. Having your cousin handle the catering might sound like a good way to save money, but this is a liability nightmare for the wedding venue. I could write an entire book on the damage that low budget bad caterers or home business caterers have done to wedding venues over the years. They show up late, they don’t understand or abide by food safety regulations. They usually disrupt the venue team asking for help with set up, loading and out. Or they need supplies they didn’t realize they would be required to provide. Often they don’t have professional staff to help prep, serve or clean up and the venue staff has to stop their duties to pitch in. One of the worst things a couple will ever say is, “Oh we have so many great friends that will help out with (fill in the blank) during the wedding.” Professional services duties you assign your friends during the wedding will not get accomplished and the vendors or venue with get blamed. That is a wedding fact! So, if you want your family and friends to help you save money by handling some of the vendor duties, don’t be surprised when you miss out on booking that dream venue.
Prospective clients requiring excessive amounts of your time but will not sign the contract. One venue owner recently shared that the prospective bride had already come to the wedding venue for 3 tours and question and answer sessions. The wedding venue owner and bride had exchanged over 60 emails! Every time the venue owner addressed the brides questions & concerns about how her wedding wants would fit the venue (many had already been addressed via email or on the tours), the bride to be had more questions. This venue owner shared her frustrations in the Wedding Venue Owners & Managers Community, that the bride was now requesting a fourth tour and still had not even booked the venue! The venue owner had spent hours of time working to accommodating a prospective bride that has not paid anything for the venue owners time. This is a very bad sign of things to come. When a prospective client feels entitled to take your time and provide nothing in return (compensation, signed contract), they do not understand how business relationships work. My advice is to use better screening tools on your website to reduce time wasting clients and set a clear boundary. You could have on your website, “we will provide one complimentary wedding venue tour prior to the signing of the contract.”
Demanding & Entitled Clients. This goes back to the toxic mantra, “The customer is always right”. Some of you are demanding and entitled and if you present these character flaws during the consultation process, I say “thank you”. Thank you so much for allowing us to see what a nightmare you would be to work with over the course of 6 to 12 months so that we can decline your request to book our services. Everyone wants to ensure that the couple has an incredible experience, of course. However, demanding and entitled clients will likely never appreciate or value the services anyone provides for them. They will not likely acknowledge all of the above and beyond effort provided by the venue. These clients are more likely to increase the amount of work and stress for the venue team but they will not pay for that added work. It is common for these couples to demand more work and request discounts. Why would a wedding venue put themselves in a deficit with clients who do not and will not value their hard work? Smart venues will see these red flags and run!
I hope that wedding venue owners will continue to work together to support innovative, smart wedding policies. I hope that wedding clients will read their contracts thoroughly and choose a wedding venue that works best for their vision. If you want to secure that dream wedding venue, you should be prepared to compromise and communicate. You would not want someone to disrespect your home, so don’t disrespect the wedding venue for enforcing policy that protect the venue, the couples and the guests!
Please share your comments, what are some of the red flags you look for when screening your prospective wedding clients?
