Avoid the Old Vicarage Boutique in Southwell at all costs!!!!!
Just so there are no crossed wires about the whereabouts of this venue this review is based on my dealings and service regarding our wedding booking at the Old Vicarage in Southwell, Nottingham.
Laura, who is the only lady I have met at this venue due to her showing my fiancée and I around for our viewing for a potential wedding there , she was lovely, open, friendly and honest, we spent just over an hour with her one Sunday afternoon (end of Jan 2023) whilst she beamed about the venue, showed us around all of the wonderful bedrooms and she was proud to let us know she got married there. All was well and within a few days we were keen to get a booking in (paid early Feb for a wedding on a Saturday in June 2024.
The old vicarage was the only venue we had viewed, we looked at various venues online so we felt the Old Vicarage was right for us due to the decor, the location and the layout of the venue plus having Laura alongside to work with.
We handed over 1K to lock in a wedding date via bank transfer (should have noticed a red flag here as only bank transfer and cash were accepted)
After reading all of the pages of the contract thoroughly (and there were a few) we felt really concerned.
We didn’t expect such harsh and unrealistic terms and conditions.
I would advise if you are planning to get married here these are the terms you and your partner need to agree with-
1. The total cost given is with and without VAT in the contract so with some and without in other parts of it so you need to work it out and read very carefully
2. Be prepared to NOT be able to taste the food they will be presenting to your guests for the wedding breakfast as they just don’t offer that piece of mind
3. No draught beer!!! Terrible for the chaps. Min card payment of £10 and no cash accepted at the bar (doesn’t matter if you were planning on paying for all but in case you decide to have a fixed figure behind the ‘bar’ this could be an issue for the odd guest
4. There are 8 bedrooms at the old vicarage, each being £195 per room (without VAT and including breakfast) so that’s £1870 total. If you would like to stay the night before your wedding (which I wanted to, you are penalised for it) so you can but for over double as much as the night of your wedding (£4200 that’s including the VAT of which I did the Math for) with zero negotiation even them not having a wedding at the venue the day before.
5. You can only arrive at the venue 1 hour before the wedding ceremony (no earlier!!) and you are limited to who comes in the bridal suite with you. So if you would like photos arriving and time to get into your wedding dress and have a glass so you are feeling nice and relaxed forget it!
6. No fridges available for your cake or flowers
7. Any staff member are within their rights to enter any of our guests bedrooms at any time and take any alcohol that has been purchased outside of the venue and will charge £50 for EACH item found. Wow! (Not that any of our guests would consider this but the old vicarage is very keen to keep the money coming in)
8. If you do for whatever reason decide to cancel you will be charged £120 per hour based on the time the wedding planner/s have spent to date
9. Further, once we had paid the £19.900 for this (of which we had to add the canapés because they forgot that cost) we get the pleasure of being charged a further ‘non-discretionary’ 3% of the whole balance to pay the staff that are on shift for our wedding day to cover their wages.
10. If you would like an outside wedding you can have it for an additional fee, that was fine with us however we were not allowed to chance it up until the day before but make a decision a week before
Once I flagged all of our concerns I was told there will not be any refund of our £1000 despite them having a ‘14 day change of mind policy’ and they did not deem it necessary to even explain why. Suzanne Fitzpatrick (the owner of the venue) who I dealt with via email whilst asking if it was possible for our deposit back was a hard person and really difficult, not even an alternative or half based on the wedding being in a year and a half was even considered. The whole contract had holes in. I spoke with Suzanne for the first time over the phone today. Terribly patronising.
Timeline-
Paid the deposit 2nd Feb 2023
Sent back the signed event order schedule 20th
Cancelled the 24th having not wanted to send the terms and conditions back signed and based on all noted above.
I really wasn’t expecting to read all the agreements required this is why I am leaving a review to urge others to read thoroughly.