Hello, I would like to make you aware of how Caversham House operates. My fiancée and I are getting married in November 2015, and we booked our venue for our wedding at Caversham House in July of last year (2013). We paid a $2500.00 deposit, and it wasn't until February this year when we contacted Caversham to confirm the consequence of having less that 100 people we became aware this would be a problem for us. We though the consequence was a a table surcharge of $40 per table of 8 that was not filled. What we were told by Caversham House was that we would be charged a minimum per head cost if we did not reach the minimum 100 numbers. At around $90 per head and an expected capacity of 50 - 70 guests this would be an additional cost of between $2700 - $4500. On a wedding venue / reception that we estimated would have cost us $20,000 alone, this was not an additional cost we could afford, as we are planning on selling our house next year to fund the majority of the wedding. So we decided rather than let the stress of the finances ruin our day we cancelled our booking.
We have tried to get our deposit back, even though their Terms & Conditions say that is non-refundable, but with the knowledge of the popularity of the venue and also with the wedding being 20 months away still, we found this unreasonable, but so far they have only offered us 50%, which we have taken, and are grateful for, but have asked them that when they re-secure another booking for that date, can they please return the rest of our deposit, as they have not lost any money in the process of all of this. They are now ignoring our request, and it is causing great stress on my fiancée and I. Be careful when you book your day here, as there is no sympathy from this place, they run it like a business, and their first priority is their bottom line - profits.
