Terms and conditions of hire

1. Who these terms are between

Forest Wedding is the trading name of Wyre Events, of Wyre Forest, near Bewdley, Worcestershire — “we” and “us” below. “You” means the person or people named on the booking form. These terms apply to every hire of the venue.

2. What you are hiring

Exclusive use of the forty-acre site for your wedding day, and the following morning for your suppliers to collect what they brought. One wedding on the site at a time, always.

The fee includes the tipis or tent raised and taken down for you, flooring, lighting and furniture inside, the licensed ceremony clearing, the built bar, the plumbed washrooms, mains power and water, the catering kitchen and cold store, the fire pits and logs, the paths and the parking.

It does not include catering, drinks, the registrar, flowers, photography, music, or anything else you arrange yourself.

There is no camping or overnight accommodation on site. Guests travel home at the end of the night.

3. Holding a date

We will hold a date for fourteen days while you decide. Holding costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If somebody else asks about your held date in the meantime, we will tell you before we do anything about it.

A booking is confirmed when we have your signed booking form and your deposit. Until both have arrived the date stays available.

4. Paying

Your booking letter sets out the deposit, any interim payment, and the date the balance falls due. We will not ask you for money on any other schedule, and we will invoice you before each payment is due.

The deposit reserves your date and comes off your total. It is not a separate charge.

Prices are those published on this website on the day you book, and they include VAT. We will not increase the fee of a confirmed booking.

If a payment is late we will contact you and talk to you about it. We will not cancel a wedding over a missed bank transfer without speaking to you first.

5. If you cancel

Tell us in writing as soon as you know. Email is fine. We work from the date you tell us.

The cancellation charges are set out in your booking letter on a sliding scale: the closer to the day, the more of the fee we retain, because the closer to the day the less chance we have of filling it. Those charges are a genuine estimate of what your cancellation actually costs us. They are not a penalty and they do not include our lost profit on top of your money.

Two things follow from that, and both are in your favour:

• If we resell your date, we refund what we recover. If we rebook it at the same fee you get back everything except the deposit and any costs we have already committed and cannot recover. We will tell you if we resell it — you should not have to ask us.
• We deduct what we save. Anything we no longer have to spend because your wedding is not happening comes off the charge.

If you cancel within fourteen days of paying your deposit and more than twelve months before the date, we return the deposit in full.

6. If you want to move your date

Talk to us. We would far rather move a wedding than lose one.

If we can offer you another date we will move everything you have paid across to it. If the new date sits in a more expensive band you pay the difference; if it sits in a cheaper one we refund it. We may charge a reasonable administration fee for the work of moving it and we will tell you what that is before you commit to anything.

Moving a date is not a way of cancelling one. If you move and then cancel, the cancellation terms run from the date you first told us.

7. If we cancel

We will only cancel your wedding if we genuinely cannot hold it — fire, flood, a structural failure, the loss of our licence, or something else outside our control that makes the site unusable or unsafe.

If that happens we will tell you immediately, offer you every alternative date we have, and if none of them work, refund everything you have paid us including the deposit.

Our liability in that situation is limited to refunding what you have paid us, which is why we recommend wedding insurance below.

8. Numbers and final details

Three hundred guests is the limit on site. We will ask for your final numbers, running order, supplier list and any access requirements a few weeks before the day, and your booking letter says when. Small changes after that are usually fine. Large ones may not be, so tell us as early as you can.

9. Your suppliers

You choose your own caterer, photographer, florist, band and everyone else. We can introduce you to a caterer we work with, but you are under no obligation to use them; there is no approved list and we take no commission from anybody.

We ask that every supplier carries their own public liability insurance and can show it on request, holds whatever qualification their trade requires, arranges access and set-up times with us in advance, and takes away everything they bring. You are responsible for your suppliers while they are on our site.

10. The bar

The bar on site is ours and we operate it under our premises licence. Whether we allow you to bring your own drink, and on what terms, is set out in your booking letter — ask us before you buy anything.

Our staff may refuse service to anyone who is intoxicated or who cannot show they are over eighteen. That is a legal obligation on us, not a judgement about your guests.

11. Times

You and your suppliers have access from the morning of your wedding day. Music stops at eleven, the fire pits burn down after that, and guests travel home. Suppliers may return the following morning to collect, and your booking letter gives the time everything must be off site.

The eleven o’clock music curfew is a condition of our licence and of being a decent neighbour in a working forest. It is the one thing on this page we cannot move.

12. Behaviour, fire and safety

It is a wood, with fire in it. We ask that you and your guests keep to the paths and lit areas after dark, leave the fire pits to the staff beyond what they show you, and bring no fireworks, sky lanterns or anything else that could set light to forty acres of trees.

We may ask anyone behaving dangerously or abusively towards other guests or our staff to leave. We will speak to you first wherever we possibly can.

13. Children and dogs

Children are welcome and a wood suits them better than a function room does. They remain the responsibility of their parents or guardians throughout, particularly around the fire pits.

Whether dogs can come, and on what terms, is set out in your booking letter. Ask us — the answer is usually yes.

14. Insurance

We hold public liability insurance and will show you the certificate on request.

We strongly recommend you take out wedding insurance as soon as you book. It is inexpensive and it covers the things neither of us controls: a supplier going under, illness, a bereavement. These terms govern what happens between you and us. Wedding insurance covers everything else.

We are not responsible for property that you, your guests or your suppliers bring to the site, or for anything left behind afterwards.

15. Weather

It is an outdoor venue with an indoor plan built into it. If the weather turns, the ceremony and the meal move under the heated, floored, lit structure, and we make that decision with you on the morning rather than at the last minute.

Because we can still hold your wedding, bad weather is not in itself grounds for cancellation.

16. Damage

You are responsible for damage caused by you, your guests or your suppliers beyond ordinary wear. We will tell you about any damage within a week of your wedding, with photographs and the cost of putting it right, and we will not charge you for anything we cannot evidence.

17. Photographs

We would like to use photographs of your wedding on this website and on social media. We will ask you first, you can say no without it affecting anything at all, and if you say yes and later change your mind, tell us and we will take them down.

18. If something goes wrong

Tell us, and tell us on the day if you can, because most things can be fixed while they are still happening. If you want to raise something afterwards, email info@forestwedding.co.uk and we will reply within five working days.

Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. If any part of these terms is found to be unfair or unenforceable, the rest of them still stand.

19. Your information

We handle your personal information as set out in our privacy policy.

20. Law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over them.

Anything here you would like explained before you book: info@forestwedding.co.uk