Guest User
August 12, 2021
In 2020, we looked around for locations for our wedding in 2021 with around 100 guests and were immediately taken with the property and the surroundings of Villa Rothschild. We decided to rent the villa exclusively, i.e. no other guests, you rent all the rooms and there is a minimum turnover of €25,000.00. The first unpleasant moments were related to the prices of drinks. We were fully aware that it was a 5-star hotel and we were more than willing to spend money. Nevertheless, we asked whether flat rates could be agreed for water (0.75 liters for €10.00), for example. That was not possible. We then suggested serving champagne instead of sparkling wine, for example, but then being cheaper on the water, as we were not interested in saving money at all costs, but rather in not getting married with the stupid feeling that horrendous prices were being charged for every little thing. We couldn't - our contact person said her hands were tied. Now you can certainly say that it's the hotel's policy and you have to live with it. We did - and signed the contract with gritted teeth. But things got really interesting when we asked to discuss the matter again with our contact person's superior (the deputy hotel manager). During this phone call, the young man informed us that "when he recently bought his Rolex, he couldn't negotiate a discount either" and that "we had ordered business class here and now we couldn't arrive with economy prices." I was at a loss for words, and that is rare. Completely incredulous and resigned, I wanted to end the conversation with the conciliatory offer that we had "simply expected a certain gesture of appreciation" instead of our suggestions always being met with rejection. My statement that we would have been satisfied if you had told us that unfortunately you really couldn't change anything about the prices or packages, but that you could perhaps add a bottle of champagne as a gesture, was answered as follows: "A bottle of champagne is not a gesture, it costs me €40 to buy and, as I heard, we already invited you to two glasses of wine and the starters of your meal when you were here to sign the contract the other day." We are talking about a wedding that would probably have easily exceeded the €40,000 mark. I have never experienced such trea**ent in the upscale hotel industry, even though we travel a lot. Perhaps this would have been the point to get out, but we left it at that and tried to suppress the anger. During the Corona period, no contact was actually kept with us (short-time work), but we happily continued to plan our part of the event. When we then arrived about 8
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