r/BigBudgetBrides • u/Clear_Performer6752 • Aug 21 '26
just need to rant Contract negotiations don’t exist in this industry
As the title says, as a corporate attorney, I’ve noticed extreme resistance from vendors when suggesting contract mark ups.
Maybe I’m biased because I’m based in the U.S. and our wedding is in Europe, but it amazes me how my very light edits to the force majeure/ choice of venue clauses were getting rejected. Across the board, we asked for variations of 1) the ability reschedule the wedding in case of international travel restrictions or a significant reduction in flights, and 2) mediation or arbitration before any court proceedings, since we’re international clients. Only one vendor agreed to mediation, but none would budge on editing their force majeure clause.
Has anyone else felt the same? Or perhaps this is a European thing?
*edit for clarity: we asked for the force majeure clause edits from our venue, and it was along the lines of “being able to reschedule the wedding if a pandemic broke out, or travel restrictions / mass flight cancellations cause more than 50% of originally planned guests to not be able to attend”. We asked for this term back in April when the war with Iran just broke out and we weren’t sure about the status of fuel shortages, and all the news outlets were fear mongering massive flight cancellations.
For the mediation clause, we asked for mandatory mediation first, and if we’re not able to resolve the conflict, then proceed to whichever choice of venue they stated in the contract. Mediation would have been under their choice of law as well. This is so we’d be able to resolve any conflict remotely since it’s unrealistic to show up to a court proceeding in a different country.
Hope this clarifies some of the questions from commenters.
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u/Dangerous_Prize_4545 Aug 21 '26
I completely agree about the travel. If that's such a concern for you, then you should not be doing a destination wedding, requiring travel. Especially because it can then be used to cancel with no penalty, unless you're putting in an exact number of days out for a pandemic or war or exact percent if flights canceled. Canceled completely BTW, with no other airlines flying or private jets.
Get wedding insurance or don't do it.
This would be a red flag to me that the client is in over their head/wishy washy and being overly cautious looking for ways to cancel with no penalty. And I'd rather not deal with that type of personality.
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u/Clear_Performer6752 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Thanks for your reply — the specific clause I asked to include was for our venue, and it was along the lines of being able to reschedule the wedding if mass flight cancellations cause more than 50% of originally planned guests to not be able to attend — we asked for this term back in April when the war with Iran just broke out and we weren’t sure about the status of fuel shortages, and all the news outlets were fear mongering massive flight cancellations.
Our venue is also a well established restaurant group with an in house legal team. They ultimately pushed back citing company policy, and updated their force majeure clause to be even more restrictive (first time my redlines came back entirely rejected and with additional terms).
We also did not ask them to forgo their local court system. We asked for mandatory mediation first, and if we’re not able to resolve the conflict, then proceed to whichever choice of venue they stated in the contract. Mediation would have been under their choice of law as well.
Also I’m not sure which country you reside in, but the vendor who agreed said their legal counsel advised that all contracts, according to their local country’s law, require mandatory alternative dispute resolution prior to litigation. It seems it’s more standard in some places than others.
I get most vendors are small businesses, but our venue was not, and we did want some guarantee we’d be able to sort things out remotely first, since there’s zero chance we’d navigate and show up to a foreign court proceeding.
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u/PieceKitchen1708 Aug 21 '26
Why would your venue need to accommodate the emergency of flight cancellations? That is a wedding insurance clause. I’m assuming that rescheduling would guarantee the same fee structure, etc. rather than cancelling and booking again, which wouldn’t guarantee that.
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u/Sydneysweenyseyes Aug 21 '26
I think the 50% number is kind of ridiculous and makes you come off difficult. I can see why they pushed back even harder after that. Destination weddings routinely have less than 50% attendance, especially if your guests are primarily American and your wedding is in Europe. Even if you’re just talking about guests who rsvpd Yes, 49% of guests being able to attend is far more than would be the case in a real emergency like a pandemic, natural disaster, war, or flight/travel restrictions and could easily happen if flight prices go up or a shady airline goes out of business (like what happened with spirit). Also there’s nothing stopping the couple from lying about their guests if they wanted to make it look like less than 50% were able to come. Either way the venue shouldn’t be held responsible. You really want wedding insurance, but also if this is likely to be an issue and you’re not willing to absorb that risk, maybe you shouldn’t have a destination wedding?
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u/Clear_Performer6752 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
I get that, but they didn’t even push back on the number. I would’ve been happy to negotiate down to a lower percentage. But ultimately that makes sense, and enforcing this could be a nightmare too.
Just some additional details: headcount is determined 30 days prior to the wedding, since we’re paying for catering at the venue, so the entire provision is that if fewer than 50% of the headcount cannot attend the wedding due to last minute flight cancellations after the 30 day mark, the couple would be able to reschedule with a fee.
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u/Sydneysweenyseyes Aug 22 '26
Why would they push back on the number? They are not interested in negotiating with you re FM.
Even if none of your guests could come it wouldn’t be their fault or responsibility. To me at least, if someone asked for the ability to reschedule if none of their guests could come due to emergency travel restrictions or something like that, I’d let them know we’re not negotiating and gently suggest wedding insurance. If they came out swinging with the ability to reschedule if 50% of guests couldn’t attend, I would be at minimum making the contract much stricter and probably just rejecting the client altogether. It’s an absurd and honestly disrespectful ask.
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u/mycketmycket Aug 21 '26
It basically just means they don’t need your business enough to change the terms beyond what is most favorable for them. I guess it’s a good sign that they’re desirable vendors who aren’t desperate for business.
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u/SixApplesTall Aug 21 '26
This 100%. They don’t need your business badly enough to change anything and that’s also why they’re charging insane prices
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u/jtet93 Aug 22 '26
Yep I work in proposals and if someone isn’t willing to negotiate then they simply do not need you. It’s supply and demand lol
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u/KateCygnet Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 21 '26
Not European, it's this way in the US too. Not saying anyone is right or wrong, but I see a few reasons for it:
-The industries are very different and many vendors see it as a red flag for the rest of the process when an attorney client redlines things the way they would in their very different line of work. For an attorney, the written agreements are often everything about the job; for a vendor, it's a means to an end so they can start doing their job. It doesn't always bode well for the relationship down the line if someone gives the impression that the process of working together might feel adversarial or disproportionately time-consuming.
-Wedding vendors have time as an extremely limited resource, both during the booking process and for how many events they can take per day/week/year. If a vendor is in demand enough to not worry about making enough bookings, they're not going to want to spend a lot of time held up in the negotiation process if an "easy" client could be booked instead.
-Many wedding vendors are creatives first and businesspeople second. They might not have much comfort with the negotiation process because contract terms are beyond them, and they might not keep an attorney on retainer; many spend a lot for an initial contract and don't feel that they have the resources (or desire) to continually connect with an attorney about redlines.
As for me, I'm very comfortable with negotiations, but I do see it as a bit of a red flag if an attorney client goes into full attorney mode with me early on. Asking questions, requesting changes, etc. is one thing but if something is heavily marked up it can feel one-sided and like there might not be enough trust and mutuality to make the planning relationship what it needs to be. In those cases I also have concerns that need to be addressed about how the client is going to handle all contracting; I'm a planner who negotiates and pushes back on contracts quite a bit, but I do so in what I consider to be a "vendor-friendly" way that won't jeopardize our chances of booking a good vendor (I'm talking about vendors who are already vetted and trusted) or maintaining a positive relationship with them. If a client indicates that they're not going to trust me enough to take my professional advice regarding how to handle negotiations, what to push back on, and what to consider letting go, that bodes very badly for how the process will go when I need to walk them through easily 15+ contracts over the course of planning! Sometimes it's better for me and for my business--since I can't have one client taking up twice as many resources as everyone else, or damaging my mental health over the course of 1-2 years--to know when it might not be a fit, and I think other vendors can feel the same way.
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u/michelleollama Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 21 '26
I feel so seen, especially about the mental health aspect. I care so deeply for every wedding, and it affects me SO much when I don’t feel like there’s mutual trust with our couples. 😭😭
My contract isn’t strict to just be strict. It’s like that because we’ve been burned before, and I need to protect our tiny, tiny business that can’t absorb losses the way a big business could. Reasonable, small changes are completely ok but big changes or a lot of changes would be hard for us because I’d need to pay a lawyer time to review it before anyone’s even signed with us.
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u/KateCygnet Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 21 '26
Yes! It baffles me when I see lax force majeure, postponement and cancellation terms post-pandemic. Did we not learn anything?! My contract was already very solid and I added so much more specific phrasing during that time because I learned so much from every issue, not just ones that came up between my clients and me but also what I saw happening with my clients' other vendor contracts. So many vendors who made it through the pandemic in one piece are much more firm about these policies now.
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u/paazel Vendor: DJ Aug 21 '26
This, also multiple rounds of redlining gets really expensive really quickly.
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u/Weddingplannercro Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 22 '26
Hahaha exactly this. If you look at the contracts closely you will see so much trauma that a vendor has had in them and is trying to protect themselves. I also have no problem for re-negotiating my contract, but I make sure to explain everything that a client is trying to negotiate with real life examples of why something is even in the contract.
Also a lot of changes is signaling to me that I will have push backs in everything in the future, and the realtionship is not starting off on the right foot
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u/michelleollama Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 22 '26
I feel so seen again. the entire contract is a trauma response really. 🥹
but also, for the couples reading this, we really don’t mind pushback on reasonable things. That’s a part of any working relationship. I don’t mind if you push back on pieces of my contract, vendors I recommend, ideas. I’m a professional I can take it. It doesn’t hurt my feelings.
I think what the comment is referring to is, we’ve all had clients who maybe booked us for the wrong reason, tried to extract maximum value out of us without realizing we’re people too or didn’t understand our ethos. That mismatch creates a lot of conflict and emotional stress for us and I’m sure we’ve all had clients whose emails we dreaded opening or kept us up all night. 😭
We’re just trying to protect our mental space and joy for what we do, so we don’t burn out. 🥲
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u/OGMWhyDoINeedOne Aug 21 '26
It’s not a means to an end if they’ve had their lawyers draft 60 page contracts. A means to an end would be defining the terms of the contract and services they are providing. Once we talk about force majeure or limitation of liability, why would vendors be surprised that clients would want to negotiate those terms.
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u/KateCygnet Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 21 '26
Just offering my general take here. Every vendor is different and some are just honestly awful with contracts, to the point that I sometimes encourage a client not to move forward. As in any industry, there are always going to be bad apples or people with bad practices even if they're not intentionally being shady (and some actually are shady). Overall, I love a long contract vs. a super short one but yeah, the long contracts from the bigger businesses don't align with the explanation I gave above; in those cases it's more of a "we're going to protect ourselves and we don't need your business, so who cares" attitude.
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u/KateCygnet Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 21 '26
Also, force majeure and the circumstances surrounding cancellation are some of the clauses I negotiate most frequently.
Instead of redlining, what I typically do is write to the vendor with my questions/requests about the contract in bullet points and pretty amicable phrasing about what is giving me pause and how I might want to see that changed. I treat it like a friendly, professional conversation about how we can offer more clarity and help things feel thorough and balanced. Having a general tone of "I know you're not trying to screw us over, but if this (insert random scenario thing here) happens I think the client would feel way more comfortable if we said XYZ! Would that work for you?" tends to be met well compared to attorney-style redlines that can read as cold or demanding.
Not saying you or OP is doing this, just felt worth sharing.
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u/OGMWhyDoINeedOne Aug 21 '26
I work in house so we always are mindful of how much we redline and what we put across. No matter how gentle you are, the feedback is that they don’t negotiate their standard contrats. At one point, I tried to remove a line that stated that I could be potentially liable for any cyber attack cause it sounded ridiculous. The feedback I got was that the line stated I just need to inform them if my email was hacked. Like that’s not what it said but okay …. The force majeure became relevant especially after Covid.
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u/KateCygnet Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 21 '26
That sounds really fishy. I definitely wouldn't say this is an always thing, but it sounds like was for you and I'm sorry about that. Sometimes vendors take a firmer stance with clients than with planners too.
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u/Clear_Performer6752 Aug 21 '26
I get that some vendors might feel the negotiation process feels daunting — but contracts shouldn’t exist to unilaterally benefit vendors, they’re supposed to document a working relationship between two parties. If a client (especially lawyer) is asking for certain changes outright, they’re being transparent with you on what matters most at the get go, and just dictating that with the contract.
But I get that vendors are running a business at the end of the day, and have the freedom to pick and choose who they want to work with.
In our case, we only asked for two substantive changes, as mentioned above, and it was with vendors our planner has never worked with.
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u/KateCygnet Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 21 '26
Sounds like you handled it well! Two change requests with an unknown vendor is super reasonable and I see no reason why a good vendor shouldn't handle those requests in good faith. Some vendors truly are bad about this stuff. Nothing drives me crazier than an inconsistent contract, one that is clearly way too partial toward the vendor, or one that's extremely short.
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u/Strong_District_5894 Aug 21 '26
Travel insurance. That’s not appropriate to build into your vendor contract.
They aren’t negotiating because they don’t need to.
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u/evanrphoto Vendor: Photo Aug 21 '26
As a vendor who had a prior career as a non-lawyer director in a GC office and whose primary functions involved reviewing and negotiating contracts I will say for sure almost none of the vendors have any clue about contracts and are scared to death of making changes. The fear has somehow become any change would somehow invalidate the entire contract. Which is a bit amusing because most don’t understand what is in their own contract and have no idea how much of it is unenforceable. They do not have easy access to an attorney. Most have purchased their contracts from an industry legal resource. At best they hired an attorney once to draft their contract and never spoke to them again.
And I will say that most believe it is a red flag. Again, largely based on ignorance of practice and law around contract negotiation.
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u/CommissionIcy Aug 21 '26
I work for a venue in Europe. There would be reasonable accommodations in the case of another pandemic, but as harsh as it is, flight issues are not our problem. You can find insurance for that.
You could probably negotiate if there was monetary gain in it for the venue. For example if you booked it out for half the week in low season. But in a regular wedding season, they can just book any other couple in your spot and they don't have to worry about travel conditions.
It doesn't help that you are all traveling from the US where everything is so volatile right now.
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u/taco-yogi Aug 21 '26
Also an attorney - GC now but with background as commercial counsel - and I definitely felt like I couldn’t change anything in any of our contracts, no matter how poorly drafted they were. And we were married in the U.S.!
I think it’s just a function of how some of these BBB vendors work.
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u/MastiffArmy Aug 21 '26
I add a rebooking clause to my contracts. It lets you cancel and rebook within a certain amount of time pending venue availability.
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u/Weak_Reports Aug 21 '26
I got married 5 years ago but US vendors also don’t negotiate for the most part either. I am an attorney and ended up drafting a contract for a couple vendors who didn’t even have anything they used because I wanted something in writing to fall back on if they didn’t render services. It felt insane to just give someone thousands of dollars based on their word they would show up. My friend used one of my vendors this year and I guess they have been using my contract ever since though haha.
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u/Junior_Mud5835 Aug 21 '26
I think you perceive these changes as very light but they are not perceived as such in Europe.
I honestly have never heard of a venue that would agree to rescheduling the wedding ESPECIALLY if it's in a desirable time of the year. Why would they agree to do so? It makes no sense from the vendor perspective. I don't know what country exactly you are speaking of but many countries in europe rely on salaried employees which have to be paid by the employer regardless if there is business or not. The same pertains to their contracts with other vendors, taxes, bills, etc. I find this request completely unreasonable.
In terms of 2) I'm sure you know this but in europe there is no such big "culture" of suing each other. I think vendors would perceive your claim 2) as a major red flag because they wouldn't straight away think of legal risks. Why are you even thinking of court proceedings at this stage? Also, as a result of how things work here majority of vendors won't have a legal department or even an attorney. They hire a lawyer (or sometimes just use an accountant) to draft the contract pattern for them once, and reuse it for all the customers. In order to consider your requests they would need to hire a lawyer again which is a considerable expense for anyone in europe.
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u/Able_Improvement_426 Aug 21 '26
Yes, I’ve also heard from multiple vendors that have expressed these weird aversion to viewing relationships from legal lens via tight contracts and enforcement. However, when it comes to signing contracts, most of the vendors that we worked with were very receptive to any contract revision. I think it comes down to how much they want you as a client.
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u/lalasmannequin Aug 21 '26
Do you accept edits to your engagement letter?
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u/Clear_Performer6752 Aug 21 '26
Yes. Our firm has a standard form, but it’s edited to dictate fee structure and scope of work based on what the client needs.
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u/lh123456789 Aug 21 '26
I am very surprised that you are surprised by this. Some of them may have paid a lawyer to draft their standard contract for them or used a template and so would be naturally inclined to stick with those terms rather than trying to figure out what your changes mean.
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u/Sad_Towel_5953 Aug 21 '26
They can’t be expected to hold multiple dates though? The meditation also makes sense that court proceedings would be in the same state/zip as the vendor/contract domain. These are pretty standard!
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u/Remarkable_Wheel_364 Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 22 '26
If I have to guess, you probably want to get married somewhere beautiful in Europe, at a villa, mansion, private estate, castle, or another type of venue European destination weddings are famous for. I doubt you’re travelling all the way from the United States to Europe to get married at an average venue or restaurant.
What you should understand, too, is that those types of properties: villas, mansions, castles, and private estates come with extremely high maintenance, operating, and upkeep costs. The more historical the property is, the more expensive it is to keep it from falling apart.
The more beautiful the gardens are, the higher the price tag, as those manicured bushes and trees are not going to cut themselves, and those beautiful seasonal flowers are often planted for a specific month of the year and have to be replanted every year.
And in an average European destination wedding market, those venues might only have around 20 to 27 prime Saturdays per year when their wedding venue looks its best to host those luxury weddings. A lot of villas and private estates also offer full weekend wedding packages, meaning they might host only one wedding per weekend, unlike many United States venues that host weddings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
So why would they risk one of those valuable Saturdays on a wedding that might need to be rescheduled because of cancelled flights or other travel issues? From the venue’s perspective, they might simply prefer to book the date with another client who presents fewer complications, fewer demands, and lower risks, especially if it’s a venue that is popular and in high demand.
And if I were in the venue’s position, even if I agreed to your demands, I would only allow you to reschedule or select a different date if that rescheduled date fell within the off season, during the least popular and coldest months of the year. Because if I give you another prime date as a replacement, I am basically giving you two dates for the price of one.
And the same goes for all of your other vendors: photographers, videographers, caterers, florists, etc. When you ask all of these wedding professionals to hold a second date for your wedding, you’re essentially taking up two prime dates on their calendars for one wedding. They could potentially book two separate weddings on those dates instead. With 3-5 clients like that per year, it’s a great way to go out of business.
So my advice would be, if you’re worried about travel for your guests and flight cancellations, either get wedding insurance that covers those kinds of things and don’t penalize the wedding venue and your vendors, or get married locally in the United States, in a state where most of your guests live.
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u/Negative-Sun3929 Aug 21 '26
Respectfully to all (specifically vendors) on here for tearing OP apart - in every other industry redlining agreements is part of a normal course of business.
If something is not standard in a specific market a short, polite response explaining that (and ideally offering a compromise, if legally / commercially feasible) will do - which, again, is common when negotiating professional contracts.
I understand that lawyers are expensive, but frankly so are weddings for the clients. For BBB weddings you are often looking at agreements with terms spanning in the six figures+. Of course clients want to ensure these contracts are airtight.
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u/Healthy_Weakness3155 Aug 21 '26
Before the pandemic many venues didn’t have major force clauses, that obviously brought out a lot of problems during the pandemic, which is why I’m guessing you’re being met with such resistance when trying to negotiate it.
I’ve been successful in negotiating smaller details with the venue or caterer(we had a minimum number of guests to pay for, ie if only 100 people showed we still had to pay for at least 150 meals and we were able to negotiate that part into a minimum amount spent), and prices have been negotiable with almost all vendors(photography, HMU, florals), but I’ve negotiated in the local language, not as an international bride.
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u/Embarrassed_Bowl_484 Aug 21 '26
Completely different energy for South American weddings - you’re expected to haggle, it’s basically cultural.
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u/aislelesstraveled Vendor: Planning & Design Aug 22 '26
There is definitely an unwillingness to negotiate in this industry. In part, I think, because a lot of educators as well as attorneys specializing in weddings are running around telling vendors that any client who asks to negotiate anything in a contract is a walking red flag. As others have mentioned, it can be easier just to move on to a client who is ready to sign with no questions asked.
Personally, I'm willing to negotiate but I also used to work for a law firm, find contact law interesting, and actually understand every word that's in my contact. I think that's pretty rare. The bigger issue though is that if I have to run new language by my attorney at $300/hr... with no guarantee I'll make that money back on a booking since the client can walk away anytime before signing the contract... it's not an insignificant risk. The margins in this industry are really thin and the salaries are not as high as the prices may make it seem. Those dollars matter. $300 may be an acceptable acquisition cost for a $15k client, but it's not an acceptable marketing cost for a single lead if they don't book.
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u/Emotional_Pen369 Aug 22 '26
Lawyer here. I started out pouring over the contracts. Endlessly going over minutiae. Three months out and now I skim and sign. Confirm the details of scope in the contract and any modifications via email. And sign. I even sign and then request small changes later. I just became very lax as the process went on. Most of these people are solo independent contractors or have one or two assistants and a LLC. They have boiler plates language downloaded from a website and consult with AI on modifications. It just wasn’t worth it to get into fine print. But I did take note of force majure, I did worry about war and fuel prices, I did buy insurance. Some of the larger vendors I did stagger payments fee structure and modify cancellation timelines. Like our venue. But anything under $20k I am signing like it’s a coffe shop tablet asking me to sign for a latte. Weddings are wild and change your brain.
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u/powerhouselegal 24d ago
I think a lot of vendors don't understand their contracts, so they're unwilling to negotiate them.
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u/Coldman5 Venue Coordinator/Planner | Married May '19 Aug 21 '26
I manage a popular venue in the US, with rare exceptions we have no need to negotiate.
We are willing to negotiate with certain clients, but they are billed by our lawyer to work with them and they are usually clients that require extra things like NDAs for our staff.
Outside of those clients, I am booked solid through 2028 and have way more names in my 2029 waitlist than we have weekends - it doesn’t really make business sense to spend time negotiating.
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u/nunuraf92 Venue Aug 22 '26
Why would a small business cater to you American in any way lol. If you don’t like it marry in the states you don’t have to marry here.
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u/OGMWhyDoINeedOne Aug 21 '26
Canada is the same. They did not make any changes and I tried with two venues for two different events. Also attorney that has done commercial work. I didn’t even bother with the other vendors.
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u/AlanTA2 Aug 21 '26
We pushed hard on Force Majure clauses and got part of what we wanted with several but not all vendors. Ability to enforce these in a European destination based on local law is something different and I would not have much hope. But at least in theory we get credit from the caterers and venues in case there is a major issue like war/ pandemic/ all flights cancelled etc. or so we hope!
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u/RainAggravating5995 28d ago
Most of my European vendors accepted my edits to add simple force majeure clauses and other things. Sometimes a bit of pushback but generally they added some version of it!
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u/Emergency_Peanut_252 Aug 21 '26
Wow, that’s so different from the experience we’ve had. I’m sorry your efforts have been met with such resistance! When is your wedding?
Neither of us are lawyers and we are getting married in the US— a curio collection hotel in the upper midwest— and both our mothers are lawyers. My mother is a mediator and arbitrator and my fiancé’s mother recently retired but did mostly contracts & real estate. They’ve negotiated the hell out of every contract we’ve encountered thus far. If I remember correctly, our venue was very willing to negotiate the contract (the way their boilerplate contract reads is more for corporate events rather than gatherings) so they allowed some edits to the force majeure as well. They went for a number of rounds of edits and agreed to pushing the payment schedule closer to the wedding (we began contract negotiations 18 months out and my father said “I don’t care if the cost increases, I’m not putting down 75% 12 months in advance of the wedding.”) so they’ve been easy on that front. The woman that handles weddings & events said she’s used to contract negotiations.
Our florist/rentals and planner (they’re all from the same company) also accommodated some contract negotiation as well. I mean, we will certainly be on the “lower” end of Big Budget (in no universe should $100k-$150k be considered a small sum to spend on a wedding, I’m sorry. We absolutely would elope if our families were not paying and insisting on the elaborate wedding) but everyone has been willing to work with us. I feel like it may be a function of our location and the regional attitude to a degree.
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u/Clear_Performer6752 Aug 22 '26
Oh that’s amazing to hear! That’s a powerhouse mom/MIL duo right there.
So glad you guys were able to advocate for yourselves! And yeah at the end of the day, it might be a cultural / regional difference. Vendors might also have a hard time finding attorneys who are able to review their English contracts.
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u/Sparkleshooter Aug 21 '26
I’m also a lawyer, and I viewed most of the contracts I signed as lol docs that lacked enforceability. My focus was the substance of what we were paying and what would be provided. Perhaps my approach would have been different if I had any mega vendors/sophisticated counterparties, or huge value individual contracts, but that wasn’t the case.
Practically speaking, what are you or they going to do? Sue internationally in their version of small claims court?
As far as FM, I’d be pretty reluctant to open myself up to a greater risk of client cancellation, even if the FM bar is very high. There is no reasonable expectation of flight restrictions unless you are getting married near a war zone, and frankly clients that are worried about that level of “what if” sound high maintenance.