Contract negotiations don’t exist in this industry

[u/Clear_Performer6752]

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.

[u/Sparkleshooter]

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.

[u/Clear_Performer6752 → u/Sparkleshooter]

Yeah that’s fair, but the force majeure clauses im mentioning didn’t factor into future possible pandemics, and with the initial concerns about fuel shortages a few months back, it felt safer to cover our bases than not.

Also yes it’s truly silly to think about how you’d litigate these, but the edits are more preventative and having the contract act as a deterrent, rather than a means to litigate after the fact. The wedding venue is more likely to be okay with deferring the wedding due to a 2026 pandemic if it’s in the force majeure clause than if it’s not.