Wedding Venue Agreement Changed

If your contract says you are required to use the in-house caterer and there is no longer catering, then I would think that contract is void. The venue can't blame you for misreading posted brochures which they should have been attentive to anyway. I think you have a claim to get your deposit back, but I would check contracts and ask again what else they can do for you. I wonder how many other couples are angry their budgets are now thrown off.

I agree with LM. Unless there is verbiage that states what will happen in the event in-house catering is no longer offered, I would think you are entitled to a refund of your deposit.

You can exit the contract and demand full return of the deposits/payments if the contract does not have a provision to allow the venue operator to change something like the catering provisions while keeping the contract otherwise intact. You could try a search on "how to terminate a contract that has been violated." But first you could let the venue know you are considering terminating the contract for their breach. Maybe the venue will negotiate for changes. But the risk is that they will be happy to end the contract so they could get someone else booked. That might be fine too (but not as desirable I'm sure).

I would say that they are in breach of their contract and therefore you should be able to get out of the contract and hopefully get your money back. If you decide to go this route, I would make you find another venue that is within your budget first. If you want to stick with this venue, can you use a different caterer. Preferred usually means that's the caterers they recommended but that you aren't necessarily required to use. Or are they only allowing those specific caterers? If you can search for one that's not on their list and they will allow that then it would probably be easily to find a different caterer that's within your budget rather than booking a completely different venue.