Hiring a nice car for a wedding

[kingston12]

Has anyone had any success in hiring a car for a short journey to a wedding? We are getting married next month and the venue is about 5 miles from home (SW London). There is nowhere at the venue for the traditional grand entrance, so we were going to just hire a nice exec car.

Plenty of places advertise this type do service , and the cost seems to be about £50-£90 per hour for an S-class, which is fine. The problem is that when you phone up to book, the cost goes up to about £250 because the wedding 'service' is different. Clearly, this is the most blatant example of wedding tax, but has anyone managed to find one of these companies who don't do that?

[kingston12]

Crossflow Kid said:

Saying that the hourly cost is £50-90 and then complaining that a "wedding hire" is upwards of £250 doesn't really add up.
At £90/hr £250 gets you just shy of three hours of car hire....which sounds about right for a wedding.

It does add up for our wedding! What we are looking for is a single journey about 5 miles across outer London. The ceremony and the reception are in the same venue, so the car would not be required again.

If they can do 'non-wedding' hire for £50-£90 per hour, I just can't see why wedding hire is £250 per hour (in our case)

[kingston12]

TooMany2cvs said:

Don't tell 'em it's for a wedding?

An option, I suppose, but there must be a reason that they charge much more for a wedding, and I wouldn't want any issues on the day!

[kingston12]

stain said:

It's not that simple though. You wouldn't try and hire a room at a hotel by the hour and this is essentially the same. Whether or not you need the car for 5 minutes or 5 hours doesn't matter. They have their costs to cover before they even get to you. Notwithstanding what they can get from other bookings on the same day.

That's true, but I actually went through the online booking process with one of the companies, and they were quite happy to offer me an hour's hire for £90 for the exact time I wanted it, but when I confirmed it was for a wedding, it was £250! As I said, we could always lie and say it is not for a wedding, but I don't want problems arising on the day.

stain said:

An S Class for a wedding car though - surely sights are set higher than that?

We are talking about a single short journey, where the car has to pull up around the back of the venue and the bride won't even be seen getting out of it. It seems pointless spending much more - horse and carriage wouldn't work for this route, and vintage Rolls or equivalent is not really our thing anyway.

[kingston12]

TA14 said:

It's the culture we live in that forces them to do that. Forty years ago if there was a problem with the car peole would say they were sorry to hear that and ask how they could help; now people say that it's ruined their day and sue for compensation so the service provider has to insure them themselves and take reasonable steps to arrange cover.

Good point.

[kingston12]

Spare tyre said:

I'm getting married next year, and I'm car mad

Not bothering with a car as we are having the ceremony at the same place as the reception

lots of clucking from the outlaws about this, but there are lots of little 500, 1000, 1500's etc all adding up and a car just seems too much money for something so trivial in the bigger picture

The other half said she'd be happier turning up in my off roader toy than some hired car we could never afford to own

Very similar situation to us. I have got a 2 seater, so turning up in that is a bit out of the question.

We need effectively a 5 mile 'posh-cab' ride. I am guessing it would cost £10 in a mini cab, £15 in a black cab, and I am quite happy to pay several times that to get something relatively decent, but almost 20 times the cost of a black cab seems rather excessive!