The Winchester function centre

Winchester Venues will ***** your money and not provide a service or refund.

0 Star – Avoid This Venue at All Costs Our experience with Winchester Venues (Dr Samantha Naidoo) has been nothing short of devastating. We booked the Glass Banquet Venue in September 2025 for our wedding. In December 2025, after learning that our original wedding date was not considered auspicious, we contacted the venue to ask whether we could change the date. We were assured that changing the date would not be a problem as long as sufficient notice was given. By 6 January 2026, the venue and ourselves had agreed to move the wedding to 4 July 2026, and every contract, quotation, invoice and booking document was amended accordingly. By May 2026, every payment had been made in full, all planning was complete, and we had a meeting scheduled with the venue two days before the wedding to hand over décor and finalise seating arrangements. Then, on 20 June 2026, just two weeks before our wedding, we received a phone call informing us that the venue had double-booked our wedding. Instead of honouring the contract we had paid for, we were asked to move our wedding to the pool venue because another function had more guests. We were offered R10,000 as compensation. This was completely unacceptable. The pool venue was never what we contracted for. It is an outdoor venue, unsuitable for a winter wedding, exposed to the weather, presents safety concerns with an open swimming pool, and is simply not comparable to the Glass Banquet Venue that we carefully selected and paid for. At that stage, flights had been booked, accommodation had been arranged, suppliers had been confirmed, invitations had gone out, and months of planning had already been completed. To discover that the venue had made such a fundamental error only two weeks before our wedding was beyond comprehension. We requested a full refund of the R93,400 we had paid so that we could urgently secure another venue. Instead of immediately refunding money that was only owed because of their own breach of contract, we were told the matter would be handled by their lawyers. Their attorneys proposed repaying us in four monthly instalments, effectively expecting us to finance the consequences of their mistake while we scrambled to organise an entirely new wedding in just two weeks. Our attorneys attempted to resolve the matter by proposing a compromise of two payments. This was rejected without any meaningful consideration. A formal Letter of Demand was then served. Today is 31 July 2026. Despite the dates proposed by their own attorneys having already passed, we have still not received any refund. Because of Winchester Venues' actions, we were forced to organise an entirely new wedding from scratch in less than two weeks, incurring significant additional expenses, stress, inconvenience and emotional distress for ourselves and our families during what should have been one of the happiest times of our lives. What has been most disappointing is not only the double-booking itself, but the complete lack of accountability afterwards. Mistakes can happen. How a business responds defines its integrity. In our experience, Winchester Venues failed on both counts. If you are considering booking this venue for your wedding or any once-in-a-lifetime event, please think very carefully. Our experience demonstrates that even a signed contract, full payment, and months of planning were not enough to guarantee that our booking would be honoured. If something goes wrong, be prepared for delays, legal correspondence, and a fight simply to recover your own money. I sincerely hope no other couple has to endure what we did.