Cancellation & Refund

Overview

Empire Events plans and produces weddings, destination celebrations, corporate events and private functions. The moment we accept a booking, your date is withdrawn from our calendar and is no longer offered to anyone else. Design work begins, vendors are placed on hold, and our team is assigned. That is why cancellations carry a cost — and why we would rather you knew the exact cost before you paid us anything.

This policy sets out how you may cancel, what you get back, and when. It is published in compliance with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, which require a service provider to disclose its cancellation and refund terms clearly and in advance, and to appoint a Grievance Officer.

It applies to every engagement confirmed with Empire Events, whether booked through this website, over the phone, on WhatsApp, or by a signed proposal or event agreement. Where you have signed a separate event agreement with us, that agreement governs to the extent of any inconsistency; on everything it does not cover, this policy applies.

How to cancel

A cancellation must reach us in writing. Please send it to hello@empireevent.org or on WhatsApp at +91 92650 08264, from the email address or mobile number used at the time of booking.

Your notice should include:

• The name of the client and the event date being cancelled
• Your booking or proposal reference, if you have one
• Whether you are cancelling outright or would like to reschedule
• The bank account or payment mode you would like any refund sent to

A cancellation takes effect from the date and time we receive your written notice (Indian Standard Time) — not the date it was written, posted or discussed on a call. Conversations with a planner, however clear, do not stop the clock until they are confirmed in writing. We acknowledge every cancellation within 24 hours and issue a written statement of account, showing all amounts received, all amounts already committed to vendors, and the refund payable, within three working days.

The notice period below is counted in calendar days between the date we receive your notice and the first day of your event.

Cancellation by the client

Every confirmed booking is secured by a retainer — ordinarily 25% of the estimated engagement value, and for wedding planning engagements, which begin at ₹2,50,000, this is the amount that blocks your date. The retainer is non-refundable. It is not a deposit held against your event; it is consideration for taking your date off the market, for the concept and design work that starts immediately, and for the vendor holds we place in your name. Once your date is blocked, every other enquiry for it is declined, and that opportunity cannot be recovered late in the season.

Amounts paid over and above the retainer are refunded on the following schedule:

Every figure above is calculated after deducting third-party amounts already committed in your name, as explained in the next section. The percentages reflect a genuine pre-estimate of the loss we suffer as the date approaches — team time, declined bookings and planning already delivered — and are agreed as reasonable compensation in the sense of Sections 73 and 74 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. They are not a penalty.

Third-party and vendor costs

A large part of any event budget is not ours. It is paid out, in advance, to the people who make the event happen — and once paid, it is governed by their cancellation terms, not ours. The following are deducted in full from any refund to the extent they have been committed or spent before your cancellation reaches us:

• Venue, hotel, banquet, farmhouse and resort booking amounts, including room blocks and food and beverage minimums
• Travel and logistics — airfare, hotel bookings for crew or artists, transport and freight, particularly for destination events
• Artists, performers, celebrity appearances, anchors, choreographers, photographers and cinematographers who have signed on for your date
• Printing, invitations, signage, personalised stationery and welcome-kit production
• Custom fabrication — stage sets, backdrops, props, mandaps, floral orders, imported material and anything built to your design
• Statutory and regulatory payments — police, fire, municipal, electricity, copyright society and licensing fees

Where a vendor agrees to a partial refund, or where a committed amount can be moved to another client, we pass the recovered amount back to you in full, without any handling charge. We will always share the underlying invoices, receipts and vendor cancellation terms so that you can see exactly what was deducted and why.

Postponement and date change

Dates move — for a visa, a hospital stay, a muhurat correction, a transfer. We would far rather move your event than keep your money.

If you ask to postpone more than 45 days before your event, you get one reschedule at no cancellation charge. Every rupee paid to us, including the retainer, is carried forward as a credit to the new date, provided the new date falls within 12 months of the original one and our team and the key vendors are available for it. Availability is genuinely the constraint here: peak wedding dates in Gujarat are often committed a year ahead.

Two practical points to expect on a rescheduled event:

• Vendors who cannot move their booking may levy their own change or cancellation charges. These are passed on at cost, with documentation.
• If the new date falls in a higher-demand season, revised venue, crew or vendor rates apply. We will quote the difference in writing before you confirm.

A second postponement, or a postponement requested within 45 days of the event, is treated as a cancellation on the original date under the schedule above, followed by a fresh booking for the new date. If no new date is confirmed within 12 months, the credit is treated as a cancellation effective from the date the credit lapses.

Cancellation by Empire Events

This is rare, and we treat it as a serious failure on our part. We will only withdraw from a confirmed engagement where we genuinely cannot deliver to the standard we promised — for example a scheduling conflict we caused, the loss of a resource central to your design, or a safety or legal concern at the venue that cannot be resolved.

If we cancel, you receive a full refund of all amounts paid for undelivered value — including the retainer — within seven working days, with no deduction of our fee. We will also, at no charge, hand over the complete planning file, vendor contacts and confirmed bookings so another planner can take over seamlessly, and we will help with that transition personally.

We may also terminate an engagement, without refund of the retainer, where a client withholds a scheduled payment despite written reminders, or where our team is subjected to abuse, threats or unlawful demands. In that situation all undelivered, uncommitted amounts are still returned to you.

Force majeure cancellations

Some events cannot go ahead through nobody’s fault. Flood, cyclone or earthquake; an epidemic or pandemic; government or municipal prohibitory orders, curfews, gathering limits or periods of national mourning; riot, civil unrest, war or terrorism; a strike or transport shutdown; a venue rendered unusable; the withdrawal of a statutory permission; or a death in the immediate family — these are force majeure events, and neither of us is in breach because of them.

In such a situation, postponement is the first remedy. All amounts paid are held as a full credit, with no reschedule fee, for 18 months, and we will work with every vendor to move their commitment to the new date rather than forfeit it.

Where postponement is genuinely impossible, the contract is treated as having become impossible to perform in the sense of Section 56 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. We refund all amounts received, less only third-party spends that cannot be recovered and the value of planning, design and production work already delivered up to that date. In these circumstances we do not apply the slab in the table above, and we do not charge a cancellation fee on our own component beyond work actually done.

Refund processing

Once you confirm the written statement of account, approved refunds are released within seven to ten working days. Refunds are made to the original mode of payment — a bank transfer returns to the originating account, and a card or UPI payment is reversed through the same channel, where the payment processor permits it. Card and UPI reversals typically take a further three to seven working days to appear on your statement, depending on your bank; that part of the timeline is outside our control.

Refunds are released only to the client who made the payment. We cannot pay a refund to a third party, in cash beyond the limits permitted under the Income-tax Act, 1961, or to an account we cannot verify.

On tax: where GST has already been charged and remitted on an invoice, the refundable amount is adjusted by issuing a credit note under Section 34 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, and the tax component is returned once that adjustment is permitted in the relevant return period. Payment gateway or bank charges deducted at the time of the original transaction, and foreign exchange losses on international remittances, are not recoverable from us. Our GST registration is [GSTIN — to be inserted] and refunds are issued in the name of [Registered entity name — to be inserted].

Non-refundable items

Regardless of when notice is received, the following are never refundable, because the value has already been consumed or handed over:

• The booking retainer, for the reasons set out above
• Design and concept fees for work delivered — 3D renders, layouts, mood boards, floor plans and production drawings
• Site visits, recce trips and travel already undertaken on your behalf
• Printed, engraved or personalised goods, and anything custom-built to your specification
• Vendor advances that the vendor will not return
• Permit, licence, copyright society and statutory fees already paid to a government or regulatory body
• Services already rendered on the day, if an event is curtailed or ended early at the client’s instance

Disputes and grievances

If you disagree with a deduction or a refund calculation, please raise it with us before doing anything else. Write to our Grievance Officer, Komal Patel, Founder & Creative Director, at hello@empireevent.org or call +91 92650 08264. As required under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, we acknowledge every complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days of receipt. Most disagreements are settled once the vendor invoices are on the table.

If you remain dissatisfied, you retain every right available to you as a consumer under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, including approaching the National Consumer Helpline on 1915 or filing before the appropriate Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. Nothing in this policy limits those rights.

This policy is governed by the laws of India. Subject to your statutory rights as a consumer, the courts at Surat, Gujarat have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from it.

This policy is published for transparency, so that you know where you stand before any money changes hands. If any part of it is unclear, or if your situation does not fit neatly into the schedule above, please speak to our Grievance Officer — we would rather explain it than have you guess.