'AITA for keeping my wedding reception venue when I couldn't get a refund?'

"AITA for keeping my wedding reception venue when I couldn't get a refund?"

My fiancée cheated on me and I found out about six weeks ago. I called off our wedding. Sorry to be so matter of fact about it but I'm still not okay. I managed to get partial refunds on almost everything. The photographer only kept $200 of our deposit.

Our church doesn't charge members for using it for weddings. But they also did not allow alcohol in their reception hall so we booked that separately. The venue had a strict policy of not giving back any money without three months notice. Since I only gave a month and a half and had paid in full I was getting nothing back. I was pissed.

My brother actually came up with the plan. We held a party with a Mario Kart tournament. We had a huge screen and projector. I knew I had a bunch of friends with that night free. So we did that instead. Twenty and thirty something idiots playing a children's game for bragging rights. We had a blast. I felt like I was in college again.

I had sent my ex her part of every deposit but obviously nothing for the venue. I have not heard from her. But the venue wanted me to release the date. I said I would if they gave me a refund. They refused so I refused. Since we got catering separately I didn't even need to tip the staff.

Now I am hearing that I screwed over the venue and staff by taking up room that they could have rented to a different event. Some people are saying that I kept someone from having a beautiful wedding there. I don't care. I don't owe the venue an opportunity to be paid twice.

I honestly would have accepted it if they kept our 30% deposit. But they kept the whole thing. We didn't leave a mess so they probably saved on janitorial services. Was I the ahole?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

PuzzleheadedTap4484 said:

Sounds like they kept someone from having a beautiful wedding there. NTA. You played by their rules and they’re mad they couldn’t get double paid.

Educated-Troll420 said:

NTA. They're making you pay for it, it's yours. What they should have done is offered you a full refund when they found they could rebook it.

ApprehensiveBook4214 said:

You gave them the option to refund you and get the venue back for that date. They declined. NTA. They simply got greedy and wanted to get paid twice for the same thing.

nostraferatu said:

NTA. The venue wanted to make double or more. It is all on them.

Incognito9658 said:

Definitely NTA, if you had gotten married then nobody could have had their wedding there either way. It doesn’t matter what you did with the venue it was paid for. Sounds like you had fun and made memories instead of spending it home alone crying.

Forsaken-Routine-466 said:

They were greedy. They wanted to be paid double. Maybe they will change their policy. NTA.

Gold-Addendum-2774 said:

NTA. They got paid. They were just trying to be greedy. The reason for non refundable is they would lose that revenue if they can't book anything else. But they obviously had something else to replace your wedding, so they can suck it.