Bri Connaughton and Rex Simmons of Plano tried to postpone their wedding. But when their venue refused, they ended up losing around $12,000 and are now suing to get it back.
Justin Herring of Houston lost about $20,000 after paying for his wedding in full. Ivy Wong of Colleyville canceled her wedding for fear of exposing her overseas relatives to COVID-19, losing about $18,000.
They all have one thing in common: Their ceremonies were scheduled at one of Texas’ largest wedding companies, a 22-venue collection called Walters Wedding Estates.
Requests for cornavirus-related refunds are vexing for the wedding industry, which came to a standstill this spring and summer and is now trying to squeeze in postponed events on a compressed time frame.
A Walters Wedding Estates spokeswoman said the company rescheduled 500 events at its venues while shelter-in-place mandates were in effect and later accommodated couples on a case-by-case basis when governments restricted gatherings such as weddings.
“It’s not that people aren’t getting their deposits back,” said Rachel Johnson, the company’s director of marketing. “It’s that if we are still legally able to hold up our end of the deal, same with any vendor, then we have to do what’s contracted.”
The idea of people losing big on payments for events booked months in advance is occurring more often in today’s pandemic-altered business world. Houston consumer and bankruptcy lawyer Megan Daic cited as an example students and parents wanting tuition or room-and-board refunds when universities closed in the spring.
The biggest sticking point is that most contracts don’t include specific language providing an out for a pandemic, Daic said.
A wedding on lockdown
As her July 18 wedding day inched closer, 27-year-old Bri Connaughton realized the chances of holding her wedding during the pandemic were dwindling.
She contacted her venue, Ana Villa Chapel in Flower Mound, which is run by Walters, and asked to reschedule or cancel her wedding entirely. The company refused, she said.
“At that point, we just wanted our money back because they were going to force us to have our wedding in the midst of COVID, or keep all of our money,” Connaughton said.
The couple turned to lawyer Mark Ticer for help and, so far, have been able to get about half their money back. Since filing a lawsuit for the couple in June, Ticer said he has been contacted by more than 50 others who were denied refunds by Walters.
Simmons said the tipping point for him came in April when he learned that most of his wedding party was considered at high risk for the virus. The couple asked to delay their wedding to next year. Walters turned them down, he said.
The venue also wouldn’t give them a rebate or discount on their booking or release them from a final payment they had yet to make, Simmons said.
That’s when they discovered that their contract with Walters didn’t contain a force majeure clause, which typically releases parties when an “act of God” or other unforeseen circumstance prohibits them from fulfilling their legal obligation.
This often covers natural disasters, Daic said, although some lawyers might argue a pandemic isn’t included.
Walters, which operates two dozen venues in Dallas-Fort Worth, including the former Champ D’Or estate, said that if it can accommodate a wedding on the contracted date, it expects the bride and groom to “honor their side.”
If state restrictions prohibit gatherings such as weddings, Johnson said, the company has moved events to other dates this year or even next year.
‘No way we could have a good time'
Justin Herring said that wasn’t how Walters handled his wedding.
In April, when the state restricted gatherings, the company offered him alternate dates for his May 2 wedding. He chose July 11.
“They didn’t give us the option to extend out or reschedule a year later,” he said.
As July 11 approached, he and his fiancee became nervous about holding their wedding at Hidden Falls near San Antonio because coronavirus cases began to rise again in Texas. They anticipated about 95 guests, but important family members quickly began to drop out.
Herring said Walters told the couple if there wasn’t a government mandate preventing the venue from holding the wedding, they’d have to proceed as planned or cancel and give up the $20,000 that he paid in advance. If there were not new restrictions on July 11, he’d be allowed to reschedule but would be charged full price again.
“We basically decided we had to cancel anyways,” said Herring, 34. “There was no way we could even have a good time.”
Herring said he got the venue to agree to donate food that would have been served at the wedding to a homeless shelter in San Antonio.
“To not have the event and then to not be able to get any money back and put toward our future and help with the house, that really ... hurt,” Herring said.
Herring and his fiancee, Nicole, ended up having a small ceremony in her parents’ backyard. Herring said a friend who officiated the wedding created a GoFundMe to help the couple recuperate some of the loss.
“At the end of the day, we got married,” Herring said. “The super-small ceremony was intimate and kind of perfect in its own way.”
When Texas shut down businesses in March, Ivy Wong said she contacted Walters about her Sept. 26 wedding because a lot of her family would be traveling from overseas. She didn’t hear back from the company.
A month later, Wong said more than half her guests told her they wouldn’t be able to attend, so she asked Walters if she could pay a rescheduling fee to move to a later date. The company declined, she said.
“We’re hoping to have one wedding in our lifetime, and there’s no point in having it if half of our family can’t show up because of legitimate concerns of their safety and their health,” Wong, 27, said.
She said the company told her in April that she could either cancel and lose her money or pick another date in the future and repay the entire wedding cost, or about $18,000.
Wong decided to reschedule for next year, but she’s picking a different venue. “I’m not going to risk anyone’s health,” she said.
Consumer lawyer Daic offers some advice to couples looking to marry. Read the venue’s contract for language spelling out requirements for requesting date changes, and check into whether your county has a dispute resolution center that can mediate or negotiate any issues without having to hire an attorney.
Both Dallas County and Collin County have dispute resolution and mediation centers.
In situations like these, Daic said she recommends mediation. But if the venue is unwilling to mediate, she said, “then we’re going to get an attorney and we’re going to file suit.”
