Oh lawd I wrote this epic post, and..something crazy happened and this thing deleted it! OK, Maybe that was the universe telling me it was too long. Two things you should know: One, I should have known something was wrong when she insisted on being paid in full prior to the day of the wedding, even though she was only providing day-of coordination and two, the whole reason I hired somebody to coordinate was to prevent what basically unfolds below:
OK, so short version. This "wedding planner" came on a recommendation of someone I trusted, but who had not worked with her before, only heard that she was good. I see why it was believable that this person actually knew how to plan a wedding, because she came off as professional and competent but here are the things she did wrong:
1) at the rehearsal, did not know which side was bride and which side was groom's.
2) did not know how many bridal party members we had and kept insisting we were one short. I had to explain it to her 3 times that there were an even number of males and females standing in front of her.
3) On the day of, ceremony started 45 minutes late, because an item that I forgot to bring needed to be on the altar--a fact she informed me of 15 minutes before start time (thank God I only lived 10 minutes away).
4) She miscued my music on both on the bridal entrance (music playing, no aisle runner brought down, no bride...uh...yeah) and our exit, which we exited to silence (well, people were clapping politely)
5) The venue's regular decorations were still up at the ceremony, so a potted geranium (red, dying) sits in the middle of my two column white orchid arrangements--in ALL the pics!
6) Lined up bridal party wrong for the introduction of Mr. and Mrs. for the first time in public at the reception.
7) Had the cake baker set the cake up in the hallway, after being told by said cake baker that the cake would need to be set up where it would be cut...um, yeah, that would not be the hallway...
8) No corsage for my mom, no boutonniere for dad. Now, we were able to fix the issue with my mom (my sisters did that, not the planner) and one of the bouttonieres broke. So my dad went without. I'm sorry, the father of the bride???? Not usher #2? The guy, walking the bride down the aisle, giving her away? No boutonniere?? OK...
9) The tablecloths on the reception tables were sloppy, dragging the ground, half-on, half off--looked like some ghetto fabulous church dinner.
Again, these are exactly the type of details that a wedding planner should be handling, but don't you know my friends and family had to fix (where the could) allll of this???
But now...allll of this, is not the reason I sued her. The reason I sued her is because when I followed up with her to find out what the [beep] happened, she told me "
The wedding is over so our business relationship is over too, and I have no intention of discussing this with you further."
Oh...reeeeally?
Well, my guess is she wishes she had just gone ahead and had that 20-minute phone call to explain it to me, instead of a two-day small claims court hearing to explain it to a judge. In court, she basically lied (which oddly made me feel good, because then I knew she had no excuse and I was really in the right and not just a bridezilla) and printed out some stuff I wrote on a message board in response to people telling me I wouldn't win because the courts won't take it seriously.
She printed out the parts where I said it would be worth it just to drag her behind into court and deleted all the parts where I felt I had a valid claim, so she basically c&p'd what I wrote into a document to make it look like I was just trying to embarrass her.
In a real court, this never would have been admissible evidence (I'm a lawyer, by the way) but in small claims, it's whatever's clever.
In the end. I won. Not a lot, but between the cursing out I gave the girl, the judge finding in my favor, and just the general knowledge of her complete wackness...I felt vindicated...sort of.
Soooo...to the OP, if you go this route, I do have some tips for how to be prepared and get your argument heard--and git yo' monay!
No ma'am!
The only person I know who successfully sued anyone for their hair is Oprah Winfrey.
