2020 is the first year that I’ve literally seen many wedding vendors shutdown all across the United States.

In fact, I’ve seen a wild year thus far of vendors permanently closing up, scammers taking hundreds of couples deposits and leaving the high and dry and just utter chaos within the wedding industry, trying to stay afloat as best as they can.

*Alfred Angelo’s wedding dress shop suddenly closed, 2017.*

As a vendor with a couple decades experience, I can tell you that we’ve been through something similar, twice actually, once in 2002 after 9/11 and again in 2009 after the housing bubble crash.

Lessons of the past can help shape the current event with COVID-19 and how couples and vendors alike are dealing with the situation.

Today, Carole and I are going to help educate you so you don’t get affected by vendors leaving couples high and dry and how you can better protect yourself in the process.

Wedding Vendors Closing and Scammers Getting Caught

One of my couples getting married in Louisville, KY just told me about how their wedding venue went bankrupt and closed it doors and they were looking for a new wedding venue.

Man, I’ll tell you what, dropping thousands of dollars on a venue then having it just close down, leaving couples with no refund, that’s VERY upsetting.

If it were us, I’d be angry and reaching a lawyer and anyone that I could to help.

Nationally, Noah’s wedding event venues, a national chain of venues suddenly closed at the end of 2019 and left hundreds of couples without any money back, no venue to get married at and left them scrambling to get a new venue, new date and deal with the other vendors too in hopes they can work their new date/location.

Even in my region of Virginia, Nesslerod on the New, a wedding venue in Radford, VA suddenly closed the stat of the year, leaving many couples without anything, some paying upfront upwards of $6,000.

It’s nothing new either, just take Alfred Angelo’s Wedding Gown shop in Oklahoma, closing in 2017, leaving hundreds of brides without fulfilling their dress orders.

There are also people operating as a ‘business’ when in fact they’re not, here in my region of Virginia I can name one that isn’t legit and sadly, they can be found all over the United States.

It’s not just venues feeling the strain of COVID-19 refunds and rescheduling either, a large number of wedding vendors are having to give their deposits back, many of them having already spent that money to keep their business operational and are trying to say afloat, seeing their business slip into bankruptcy one by one.

*Nesslerod on the New, wedding venue shut it’s doors in early 2020*

In fact, nearly 23% of all wedding businesses are seeing a huge strain on trying to stay open and the longer COVID-19 keeps weddings from happening normally, the more you’ll see close up permanently.

Strain on Wedding Businesses

COVID-19 and effects on companies March 10th-May 30th 2020; national WSJ poll

We’ve also seen some scammers being brought to the spotlight and I’m sad to say, we do have them in the wedding industry.

Alexis Wyatt died in a car crash in Colorado in February. Her fiancé, Justin Montney said he paid $1,800 to Copper Stallion Media and the company refused to give him a refund after Wyatt passed away.

“They should have been able to do (that) because they didn’t render any services”, Montney said. He added that “the company said they could extend his service to his next wedding, which was a very a very insensitive thing to tell me.”

Copper Stallion Media began harassing Montney online after their refusal to refund his money led to bad reviews. The company created a website in his name claiming he was trying to “shake them down.”

The company also posted heartless messages on social media like, “We hope you sob and cry all day for what would have been your wedding day."

“I’ll be honest, I am very hurt deeply because of everything he’s done to Alexis and her memory,” Montney said.

Talk about shocking!

The owner of this wedding video company was more of a scam artist, hiring people like us to film and rarely paying much of anything to begin with.

There are hundreds of couples all across the nation that are feeling the effects of being scammed or vendors just closing their doors because they can’t afford to return deposits during to COVID-19.

So what can you do about it and how can you identify a business in trouble?

Well, there are a few ways to help protect yourself. I was recently interviewed by Brides.com about how to break up with a wedding vendor and how to best deal with one that won’t give your money back.

Pay with a Credit Card

Paying with a credit card is better for you because if the vendor suddenly closes up shop and you won’t get your money back, chances are you can dispute it.

See, credit card companies are much more likely to return deposits and lost money should the vendor not be in business any longer than if you went through the bank or if they were fraudulent.

Sadly, if you paid cash, you’re simply out of luck.

Some vendors have hounded me by telling couples about this, but truth be told, couples should be educated to protect themselves while finding the right vendors instead of falling into these traps.

Never Pay more than 50% upfront

If you have a vendor asking for all the money upfront, stop.

“When you are dealing with lots of money in the wedding industry, make sure that you only put down 10-50% for a retainer or deposit. This helps protect you if the vendor closes up shop before the wedding. It’s better to deal with getting half your money back instead of all of it.”

You truly don’t know the vendor and they truly don’t know you, so putting down 10%-50% is a great way to show good faith between the parties.

Meet in person or through video chat

Even today, I have a lot of couples that will do everything through email, maybe a phone call, but you truly want to either meet with them in person or have a video chat.

Why?

Because you want to put a name with a face, you want to see who they are and make sure they are a real person. Another thing you can do before you book is research them. We ALWAYS recommend that you learn a little more about them via social media and Google searches before you book.

This will help ensure that the person or business you’re giving lots of money too will not bail on you and if they do, you have a couple of avenues to reach them if needed. In the case of the Copper Stallion Media, they did all the business online behind email and perhaps phone calls.

Wedding Insurance

While wedding insurance will not help you against corona virus and changing your wedding date because of it, but it will still help protect you against vendors that close-up or take your money and scam you. There are three major players of wedding insurance, Progressive, Travelers and Wedsafe.

You can expect to pay about 3-4% of the entire wedding budget but this is a great way to additionally protect yourself against wedding vendor closures and bankruptcy.

Paying a few hundred bucks to cover yourself against losing $5,000 on a venue is well worth the investment.

Monthly Payments

One common way to help keep in communications with is when you have a vendor that offers monthly payments. It’s a great way to keep tabs on the vendor and also just ‘check-in’ from time to time.

If the vendor doesn’t offer a payment plan, ask about setting one up, maybe every three months or every other month.

Signs a Wedding Vendor is in Trouble

Most times, it’s pretty hard to tell if the wedding vendor is in trouble, but with a little stone turning you can see some signs that they may be in trouble.

Having a sale is fairly normal, we have sales here from time to time and many vendors will do just that. But finding that the pricing gets so low so fast, could be a sign of trouble. Here’s an example.

Let’s say that a venue has a typical cost of $5,000. Suddenly it’s on sale for $3,500, that’s a great deal and not that alarming.

BUT a week later the price is adjusted to $2,500 and then a few days later, $1,500.

You’d raise your eyes if you found a venue offering 70% off the normal pricing within about a weeks time, changing the price every couple days and you should be, I know I certainly would.

You sometimes see this with honeymoon vacations for a price so low, it makes you question how they make their money. If it’s too good to be true, ask why? There may be a good reason for it, but it also may be a sign of trouble too.

Another sign of them being in trouble is is they have a high-turn over rate. If you see the company is constantly hiring for the same type of person, they could be in trouble financially.

One final sign that the vendor may be in trouble is if they are doing things that are outside the scope that they normally would do. For example, if you see a DJ offering linens or a florist offering wedding photography, you should ask why.

It’s possible they are trying to switch gears in the industry from one category to another but chances are they are hurting for business and trying alterative ways to make money.

2020 has been a roller coaster year

While this year has been a rough one for many couples and many small wedding vendors, if you educate yourself a bit, protect yourself by asking the right questions and setting up the right things in place, you shouldn’t have any worries about your wedding in the upcoming 6-18 months.

I will tell you that most vendors in the industry are good eggs and truly want to help couples while making a living. Sadly, there are a few people that scam couples and take advantage of you and there are some that don’t operate their business like a business and during rough times like these, they are hurting for cashflow.

So, what do you think about all this? Drop a comment in the box below and let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

If you comment, you’ll be entered to win one of our Coach wristlets we give away each month!