Welcome to part 2! If you haven’t read part 1 of our romcom wedding, you can catch up here.
Worrisome wedding wake-up call
We last left off with the mysterious Melany, whose wedding planning business seemed legitimate, but no one could quite recall her. Melany frequently communicated with me, although I never saw any evidence of flowers, arrangements, or anything else she was contracted to make. Two weeks before our wedding, the baker who we hired to make our wedding cake called us and broke the news. She found out through the grapevine that there were over 100 brides who were trying to form a class action lawsuit against Melany for fraud. As we dug deeper into this nightmare, we discovered this wedding planner was, in fact, a con artist. Wedding planning hadn’t been her first fake business, either. The information on The Knot was a wedding planner from another state that she hijacked. She took this other wedding planner’s reviews, name, and business name.
Melany committed a felony
Melany’s food handler license was a fake too. According to the local health department, she had never held any type of license or permit in that state. They confirmed the paper she sent us was a forgery. It just got worse from there. After getting in touch with these other brides, we found out that not only did Melany not show up for half the weddings she agreed to plan, but when she did show up, she was a train wreck.
She didn’t provide what was agreed upon and instead brought Walmart bags of food for wedding receptions even though she claimed to have a commercial kitchen where everything was made from scratch. One bride stated that Melany was paid to bake her wedding cake and instead brought prepackaged cupcakes from Walmart! One bride shared photos of Melany showing up to a formal wedding in short shorts, a tank top, and sporting a black eye. The stories were one nightmare after another.
Ain’t no rest for wicked wedding planners
We were conned, and it was embarrassing. Because she had yet to breach our contract, we couldn’t take legal action. I had already paid for the venue, but my parents were out almost $4000 for the food, decorations, and music. We confronted Melany over the phone and told her that she is to provide what the contract stated except for any food that wasn’t prepackaged since her food handlers permit was a fake. That pretty much just left the flowers and prepackaged candy. The flowers were, of course, the opposite of what I wanted. I wish I could say that the class action went through, but it ended up being each bride for herself, and most couldn’t afford a lawyer to take her to court. Melany got off scot-free. Last I heard she was posing as a photographer at the local mall.
The twist in every romcom
We were one week away from saying “I do” with absolutely nothing but a beautiful barn and a cake. No food, beverages, music, bouquets, boutonnieres, nor table arrangements. Remember how I said it turned into something from out of a movie? This next part is as unreal as our train wreck of a wedding planner. After finding out what happened, our friend, *Jade, went out of her way to help us. God bless her!! Jade hired and paid for our DJ, bought flowers, and made all our bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages. She made all the main dishes for the reception from scratch AND brought licensed people in to help serve the food.
Jade wasn’t the only one to swoop in to save our wedding day either. My sisters went above and beyond by making food, facilitating the wedding day, decorating, and gearing up all eight of our flower girls. Yes, eight flower girls! My fiancé’s grandmother and aunts drove all the way down from New York. They didn’t even stop at their hotel room but came straight to our house to make a gigantic batch of savory Arroz con Gandules for the wedding reception. If you’ve never had authentic Arroz con Gandules, you’re missing out.
In the end
Aside from being 30 minutes late for our wedding and a few idiots sneaking in alcohol, our wedding day went off without a hitch. We ate delicious empanadas, danced under twinkling lights, and shoved cake into each other’s faces. It will always be an unforgettable day. We are SO grateful to everyone who banded together to help us make our wedding day special. We try to pay it forward, but it is a beautiful debt we can never fully repay. Four years later, we still reminisce about the love that was poured out to us, and it continues to fill our hearts with happiness and joy.
*For privacy reasons, names have been changed.
