Bridezillas, here are some truly insidious wedding rip-offs, culled from a canniest observer, “The Bridal Bargains Book”. You will not believe these devious tactics and hidden costs revealed here, worse than a telemarketer’s offer and a time share scam put together. Read on to make sure you are not taken in by this so-wretched wedding fraud.
1. Strange and senseless service fees. For example, some hotels or restaurants have ludicrous charges like “plate splitting,” “cake cutting” and “cork fees.” Some fees are as high as $20-$200, just for slicing a cake or putting a peice of salmon on two plates. It is ridiculous. We just got used to the automatic group gratuity, but these new service charges make you wonder exactly what is included in this so-called service. Our advice: BYO-knife and corkscrew to save yourself a bundle.
2. Designer imposter demo tapes. Do you hear what we hear? Some shady wedding bands now use studio musicians to record their demo tracks. This means you happily pay for a band you think sounds like Mozart on tape, and are then horrified when they show up at your reception sounding like Michael Bolton on meds. Our advice: make sure to audition your bands in person.
3. Tear-away bridesmaid’s dresses. Though priced at $100-$200, the cost of bridesmaid dresses often does not reflect their poor quality. Many ateliers cut corners when creating these “special occasion” dresses, so cheap fabric, stubborn zippers and unfinished seams are common. As such, the hideous styles aren’t the only reasons these dresses can only be worn once. Most bridesmaids are lucky to make it through the night with their gowns in tact. Our advice: give your girls the best bridesmaid gift by choosing dresses that are worth the price!
4. 24 Karat Kool-Aid. Another sneaky cost that seeps into your wedding budget is none other than the punch. The irony is, you may think you are saving money by serving punch instead of just alcohol, but this is not necessarily the case. Some reception halls charge as much as $35 per gallon for simple fruit punch-a manic mark-up indeed! Our advice: bring your own elegant serving bowl and have granny whip you up some of the signature kool-aid she made you as kids.
5.Pimping your ride. You may think driving to impress will help you achieve the worldly air that will make wedding vendors less likely to try and pull the wool over your eyes, but the opposite is actually true. Some wedding vendors hike up their prices based on how nice your car is. We have even heard of the bridesmaid’s fancy cars serving as justification for them footing a costly wedding shower. The bottom line: when it comes to weddings, your stylish wheels can work against you. Our advice: Leave the Beamer in the garage, borrow your nephew’s ten speed and get great bargains!
6. Kitsch Overkill. When it comes to wedding, too much sentiment can get expensive. You can’t fall for every monogrammed napkin or heart shaped swizzle stick you see. Also, don’t let your ardor cloud your eye for authenticity. We have heard of vendors substituting faux pearls for the real thing, or selling “lucky” pennies for $5. Our advice: raid your local piggy bank and demand a certificate of authenticity for all jewels purchased. Especially if those pearls are doubling as bridesmaid gifts, you don’t want your girls to think you were trying to con them while they are wearing crinoline. That would just be too low.
7. The most expensive cardboard ever. This one’s unbelievable! Be wary of any companies that offer “cleaning and preservation” for your wedding gown. You might end up with a dress-sized cardboard box – to the tune of $250. Our advice: get specifics. You don’t want to picture some exotic European bleach and end up with an armful of bubble-wrap.
8. A picture’s worth a thousand cuss words. This one’s similar to the wedding band scam. If you hire a professional photo studio, make sure the veteran you interviewed is the one doing the actual wedding photo shoot. You don’t want to end up with the photo intern and his Polaroid camera on the most important day of your life! Our advice: make sure what you see is what you get! You don’t want your grand kids snickering fifty years from now.
SOURCE: Bridal Bargains Book
Scams originally printed in AM New York Newspaper “Top Eight Wedding Rip-Offs”
When a girl weds with her love one that day mean for her a lot and on that day she feels great and she want to wear a best wedding dress and she want that she feels great on that day because for a girl wedding day comes only one time in her life
http://www.flowergirldressforless.com
I designed my own wedding gown, reception gown, bridesmaid gowns, etc. I searched high and low for a seamstress and chose Kim Sampliner “Ridic Chick” of pricelessbridalaz.com to take the job. Her PayPal account has her name listed as Kim Brady ([email protected]).
We corresponded through e-mails over the course of several months. I first ordered my reception gown to be sure of the quality, and it’s a good thing! We paid the deposit and heard from her once since then. She claimed to have a setback due to being sent the wrong fabric.
I’ve e-mailed her multiple times. I’ve called her. It rings and rings and then goes to voicemail; if I call right back, she has turned off her phone. My fiance even e-mailed her and called her, and there has been no word.
When I google her number, it comes up as a catering service called “Edible Artistry”. Just in case, beware of any place by that name in Arizona as well.
Also, the first number she gave me was a completely wrong number, and she claimed she accidentally gave me a combination of her home and business numbers.
I have 2 months left to scram around getting what we consider to be the most important part of our wedding: the gowns I designed.
Watch out for anyone who even makes you raise an eyebrow, and research as hard as you can.
I encountered a scam with our wedding DJ, Bimanic Studio Productions (Tim Andrews) out of North Branch, MN. At the time we signed the contract in February, the DJ suggested we meet with him in early spring to do some preliminary planning. We were definitely excited to do this and waited until April to call him to set this up. We could not reach him so left a voicemail for callback, figuring he would get back to us within a few days but we were wrong. We waited patiently until May before we called to leave another voicemail along with emails to both his DJ service email (which was returned because his mailbox was full) and his MySpace account detailing dates in the month of June where we would be available to meet. Our voicemail was again never returned and the MySpace email was read and ignored. On a Saturday night in early June, my fiance called out to the DJ again to check on his availability for a meeting before the end of the month. This time he answered the phone during a DJ gig nonetheless (probably not a good sign as we would not want this happening during our wedding). During this phone conversation, the DJ proceeded to talk about how brides always tend to freak out for no reason (which I found a bit offensive), and assured my fiance that he would call him the very next day, “I swear to God, I will call you tomorrow to set up a time to meet, I promise!” Of course he never did call the next day or the next week or the next month for that matter. Finally, it came time to set up our final planning meeting with our wedding site coordinator. Since our coordinator had never worked with or heard of Bimanic Studios, she wanted us to schedule a meeting with our DJ prior to the planning meeting in order to secure some logistics information to give to her. We again attempted to call and email Tim telling him that we must meet prior to our venue planning meeting. We left a voicemail and attempted to send emails to every conceivable email account listed on the Bimanic site. 4 out of 6 emails were returned because his inboxes were full. Of course there were no replies to the voicemail or emails that did go through. Finally, several days prior to our venue meeting, we left a voicemail and emails threatening to cancel if he did not get back to us immediately. In the mean time, I consulted friends and our venue coordinator who all suggested we go with a different DJ company. Four days later, our DJ called us back for the first time ever after receiving our voicemail where we threatened to cancel. In his phone conversation with my fiance, the DJ acted completely unapologetic for not calling us back or emailing once in the three months we tried to reach him. The DJ acted offended that we would threaten to cancel and implied that we were freaking out for no reason. He tried to act as if it were our fault for being to pushy in scheduling a meeting with him and said that we have plenty of time to do this.
After hanging up the phone, my fiance and I discussed how he was treated during the phone call and how we as the customers were blamed for “freaking out” when our calls weren’t returned. Neither of us knew if we could rely on him to even show up for the wedding and even if he did, would we still be trying to get a hold of him and leaving voicemails/emails the day before our big event?
Given all of this, we decided to cancel and ask for a full refund for Bimanic Studios not fulfilling the contract. We sent emails at the 2 month mark stating this and left a voicemail so according to contract at least a portion legally should be refunded although we are asking for all of our deposit back. To this date we have yet to hear anything back regarding our deposit and have attempted to contact the DJ in numerous ways. At this point we have reported him to the BBB and will take him to small claims court if necessary.
Please be very careful and research. My advice is to go with a larger, reputable company rather than a single individual. Larger companies are guaranteed and although you may be paying more, at least you know your DJ will show up for the wedding.
all of this is so totally stupid i don’t even have words for it. who cares
Edible Artistry in Arizona (Scottsdale) is a real place. It’s right across the street, and I’m pretty sure it’s a chain… b/c it’s also in Charleston, SC.
In response to Christine on Dec. 6th, 2007: We had that very same DJ, just two months prior. I really have to say that he worked very well with us. I was able to reach him when needed and he did a very nice job at our wedding. Photographers, and DJs and every other wedding professional are busy people. In Tim’s defense, He was an awesome dj. No complaints!
A wedding is every girls dream. We should not have to worry about being scam on our wedding but i guess their will always be someone trying to this. Just try to stay with reputed businesses and make your day beautiful.