PLANO (1080 KRLD) - A lawsuit against a wedding chapel claims the venue’s operators are profiting from a public health emergency.
Brianna Connauton and Rex Simmons are suing the Chapel at Ana Villa in The Colony, the very venue they had planned to say "I do" in.
The couple originally set their date months ago, settling on July 18th. They say everything was running smoothly and then the pandemic happened.
Aside from making wedding planning incredibly difficult, Simmons says it slashed the couple's guest list to ribbons. Many of their guests are older, he says, some have compromised immune systems-- and under the circumstances, most would not be able to attend the ceremony.
"So we tried to change the date of our wedding - to postpone it," Simmons says. "But [the venue] said no, we couldn't do that."
When they learned that they would not be allowed to postpone the wedding, Simmons says they decided to cancel it.
They asked to be refunded the $12,000 they had already paid to the venue. Not only were they told no, Simmons says, but staff also pressed the couple to pay their remaining balance of $5,000.
"We would ask them-- we have people who are old and can't come. What do we do? And they didn't really have an answer, they just kept trying to get money from us," Simmons says.
The couple says they want their money back, so they're taking Walters Wedding Estates, which owns The Chapel at Ana Villa as well as several other wedding venues across Texas, to court.
The lawsuit was filed in Dallas County. It states that Ana Villa’s management has refused to return the deposit or consider arranging an alternate date for the wedding. The lawsuit also claims that the venue operators have acknowledged for many weeks that the ceremony could not be conducted as originally promised, but are still refusing to issue a refund. “We know that this company’s unreasonable and unlawful stance has affected many other couples who are faced with the same dilemma,” Dallas attorney Mark Ticer, who's representing Simmons and Cannauton, said in a written statement. “We’re seeking class action status under Texas law on behalf of all those couples who have not or will not be able to have the wedding they contracted for and the wedding they have paid for with the company.” Walters Wedding Estates issued a statement saying they have helped hundreds of couples reschedule their weddings over the past few months. Now that the venue is allowed to host ceremonies again, the company says extra sanitation measures have been implemented to keep guests as safe as possible:
Simmons says it's still not enough. At this point, he says he and Connauton are ready to move on-- they just want their money back first.
"It's very poor customer service-- a very poor understanding of where people are in these hard times," Simmons says. "It's very disappointing."