US couple’s dream wedding ‘destroyed’ by random hotel rule
The family of a US couple are taking legal action against a hotel after a random rule “destroyed” the newlyweds’ big day.
A US woman has claimed her dream nuptials became a nightmare when a New York hotel failed to disclose a “severe” noise restriction that forced guests to move to a cramped, “dingy” room off-site for music and dancing, according to a lawsuit.
Jessica Alovis, 29, and groom Matt Alovis, 30, tied the knot at a lavish ceremony with 200 guests at the Brooklyn Pier 1 Hotel on September 18.
They paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the event, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Marjorie and Russell Newman, who footed the bill for their daughter’s big day, which included $US150,000 ($A212,000) spent on flowers alone.
But the newlyweds learned after the reception began that a rule restricted audio to a “woefully low” decibel level that attendees could barely hear, according to the suit filed last Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
“It was very, very devastating,” the bride’s mother Marjorie Newman told the New York Post.
“This was supposed to be her night to shine and it was all taken away from her.”
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In the lawsuit, the Newmans claim the rule spoiled the couple’s first dance and, after a DJ refused to increase the volume, relegated guests to a small, dark room on the second floor of a building next door.
The couple is suing the hotel and their wedding planner, Real Housewives of Miami star Guerdy Abraira.
Less than an hour into the reception, the wedding was moved from the original space to an undecorated “afterparty” room that fit only 60 people and had seating for less than a dozen, the Newmans said.
“There was nowhere to sit. There was not one flower in that room. Most of the adults, besides our very good friends and family, left at this point because really no one had a clue of what was going on,” Ms Newman said.
She also claimed that her daughter couldn’t even “throw the bouquet” after months of tireless planning.
The abrupt relocation interrupted the flow of festivities, confused guests and prevented less-mobile seniors from attending, she claimed.
The noise restriction had been passed at least three weeks before the wedding.
“After about a half-hour into this, she was hysterical and crying,” the bride’s father Russell Newman said. “This is not how she envisioned her dream wedding.”
“They pulled the rug out from under us,” he said, adding the hotel didn’t help them relocate the guests.
“[Jessica] has a problem looking at her wedding album and she gets upset every time she sees the pictures. It was a horrific situation that was avoidable.”
The noise restriction, due to residential condos housed in the same building, had been passed at least three weeks before the wedding and the hotel “never made us aware,” Mr Newman claimed.
“They never brought us in to say, ‘This is what it is going to sound like or not sound like.’ They never gave us the opportunity to move the venue,” he said.
The family is now demanding $US5 million ($A7 million) for the “destroyed” wedding caused by a “breach of contract” and the “deceptive concealment of the sound restrictions,” according to the lawsuit, which also asserts “infliction of emotional distress”.
“There were countless hours spent over at least a one-year planning period for what should have been a once in a lifetime special event which was single-handedly destroyed by the egregious actions of the defendants,” the lawsuit states.
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The family’s lawyer Sanford Rubenstein said: “To turn a beautiful dream into a nightmare and spoil one of the most important days in a girl’s life – her wedding day – in my opinion is an example of corporate greed at its worse.”
Brooklyn Pier 1 Hotel and Abraira didn’t return requests for comment.
This story originally appeared on the New York Post and is reproduced here with permission
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