We are sharing our experience to protect other couples from the despair and frustration we experienced. We booked our September 29, 2018 wedding at the Cottages on Charleston Harbor in February 2018. We live in Texas and were very excited about our destination wedding in Charleston! We contracted with the venue for more than $8,000 worth of accommodations, including the event space fee. We also signed a room block contract with the neighboring resort for our guests of $4,000. Our contract with the Cottages also required a catering commitment of $6,500 minimum and a tent rental fee of at least $1,000. We were fully committed to our wedding and this venue, to say the least.
In August 2018, we discovered a national touring indie rock concert had been booked, a double-header, at the exact same time and 10 feet away from our wedding. There’s nothing keeping the neighboring property from throwing a carnival the day of your wedding. They had no written agreement in place, we had no legal opportunity to fight back. The “partnership” is extremely irresponsible.
We were told that they would surely solve the situation and waited a full week before being informed that they would not move or cancel the concert. They were able to come up with a “solution” of shuttling our guests to the neighboring golf course for the reception… not sure how they were going to pull that off with 800+ concert guests milling around at the same time. We lost all trust in the Cottages and they released us from our contract.
With 45 days left before our wedding, we moved everything to a new location. This entire scenario was a nightmare. And when we asked for $700 in reimbursement to cover a small portion of our costs for changing venues, they declined and blamed the neighboring venue. We were never reimbursed.
