BE WARNED! - Potential Deposit Scam…read more
My fiance and I found Mira Vista as a prospective wedding venue, and instantly fell in love. The property is beautiful. We got in contact with the property and excitedly put a deposit down with the property manager, Melanie Greer.
Unfortunately, that is where the excitement ends. You hear the term "Bridezilla" often. I'm not sure what the property manger equivalent is, but Melanie has been a terror to deal with.
In the contract, it states that all vendors must be approved- which is understandable. Soon after signing the contract, we realized this meant any vendor that is not in Melanie's circle would go through hell. We were very clear with our budget before signing the contract(you don't get the vendor list until after you sign). After receiving the list we realized that if we were to only use her vendors, we'd be able to afford 1/4th of a wedding.
For example- for a wedding coordinator on Melanie's vendor list, the starting price for a "day of" coordinator is around 4k+, and did not allow contact until 2 months before the wedding. We found a wonderful coordinator, with 20 years of experience, available at any time, for around 2k.
Melanie tried every excuse in the book to avoid approving her. One of her excuses was that our coordinator's "Santa Barbara business license wouldn't work in Paso Robles". Our coordinator could(and maybe should) have given up out of pure frustration. Luckily for us, she is a true professional. Our coordinator assembled a call with members of both city councils of Santa Barbara and Paso Robles(and her lawyer) and educated Melanie of her false statement.
Our coordinator was finally approved. We were already beyond frustrated by working with Melanie, but took the win.
Everything should be smooth from here out, right??
WRONG
My fiance and her bride's maids planned a trip from Orange County to Paso Robles to visit the venue. The first attempt, Melanie confirmed, and then canceled. No big deal, she gave us a different weekend that would work for her, and offered my fiance a free Boudior shoot on location to make up for the inconvenience.
My fiance and her bridesmaids drove up from Orange County Saturday morning 1/28, and stayed at an airbnb for the night, since the tour was in the morning. Today(1/29), my fiance recieved a call from Melanie, 30 minutes before the tour, stating that there were guests staying on the property for the weekend and that she could not see the venue. She asked if they could come at 1pm. She stated that she had no idea that there were guests until this morning. When she arrived to meet my fiance and her bridesmaids prior to the tour, she slipped up and stated she knew the day prior(she lied, let my fiance and her friends drive up, knowing that there were guests)
I spoke with Melanie on the phone, and she blamed it on the rental company, and said that she specifically told them not to book guests for the weekend. I asked if I could see the email chain where she told them this.
To my surprise, she did send me an email, but this email chain shows that she was aware there was a possibility of guests(there is an email from the rental company stating they didn't want to block out the weekend).
During the meet up between Melanie, my fiance, her bridesmaids and our wedding coordinator, Melanie acknowledged there was a huge mistake, and that she would understand if we wanted to walk away(with half our deposit.). She made no attempt to remedy the situation, which leads me to belive she is purposely making this difficult in order to get us to pull out, while pocketing the deposit money. This is a new venue. Possible deposit scam. Beware.
Like I said, the property is beautiful, but I wouldn't wish Melanie on anyone.
You only get one special day, and unfortunately, we will still need to work with Melanie for ours.
As she refuses to provide the property owners contact information, I am hoping they see this so they know what is going on.
