Riviera in Massapequa on the news.

did they pick a day in the summer on a prime night? if you book a place then cancel, don't you get back your deposit if the day gets filled?

this is a shame ..granted that is what the signed contract says...there needs to be an exception..good for the couple to call up the news

I don't know there situation but we were in a similar situation with my husband being active duty USAF. We had to postpone our wedding a month prior to our July date and then only had about 30 days notice to our new Septemeber date.

All of our vendors were amazing! They all held our prices and money.

We used CMC for video and photography they said no problem call us when your ready and they were on three weeks notice with the same photographer!
Our invites were out already and we paid full for them but Crystal International Gifts just us charged us less then cost on reprints and had them overnighted to our home the next day once we got to go ahead to replan it.
Our hall the Imperial Manor, now Sterling had just changed hands and they were accomodating they already had a ton of money so we lost some because our guarantee was lower then orginally planned but all in all we could have lost alot more and they also gave us no problem rescheduling.
Enchanted Florist and JAM Limo did the same as CWC and when we called they just held our deposits for the new date!

I think alot depends on if you plan to reuse your vendors also we were extremely UPFRONT with Dh being active duty especially since he was never around for planning, we also got letters from his commanding officer explaining what happened and brought officals orders to our hall (they had about 7,000+.)

There is most likely more to this story about the Rivera. Does anyone have the full story? I don't get why if the hall rebooked the date and he was getting depolyed why they couldn't postpone it a year and have the hall put the money towards the new date?

Did they maybe decide to forget to have the big wedding and just get married before he deployed and wanted it all back? And how close was the date?

The situation definetly sucks I went through it and it was our WORSE nightmare when it occurred but if you were upfront with all your vendors orginally I don't see how this situation could have happened! But if anything the lesson I learned from postponing was extremely useful in being an Military Wife because you can NEVER plan anything in advance. We only tried orginally with 6 months notice and that didn't work!

Let me just say that there is definately more to this story! The people at the Riviera couldn't possibly be nicer and more accomadating! The girl in question asked if she could 'change her date' with her FH present. The hall gave her back all but 1K that she was going to apply when they chose a new date. After his deployment, she called and asked for a letter saying that if he didn't make it ...they would give her back the last thousand. The hall worded the letter so that if something god forbid happened to either one of them, the survivor would get the last money back. She never asked for the money back until much later. From what I understand....most people that change dates don't receive any money back at all until the rebooked wedding has occurred. Due to her special circumstance, she got most of her money back up front.

What it comes down to is that she wanted to change halls. Most of us know someone who did this and lost the 'nonrefundable 1K' She should have been honest in the first place.

The Riviera has never given me a hard time about anything. Vicki and Michelle are the banquet managers and they always remember my name, date, anything special going on.

There are two sides to every story.

I dont know the full story, but living in the neighborhood since I was a kid, I know the Riviera is very reputable. I've never heard one bad thing about the place. I've attended a wedding there and it was one of my favorites. I went to take a look and met with Vicki. I have to say she was one of the nicest BM's I've met. It's a shame this happened to them, but it shouldnt sway you either. For those brides getting married there, dont worry about this - your wedding will be great. For the future brides, dont make a judgement on it until you've gone to take a look. I will now step off my soapbox!!!

See I knew it.

The Air Force changed my husbands orders just prior to our date and every single vendor held our money and told us to call us once we had a new date.

Luckily our hall booked a retirement party that night but the rest of the vendors knew that there was nothing we could do and unfortunatly it was very short notice and none of them screwed me! Well maybe the hall did somewhat but it was because the day prior to getting the new orders we paid for 150 people so the hall wasen't giving that back especially since it was our guarantee. We did only show up with about 120 and they gave us some upgrades but this girls story sounded way too fishy.

I hate when people try to scam, my Dh and I rolled with the punches and took a bit of a loss but we still had every single vendor on our rescheduled date, had an amazing day and learned that as long as we were able to get MARRIED we were just happy with that!

Postponing the wedding and rescheduling it just helped set me up for this lifestyle.

Also I forgot for our honeymoon we booked through Cruise One and got insurance on the trip with Dawn's help we were able to get the majority of our money back there as well!

All you have to do is be honest and upfront with your vendors and purchases any insurance you can.