Rant and Resolve

EPISODE 2: COVID-19 Wedding Refund

• Cathy and Crystal • Season 1 • Episode 2

Share episode

If you are a bride or wedding professional you won't want to miss this episode. We'll be talking about COVID-19, Brides, and Wedding Vendors.

Do you have a rant? Send It to US
www.rantandresolve.com/rant

Support the show

Like and Follow Us @rantandresolve

Do you have a local Texas Business?
Visit FoodFashionFitnessFamilyFun.com and add your Texas Business FREE!

Crystal:

In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about COVID-19 wedding refunds. Coming up next.

Cathy:

Hey Hey everybody, Happy Friday, January 8th our awesome second episode of Rant and Resolve. Hey, Crystal, how was your week?

Crystal:

My week has been amazing. I got to meet one of my neighbors.

Cathy:

How was your weekend?

Crystal:

Amazing. Okay. Oh, it has been it's been amazing. And I got to meet one of my neighbors after selling of my home. And I'm so excited because she does nails. And she's gonna give me a complementary nail session this evening in the middle of her garage. I'm totally gonna be on a mask out in the garage wearing my coffee cup of coffee pajama pants and it's gonna be awesome.

Cathy:

Okay, that sounds like a fun friday night.

Crystal:

Yeah. A little bit of wine, a little bit of nails, a little bit of protecting myself.

Cathy:

It's been a crazy week for us over at Webxly trying to get all these clients getting to wake up, you know, give us their stuff. It's been really fun. Of course, you know, I'm okay with it. Because I'm think I'm still trying to wake up. I'm not a big fan of this cold weather. It's it's not it's not my thing. I'm like, you know, sunny California, bring on the Sun 70 degree weather. I don't know, man. I don't know how many more clothes I can put on.

Crystal:

Oh my gosh, I totally agree with you. I do not like the cold at all

Cathy:

And it's like in Texas, it's like you're either one extreme or the other. Our weather is crazy. So if you're not from Texas, it's a great place to live. But we don't have four seasons over here. It's like cold or really, really hot. And you're lucky if you get a 70 degree day. It's crazy.

Crystal:

So True

Cathy:

I'm super excited. For those of you who haven't heard us yet are just joining in on this first or the second episode. My name is Cathy. I'm your host here at Rand and Resolve. And I've got crystal here with us, your co host who's going to be telling us about our next submitted rant.

Crystal:

So I have a good one for ya. I'm actually excited to talk about this particular rant. For those of you that don't know, I was a wedding planner for a brief minute, like seven years seven beautiful, long, long, wonderfully happily bliss years.

Cathy:

Sounds like a good marriage,

Crystal:

just like that, yeah, seven years, got the itch needed to go on and do something new. So yeah, I'm still fulfilling some of my commitments, but being part of the Webxly team and Rant and Resolve co host full time now. So that's exciting for me to get back into what I already love doing and what I know how to do as well. So yeah, I'm taking a break from the wedding world. But the one that I want to talk to you about today this rant is in the wedding industry. And the rant comes from a brides perspective. So here we go. Her rant is this. Why are wedding vendors in Waco, Texas refusing to refund expensive deposits when weddings have to be canceled due to COVID-19? a photographer we contracted with is not only refusing to refund our $1,000 but she thinks she is going to charge us another $500 for the engagement pics, she took. Her

resolve is this:

is there a way to communicate with wedding vendors that people are scared for their health and safety of loved ones and we've lost our jobs. Small businesses qualify for SBA assistance, but we as consumers do not. Please refund monies for services where you have done zero contracted work. So one to this bride I am so sorry that you know this has been a frustrating time.

Cathy Thomas:

I mean, I know even for me, you know I was with you DJing for the last wonderful seven years, not just your weddings, but other events and corporate events and stuff and it really has taken a toll and I think what's what was really cool was I have already been working with Webxly to bring Webxly in But, and I had announced my retirement, what, two years ago. So within those two years, I still had to fulfill those commitments during COVID. I, I know, we just had one in November that you and I did together, which was a little iffy, even even after all this happened. So I mean, I can completely relate, as far as you know, definitely. This goes and her concern for sure. I mean, I really can.

Crystal:

Absolutely, you know, and Cathy, you know, so much, you know, as a wedding vendor yourself in the past being a DJ. And you know, we've kind of gone through the trenches together in a lot of weddings, and it's been a lot of fun. I want to address this brides frustration, because being a wedding planner, I have worked with a lot of wedding professionals, not just photographers, but a DJ, like you, Cathy, catering companies, venues, I mean, the list goes on some of my weddings, I have 20, I've had 20 to 25 wedding vendors and professionals and being in the industry for seven years. I have great relationships with a lot of really great professionals. And so I can understand this brides frustration, and I also understand it from the industry as well. So I want to address first her concern, and we're just going to call her Miss bride, Miss bride, you know, I get your frustration with the monies that are out. So I would also like to address that it's not just in Waco, Texas, most wedding professionals do not refund deposits, period COVID-19 or otherwise. For me, specifically, I can tell you that I have a policy of no refunds on my deposits. And when COVID-19 hit, one of the things that I put into measure was to make sure I was 100% there for my bribes. If any of them had balances due on the account with me, I would suspend their payment plans, so they wouldn't have to spend any more money. So when they paid me my deposit, that was money that they had at that time. So refunding that money back was kind of null and void, but what I did do to be helpful in helping them was any of their unpaid balances. I would tell them like, Look, do COVID-19 My recommendation is we change your wedding day, let's get into a safer time. Most of my brides were understanding a few were challenged with that.

Cathy:

Yeah, and I remember if your policy, your policy, even even a small wedding professional solopreneur like yourself, your policy stated, hey, we'll adjust up to one year, you know, reschedule or adjust your schedule up to one year, I believe that was in there.

Crystal:

Absolutely, And you like if for any reason, you know, I had a bride who had a death in the family, and had to reschedule her wedding day.

Cathy:

And a lot of vendors don't even do that yet. Vendors don't even do that. So that you didn't have that. So Okay, go ahead. I just wanted to let everybody know, you were pretty lenient on your pay, you paid me money, we can change the date up to a year, but after that you gave a lot.

Crystal:

Absolutely. And the reason why deposits or you know, retainers, depending on the, you know, professional or non refundable is, you know, in the wedding industry, the only way that any of these small businesses make money are based on calendar dates. So when that date is booked, then you put money down to reserve that date, should you choose to cancel or otherwise, then that's a date that another bride or a couple could have been booked on. And so that's the only way the industry makes its money. And oftentimes people think that whether a wedding planner, or a photographer, or DJ, or whatever, that you just make all this money because the word wedding is in front of it. And that's not necessarily true. We have to work really, really hard. We work long hours, we spent a lot of time with our couples. And in the payoff is not always as great as you think it would be. Especially because not everybody's getting married every single month. So it's often seasonal. And so these are the kinds of things that we talk about when we talk about deposits and refunds and things of that nature. Specifically, I want to address this bride and the photographer that she contracted with a couple of things that were just a little bit miscommunicating. I don't know if that was intentional or not. But on one hand, the $1,000 refund is what she's asking for back based on the calendar date. I'm not sure if this photographer offered another date or not. But most wedding professionals do to COVID the ones that I have spoken to and communicated with we're very flexible on changing dates, but they had to be dates need to be changed within a certain time period because you have to think about going into 2021 and what that year is going to look like so there's that to be said. Additionally, she's saying that this photographer is wanting to charge her another $500 for the engagement pictures that she took, here's what I know, is if the photographer is charging you$500 for the engagement pictures that she took, and then obviously she did the work. And I would recommend as a resolve that you ask them photographer for your engagement photos, so you have them at whatever future date you're going to get married on, obviously, due to COVID-19, you might have to move it your wedding until another year from now. So with that being said, lots of respect to the wedding professionals, and you just have to understand that we're all work on a calendar basis. And with that being said, refunds are usually not, you know, given back on deposits, it's just the standard industry circumstances, I would ask your photographer if she's comfortable with another date and keep moving forward. And so but Cathy, what is your take on this?

Cathy Thomas:

Well I mean, you obviously have the expert knowledge as far as the vendors go, and I do I do agree with you, I mean, a lot of these vendors, or wedding professionals, some of them, they don't, they're not a large corporation, okay. So you're talking about a husband and wife, photography team, or even just a solo photographer, or a solo wedding planner, when you hire a wedding planner, you're not getting a team, you might get coordinators, or people that show up or staff. But usually those guys are even contracted out. I know, in your business, Crystal, you contracted out a lot of your girls, and you had a couple of them that you just continually, you know, paid throughout the year to come and you know, work with you to do your events, but it was your business, right. So you've got to make sure that all that money's there for you, as the business owner to cover your overhead. But then also, they're not cashing in because that you didn't have to pay that team or that staff member. But I know as a wedding planner, and in the wedding industry, you spend a year working with these..

Crystal:

if not longer.

Cathy:

If not longer, o people don't understand t at the time is spent. And reall, it's kind of like you're sho ing up for the day, because t ey've spent so much time with ou all the way up to your weddi g. That if you were to calcul te the emails, the late night c lls, the quick calls, the short alls, the long calls, right? In your case, the therap

Crystal:

lots of therapy sessions,

Unknown:

you know, I mean,

Crystal:

and mothers of the bride,

Cathy:

yeah. and you just can't account for that. So a lot of these people are like, I want to refund and we've done this much, or we haven't done this much, or whatever. There's two things that I want to say real quick. One is, so the fact that you had engagement pics taken, so you obviously had paid for some work. So you've got to take that with you. The other thing is, is you have to leave these we have to leave these returns, refunds reschedules. Really in the hands of the contractual agreement that you signed? So first of all, I would have said, Did you read the original contract? And I know in my DJ contract, I had words like act of God, which would cover that COVID-19 the things that you didn't predict, right. And that's what gave you a whole nother year to still have me because should have been an act of God where I couldn't DJ and I had to bring somebody else in. I had to make sure I was covered. It could have been an act of I could have got struck by lightning. So you just there's certain things my point in this is that there's certain things that contracts cover. And so you want to make sure that when you're hiring a wedding professional or any professional that's a solopreneur that does this type of work and it's not a quote corporation or a larger business, you really need to look at the fine print of those contracts. I think you would agree with me on that crystal. My my second point to cover real quick is the SB a loan at the time that this rant was submitted COVID-19 just became public right we were already doing things in March to get the SBA loans right. Okay, so when all of the SBA loans and they were introducing the PPP, right the paycheck protection plan, you've got to realize that a lot of these wedding industry pros were solopreneurs half of them you were Venmoing money to your cash apping money to so they weren't running a straight up invoice business. Now I know crystal for a fact you you send an invoice you ran your invoicing through the square, you tracked your expenses, you tracked everything you are doing what it took as far as your taxes went right to claim and do those taxes. A lot of these part time wedding professionals They didn't even qualify. And here's why they didn't qualify. Because in order to get any of those loans, you had to show tax returns, you had to show you were had full employee expenses. So when you say things like, you know, hey, you're a small business, you own this business, you can go get a paycheck Protection Program, or SBA loan, the truth of the matter is, you can't get that loan because those people weren't even they were, they weren't even doing their taxes, right, to be able to qualify for that loan, we saw a lot of business owners just get really screwed, because they weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing in order to even qualify. And to get a small business loan period, you have to show your tax returns. Well, these guys are all showing losses, right? I mean, so how are you going it alone? If you show a loss? Or how are you going to look going to get alone, if you miss bride, or Venmoing, me your paycheck, you know, your Venmo showing me your payment for your wedding that I may or may not show up on? So, I mean, all I'm saying is like, you think that these not, you know, you think that these small wedding professionals are these small businesses, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of wedding professionals, especially that we know crystal who have run catering and food and opened up a restaurant or vice versa, had a restaurant and then you know, due to COVID, they turned around and started delivering food or utilizing these other delivery services. So a lot of things. There's a lot of great companies out there. But my questions really would be for this resolve would be one, are you looking over your contract when you hire photographer or any type of solopreneur like that? Are you looking over your contract, making sure that you're paying 50%, or whatever it is that they've agreed and making sure that you've agreed to that. So that would be number one. And then number two, my resolve is, if you're a small business owner, start doing your taxes, because you missed out on some nice paycheck protection. And some of it's actually even being forgiven. And they're about to do a second round, and you don't have any document, you know, you don't have anything. So I would tell the small business owners to stop asking for Venmo and cash apps. Because one, it's not professional to it's just like sending a friend money.

Crystal:

Pretty much

Cathy:

You want to have that contract and that legitimate, professional that you're working with that. Don't get me wrong, I want a solopreneur I want this photographer to be successful. You know,

Crystal:

Absolutely.

Cathy:

You agree with me, you know, but I think that as the bride, you've got to read the contract. And as the photographer, you've got to be clear in your contract. And then these questions are I would ask. Yeah, I think that's my resolve.

Crystal:

The one other thing that I see so many times when brides have come to me and they've already started hiring vendors, before I've even been able to help them fully plan. It is shocking, that I get that you have to be on a budget. But I also would say to our couples, that it is so important that you are hiring fully real professionals,

Cathy:

Licensed and insured,

Crystal:

Licensed and insured, if they are not providing a contract to you, then that leaves a lot of gray area and that can put you and your wedding into a really serious predicament. I don't know the circumstances between this bride and her photographer, if there was a contract, if not, if it was just a cash app square and like whatever. I don't know how this transpired. But I would say to all of our couples out there, really truly vet you're professionals that you're hiring for your wedding, because oftentimes if you get a contract read through it, like Cathy mentioned, it will tell you in those contracts, what you're looking for, if you're worried about that, get a wedding planner, so that way they can help you review these contracts and and make sure before you sign or pay anybody anything that you are protected. That's what wedding planners do, they protect you. And they work with your vendors. So that way, it takes out a lot of the stress for you.

Cathy:

So the one last thing I wanted to add that I thought was really important, and I think maybe, you know goes back to our mission here at Rant and Resolve. And I think it's about education. And I think one of the things if you are planning your wedding, I know that there are weddings and events happening with smaller groups of people and things like that. So this is going to be even more important for you to realize one important thing when it comes to small business or solopreneurs meaning your DJ, your wedding planner, your photographer or your husband and wife, photographer team who's doing it on the weekend for extra money, whatever the job is. We want to encourage those people, because we hope that they can do it full time. Or if it's just something they're doing for fun, and they're really good at it. This is awesome. So we want to support those solopreneurs. For sure, I want you to understand a mini business model when it comes to running a business as a solopreneur. So if you look at a calendar, there are 52 weeks in a year. So that's, you know, 52 weekends, okay, so if you crystal or any other wedding person was working in event on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, that means your whole entire you were doing a wedding on Friday, a wedding on Saturday and a wedding on Sunday. You're not talking about 156 events, okay, a year. So if you book that date, on a specific date, and it's like a 1010, or an eight, eight, or a popular number, and you have to save your date, because that planner is relying on you. Because of that important date, that important weekend fills their calendar with a booking with a booking for that event, that's their livelihood, you are have committed to a certain date. So if you don't get your refund for committing to a popular date, there's a reason why. And I'll tell you what happened. 90 days before the wedding, we would have people randomly decide not to get married, or this was happening in 2010. Right 2015 people would cancel their wedding, they'd find out that somebody was cheating, or they just decided they didn't want to do it. So they would cancel. And then once these refunds, well, what happens is it leaves the wedding professional with an open date and only 90 days to fill it. If you're trying to book your wedding vendor in 90 days, good luck finding one, right? Because the best ones book out six months, a year to two years. So as a bride and a couple, you've already started your wedding planning a year head, right, you've already booked your venue, you've already planned your wedding. So the way this works is is is if you pick a good date, we got you can't get a refund, when it's booked out so far. And especially when it comes to these kind of events. All they can do is try to work with you. So I'm going to encourage the wedding pro to work with your brides the best that you can, like we've seen our role model crystal do. But I'm also going to encourage you guys as business owners to you know, do that. And then of course Brides, you're going to have to you know, look at your contracts.

Crystal:

Yeah, absolutely. Cathy, I think you make an excellent point. We're here to support both sides. I've been there. I get it. You know, I hear this brides frustration. But I have to say I also completely understand it from a professional in the wedding industry. And what that livelihood looks like to them, they have children, they have families, they they This is something for a lot of them this is their livelihood, and you know have to take that into consideration as well.

Cathy:

So we've got I think we've got a lot of wedding rants coming above, coming up here soon.

Crystal:

Oh, yeah, I have our stories for ya.

Cathy:

You know, Crystal, thanks so much for giving us your insight. Thank you guys again for joining us for our second episode of Rant and Resolve where we help bring both the consumers and the business owners together to do what helped create the ultimate buying and selling experience. Guess what, we'll see you on next week's episode we're going to be talking about a salon who had to remove their ad for hiring or asking for a happy stylist. Haha,

Crystal:

I cannot wait to talk about this one.

Cathy:

Thanks for listening,

Crystal:

See y'all.