To have & ‘withhold’
Newlyweds fight to get nups ‘hostage’ videos
The happiest day of this couple’s life has turned into months of misery.
Peter Campbell and his bride Alex Carl’s opulent wedding was held in 2015 at her family’s Southampton estate, where some 250 guests sipped cocktails from ostrich eggshells, puffed away at a swanky cigar bar and took home specially printed pillows to forever remember the blessed event.
To capture every moment of his daughter’s big day, the bride’s father, Washington, DC, lawyer Bernard Carl, shelled out $24,000 for three cameramen and a drone to film the nuptials, court papers say.
The company, Vidicam productions, also provided a booth where revelers could record messages to the bride, an actress who had a small role in “Gossip Girl,” and her groom, who was born in South Africa.
But two years later, the couple has yet to relive their special day — they’re still without their foot- age, the bride’s father fumes in a new lawsuit.
Without the video, the couple’s first holidays were ruined, and the bride was dealt “a real disappointment when the family was together for Christmas,” her dad complained to Vidicam head Steven Dangcil, according to Carl’s Manhattan Supreme Court suit.
Carl claims in court papers that he paid the bill promptly, but says California-based Vidicam refused to hand over any film at the direction of wedding planner Mindy Weiss, who is also engaged in a bitter legal battle with Carl.
Weiss has accused the dad of not paying her $340,000 tab, and is asking for that amount in damages.
Weiss’ lawsuit says she stepped in to coordinate vendors after realizing the Carls’ “communication and efficiency was lacking.”
As the big day drew nearer, the bills piled up, and Campbell, who was in charge of overseeing payment, claimed funds were stalled because “a bank messed up and sent the money to the wrong place,” Weiss said in court papers.
Bernard Carl countered in a letter to a debt-collection firm, which was filed as a court exhibit, that Weiss exaggerated expenses, billed for hotel rooms Carl prepaid, used vendors she knew from California instead of local, less-expensive businesses and “made no effort to negotiate any of their prices.”
Carl, in the letter, blames Weiss for a series of unfortunate wedding gaffes: an injury caused by a faulty dance floor, and a lack of preparation for rain resulting in soaked guests.
The California-based vendors “must not have known much about rainwater and how it collects,” Carl quipped to the debt collector. He added that the failing plastic “destroyed . . . some very expensive suits and dresses.”
Weiss, he says in his letter, didn’t even tell the hotel it was hosting newlyweds.
The hotel did not “make any effort to make the room special, with champagne, flowers or any of the other accouterments [sic] usu- ally accompanying such an occasion. On the wedding night, the couple had to step out of a taxi and walk through the rain into a hotel obviously unprepared for their arrival,” Bernard Carl said in his letter.
Dangcil told The Post that Bernard Carl refused to sign his standard contract, and Weiss, worried there would be no videographer, signed it instead.
“At that point, she became my client,” Dangcil said, adding that the wedding planner paid the bill.
Carl said he paid Dangcil directly.
Weiss’ lawyer did not return requests for comment.
“No one ever mentioned Mindy having a contract with him until she decided to use the video as ransom,” Carl said.
Carl, meanwhile, told The Post he tried to reach an agreement with Weiss, but didn’t succeed.
“I don’t negotiate with people holding hostages,” he said.