Destination wedding: small claims court

Newlyweds sue rental company and win after a series of special-day screw-ups

HALIFAX — The claimants were the bride and groom.

The defendant was the rental company, set to supply three tents, tables, chairs, linens, dishes, cutlery, a dance floor and other items to a rural property an hour outside of Halifax.

The contract was for about $10,000.

“This is a case of wedding plans gone seriously wrong,” said Nova Scotia small claims court adjudicator Michael O’Hara.

In a written decision released Tuesday, he ordered MacFarlands Limited to pay the newlyweds $5,419.

Although the 17-page decision reads like a suspense thriller for anyone who has ever planned their own wedding, the adjudicator said that “at its core” it’s a contract case.

O’Hara said the contract called for delivery and set-up of the rental items to take place on a Wednesday last September, yet it was not completed until Friday evening.

“That is not what the contract called for,” he said.

Ryan and Kristen Johnstone began planning their nuptials nearly a year in advance, with the bride seeking quotes from MacFarlands for wedding accoutrements to accommodate roughly 200 guests.

Delivery of the rental items was initially set for the day before the wedding on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017.

A month before getting hitched, the bride called and requested to change the delivery date to Thursday — two days before the wedding.

The delivery date was changed again to Wednesday after the weather forecast called for a storm — perhaps a foreshadowing of things to come.

While MacFarlands delivered and set up some items on the Wednesday, the company did not complete setting up until late Friday — leaving the couple’s 20 or so friends and family who had volunteered to help set up scrambling late into the night to finish up.

The bride and groom alleged that the company “was late in delivering and completing the setup of the tents and this caused the timing of the wedding preparations to be significantly delayed the day before the wedding, virtual cancellation of the rehearsal dinner, and many of the guests, close friends, and relations of the couple to have to stay up late and into the morning of Saturday,” the decision said.

“This significantly affected the enjoyment of the wedding and the post-wedding reception which, if not ruined, was significantly altered in a negative fashion.”

In the end, the groom indicated his bride-to-be got two hours of sleep the night before their marriage and “there were a lot of tired and stressed out people,” the decision said.

The groom’s parents organized a post-rehearsal lobster party for Friday night, but the father said guests were too busy setting up to attend.

A witness for the claimants — the bride’s best friend and comaid of honour — told the court that “it was a mess.”

She described the rehearsal dinner as a “go get it and high-tail it back” type of affair, as wedding guests worked well into the night.

Another witness — the groom’s brother-in-law, who referred to what he did as “muscle” more than anything else — said the dance floor was not serviceable and required a sub-floor to be constructed.

Michael Thompson, general manager for MacFarlands — a rental company, not a wedding planner — said the issue with the dance floor was due to the claimants choosing a poor location, with a slope.