A Chair In the Garden

In May 2010, my fiancé and I started to plan our wedding. We were tired of the typical «wedding factory» venues, so when we came across A Chair in the Garden, we were sold. It offered the beauty, flexibility, romance, and intimacy we were looking for. Plus, Susann (the owner) was one of the nicest people we’d met along the way and offered to officiate our wedding for free.
We booked our date based on the garden’s availability, put down the deposit and signed the contract.
Fast forward a few months later and Susann called me. We played phone tag for a few days (she’s not a very responsive emailer/​caller). Finally we talked, and she told me for some reason or another that the county had intervened at her garden and said she could no longer have weddings there.
I. Was. Heartbroken.
She arranged for us to move the wedding around the corner to the Zane Grey Estate, so we quickly revised our contract, invitations, wedding website, etc.
Only to have her cancel on us three months later (and only three months before the wedding). She gave another excuse from the County as to why we could no longer have our wedding there, and at this point we were just done with her «backup plans» and excuses. Not only had we spent hundreds of dollars printing our invitations, but we set the date based on her availability, and then she left us in the dust.
Although she said she had spent our deposit money to re-​do the landscaping at the estate, we were able to get our deposit back after a couple months. I was thankful for that much.
Fortunately my father in law has a huge backyard and we threw together an amazing wedding there. In the end, it taught us that the wedding is more about my husband and I and the community that supports us, not the pretty venue for the perfect photos.