A Texas wedding venue has agreed to refund $15,909.28 paid by a bride-to-be after her fiancé died suddenly, following a legal dispute that saw the business file a counterclaim against her.
Diego Hernandez, 25, died in April, seven months before he was due to marry his fiancée at Posey Meadows, a countryside venue outside San Marcos, south-west of Austin.
The couple had been due to exchange vows on November 20. After Hernandez’s death, his family told the venue the wedding could no longer go ahead and asked for the money already paid to be returned.
Instead, venue owner Julie Campbell offered to move the booking to another date or put the payment towards a different event. She also indicated that some money might be refunded if another customer booked the original date.
The family rejected those alternatives and sought a full refund. Lucy Hernandez, Diego’s mother, said she had expected the matter to be settled by telephone.
“I’m very surprised,” she told KSAT. “I honestly felt that it wasn’t going to go past a phone call.”
She said an exchange with Campbell in early May became heated and ended with the venue telling her the wedding payments would not be returned.
“Where are their morals? Where are their moral principles?” Lucy said. “We don’t have a fight in us. We don’t. We’re emotionally drained. This is just weighing heavily.”
By late June, an attorney representing the fiancée had sent Posey Meadows a formal demand for repayment. The woman then filed a lawsuit in Hays County district court in late July.
Her complaint accused the venue of securing an “unjust and ghoulish windfall built on a young man’s death”. Posey Meadows responded with a counterclaim alleging that she had breached the wedding contract by seeking the return of the money while refusing to pay the outstanding balance.
The contract stated that payments would be forfeited if the booking was cancelled, but did not specifically address the death of either member of the couple before the wedding.
The venue also questioned whether Hernandez’s death had been adequately documented, alleging that the family had not supplied proof. His relatives said they had offered to provide a death certificate before the litigation began but received no response from the venue’s lawyers.
Posey Meadows has since dropped its counterclaim and agreed to return the full amount. The reversal came as the dispute attracted growing public attention and criticism of the business’s handling of the case.
In a statement, the venue said it had previously granted full refunds to families facing similar tragedies, regardless of their contracts, and had been trying to resolve the matter compassionately.
It said the family had been asked for a death certificate in early May, but that the document was not received until mid-August, after legal proceedings had begun. While waiting, the business said it had searched for an obituary, funeral announcement or other public confirmation of Hernandez’s death.
“Our efforts were never meant to diminish the family’s loss,” Posey Meadows said. “We regret that the litigation process has complicated what we hoped would be a speedy and compassionate resolution.”
The venue said its thoughts remained with Hernandez’s family and loved ones, and confirmed it was no longer seeking any additional money from his fiancée.
Lucy Hernandez said the dispute had placed an additional burden on a family already dealing with the death of her son.
“I’ve planned other funerals. I’ve lost my mom and my dad and a brother, but planning a son’s funeral is very different,” she said. “It weighs very different.”
