Keep getting screwed over by vendors! What would you do at this point?

I think the title says it all. We just keep getting screwed over by vendors. I am at a loss of what to do at this point, and would love to hear others’ opinions/advice.


We were a couple whose wedding got postponed due to Covid (we postponed back in April/May 2020 when the world went into lockdown). At that point, all of our vendors seemed incredibly understanding and willing to postpone. With the exception of our cake baker. She was incredibly snotty and rude, and absolutely refused to reschedule or to put our $350 deposit toward another date. After that, I was not about to give her any more of our money. So we found another baker and paid her a $300 deposit. Recently, we were notified by the bakery that she took off without warning, locked them out of their own email accounts, and took all of the documentation about the jobs she had booked and deposits that had been paid. Luckily, they were able to get back into their computers and are issuing refunds to everyone who have paid deposits. We are grateful to actually get a refund this time, but now we are back to having no wedding cake. The HMUA team I had booked cancelled on me because the rescheduled wedding would now be on a Friday instead of a Thursday, and they require a minimum of 10 services on weekends. They also kept my deposit. Then I noticed on Instagram that my photographer (who was very active on social media and always posting new weddings she’d done) suddenly stopped posting new content. After about three months, I reached out to her to make sure everything was OK and to verify that she would still be shooting our wedding next fall. After about five days, she wrote back saying that she was no longer doing photography and had returned to school (ummmm…. when exactly were you planning on telling me this?!) She says she is going to return our $1,000 deposit, but can’t do it until next month. Crossing my fingers that she actually comes through on this, but I’m starting to lose faith in people. Especially because once I had to find out on my own that our photographer was bailing on us, I checked on our florist’s Instagram page, and realized she had not posted any new content in months either! I reached out to her, and a week later she emails back saying that she closed up shop, but don’t worry, she still wants to do our wedding. I sent a response email, which keeps bouncing back to me- what happens when someone blocks your email address. After trying for over two weeks to email her, I emailed from my other email address, which went through! She didn’t respond so I emailed her again from that account, and now it is bouncing back too! So obviously she is blocking me from emailing her and I will assume has full intentions of ghosting us for our wedding and not refunding our $1500 deposit. Our venue contacted us saying that they will still host our wedding next fall, but they are expecting us to pay an additional $1800 for the exact same space because their rates have gone up. At this point I just don’t even know what to do. Obviously we are going to pay the additional cost for the venue, because we have to have a venue! And I have already secured a new make up artist (which I now have to pay triple for since the previous HMUA waited so long to cancel!). My question is, if you were in my position, would you….
1. Wait for the photographer to come through with your $1,000 deposit refund so that you can put that money toward a new photographers deposit (assuming that she actually lives up to her word and does refund the money). Or would you just book a new photog now?
2. Try to find and book yet another (this would be the 3rd) baker for your wedding cake? Or prevent possibly losing out on more money and just wait until a month or 2 before your wedding and hope you can find someone since your wedding is on a Friday (and worst case scenario, if you don’t find anyone then your guests just have bananas foster and New Orleans bourbon bread pudding instead of wedding cake)
3. Continue to try to get ahold of the florist who has blocked your email (with the fear that even if you do get ahold of her and she says she will still do your flowers, she may just ghost you and not show up on your wedding day). Or take the $1500 loss and book another florist? Or don’t risk losing thousands more and just wait until a month or 2 before the wedding and hope you can find someone to either execute your original vision, or to at least just do yours and your MOH’s bouquets (worst case scenario, we can’t find anyone and have to go to a local florist or grocer and make our own bouquets, or just not have flowers 🤷🏼‍♀️)
I think it’s also important to note that all the vendors we chose were considered some of the “best” in the area, came highly recommended, and had exceptional reviews on a multitude of sites. Which makes me even more nervous to give vendors my money now! And also that New Orleans was just hit with a hurricane and is still trying to rebuild, which adds further anxiety that more vendors will go out of business after this. HELP! I have absolutely no idea what to do here!