The cake collapsed, the photographer broke down on his way to the church and the dress burst at the seams: it sounds like a nightmare, but for many brides-to-be this is the reality of being a victim of wedding-day fraud.
Growing numbers of couples are falling for such scams with bridal industry experts blaming the proliferation of online opportunists offering cheap deals. Fraud associated with weddings has soared by almost 50 per cent in the past two years from 813 in 2014 to 1,198 cases in 2016, according to Action Fraud.
More than a third of all reports in the past three years, 1,136, relate to online fraud and, of those, a quarter made reference to social media. Facebook wedding forums are awash with individuals selling wedding paraphernalia at bargain prices. While many transactions go smoothly, scores of people have fallen victim to sellers who break their promises and vanish or change their trading name.
Some couples said they were drawn in by misleading promotional images. Cher Austin, 32, from Manchester, was promised vintage bird cages containing flowers for £250 from Michelle Hargreaves of Forever Occasions, who contacted her on Facebook offering to decorate her top table. Mrs Austin was impressed with the designs, though some appear to be widely available stock images.
When the just-married Mrs Austin arrived at her reception, the supplier unpacked “some bin bags full of a couple of table toppings and some dusty cages”, reducing her to tears. She spent most of her honeymoon arguing with Ms Hargreaves who eventually blocked her on Facebook. Several others reported similar experiences. Ms Hargreaves did not reply to requests for comment.
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Bethan Sinson and her husband, Dominic, from London, ordered six dressing gowns, personalised hangers and champagne flutes for bridesmaids from a seller on a Facebook forum for their wedding in November. Police are investigating Kerrie Runchman of Keepsake Memory Prints, who provided neither the goods nor a refund. Dozens of other people reported similar experiences. Mrs Runchman said that she had been ill and would be repaying clients slowly. She has ceased trading.
Others couples recounted receiving wedding invitations littered with spelling errors, burnt cakes and bouquets of artificial flowers. In one case, a bride was promised a wedding dress from a seamstress in Durham but discovered that it had been shipped in from China. In another a couple booked a photographer who said that he had had an accident on the way to the ceremony. They learnt later that he had given other couples the same excuse.
According to Hitched, the wedding planning website, the average cost of a wedding has risen to £33,000. Tina Reading, editor of Ultimate Wedding Magazine, said that more couples were using social media to find better value and the industry was being “attacked by cheap suppliers”. She added: “Many cases involve naive suppliers who start out with good intentions but have little experience of weddings and over-promise to couples.”
Paula Anne Brown, who runs some of Britain’s biggest wedding forums on Facebook, said she was constantly “batting away” suppliers known to have let customers down. She pointed out, however, that some couples wanted a “myriad of tat” for their big day. “It’s everything from gift boxes for the groom, save-the-date invitations before the actual invitations and an evening wedding dress on top of the actual dress. It’s pointless stuff.” she said. “Some suppliers are offering these items at such low prices that alarm bells should be going off but brides want to believe that they can have it all.”
Action Fraud said consumers should beware offers that “sound too good to be true”.
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Facebook said it had a zero tolerance approach to fraud and moderated activity breaching its standards. Fraudulent activity was likely to come from fake profiles and individuals were able to report users operating under an alias.