A Texas wedding venue kept nearly $16,000 after the groom died months before the ceremony, then countersued the grieving family for the rest of the bill.
Diego Hernandez was 25 when he died suddenly in late April, seven months before his planned Nov. 20 wedding at Posey Meadows in San Marcos, Texas. The couple had already paid $15,909.28 to lock in the hall.
When the family asked for a refund, venue owner Julie Campbell refused. The contract, the venue insisted, contained no clause for a client’s death. Campbell instead suggested they rebook for another date or throw a different kind of party, according to internal emails obtained in local coverage later detailed by the New York Post.
Hernandez’s mother, Lucy, said she pleaded with Campbell by phone in the raw hours around her son’s death. The refund still did not come.
Lucy later told KSAT what she thought of the venue’s stance.
"Where are their morals? Where are their moral principles?"
She added that the fight had left the family spent.
"We don’t have a fight in us. We’re emotionally drained."
In late July, the bride filed suit in Hays County district court over the refused refund. Hernandez’s death certificate was included in the legal papers, and her attorney said he had repeatedly offered to send that proof before the case was even filed. The venue’s lawyers, he said, met those offers with silence.
Posey Meadows did not fold. It filed a counterclaim for breach of contract, seeking the remaining balance on the booking and alleging the family never provided proof that Hernandez was actually dead.
Word of the standoff hit the venue’s Google listing and Facebook page. Recent reviews turned sharply negative. One reader wrote that a zero-star rating would still be too generous.
"Would leave 0 stars, if able. I hope this venue doesn’t see another ounce of business after their horrible treatment of the Hernandez wedding couple. Despicable!!"
Another called the refusal to return money six months before a canceled wedding one of the greediest moves they had ever seen, and said the person behind it deserved the fallout. The venue’s public rating sat at 4.3 stars even as the newest comments piled on.
The bride did not comment to reporters and asked that her privacy be respected. A court in Hays County will decide what the contract requires and whether the counterclaim holds.
Contracts exist for a reason. So does basic decency when a 25-year-old groom dies and the wedding cannot happen. Keeping nearly $16,000, floating a “rebook or party” offer, then suing a drained family for the rest is a choice, and customers get to judge it in public.
