HERRIMAN, Utah – A Utah bride is one of many who are out hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, after a nationwide company based in the beehive state was ordered to stop operations Thursday.
“I made all of these,” Sicily Staley said as she pulled vases and silk flowers out of a closet in her Herriman home. “I made the boutonnieres, the flower girl bracelets.”
For years, Sicily and her fiancé have been saving for their big day. As soon as her fiancé popped the question back in October, Sicily started to put her plans into action.
With emerald and rose gold visions in her head, she mapped it all out -- the décor, the food, the dress and just about everything in between.
“Bring your own grazing table, caramel apple bar,” Sicily listed off features as she scrolled through a Pinterest page she created. “Just a lot of stuff to help with the budget.”
Knowing she was ‘bride-ing’ on a budget, Sicily had to find a venue that would fit her 3-thousand-dollar budget and allow her to bring in her own food and drink.
“A lot of venues have a certain list of [caterers] you can choose from,” Sicily said. “Most of them won’t allow you to bring in your own beer and wine, there’s some venues that won’t even allow you to bring any alcohol on the premise.”
Then, they found it – the perfect spot.
“It’s very do-it-yourself friendly and they were allowing me to bring in my own beer and wine, my own catering… they allowed me to bring in my own decorations,” Sicily said.
The ‘unicorn’ location is called, ‘Noah’s Event Venue of South Jordan,’ one of 28-locations operated by the Lehi based company, Noah’s Event Venue.
“I was able to book two separate locations to do my ceremony and my reception in the same actual building, which was amazing and hard to find,” she added. “They were willing to work with every aspect of the wedding, I was super excited, it really is a unique venue.”
Sicily said the ability to bring her own food, cake, alcohol and décor immediately drew her to the spot – but the ‘modest’ pricing made it a sure thing. She and her fiancé put down 9-hundred dollars, with $560 monthly payments.
“It’s gorgeous,” said Sicily. “The reviews were phenomenal, everyone I talked to loved it.”
It seemed too good to be true. Then, Sunday morning, when Sicily’s future mother-in-law asked for the venue address, she found out it was too good to be true.
“When you Google it, it just says, ‘Permanently closed,’” Sicily said as she opened her laptop.
“I was immediately like, ‘Oh, it must be wrong… Google must have made a mistake, let me try it again,’” Sicily continued. “So, then I searched, ‘Is Noah’s Event closing?’ and a bunch of articles popped up.”
Little did they know, the company, Noah’s Event Venue, had filed for bankruptcy in May of 2019. On Thursday, a Utah judge ordered the company to shut down their remaining reception spaces following months of declining revenue.
“I’m actually furious,” said Sicily.
“I can’t believe that a company would take the money and take the reservations knowing that they were filing for bankruptcy,” Sicily said. “Thankfully, we had no more payments come out before we found out, but we are out almost a thousand dollars that we are trying to fight to get back now.”
Sicily said as soon as she saw the news she tried to reach out to the company, so far, she has not heard anything back.
Unfortunately, changing the date isn’t an option. Sicily said she and her fiancé have already mailed more than a hundred save-the-date cards and are expecting 98-percent of their guests to come from out-of-state.
“I feel like I’m back at square one, because the venue is the most important part, having a place,” Sicily said.
Now, with no answers, no location and a third of her venue budget gone – Sicily’s dream wedding has turned into more of a nightmare.
“If we don’t find another place that’s available on this date, we’ll have to set up a tent in a park or something, because we have too many people already planning on this,” said Sicily.
FOX 13 reached out to Noah’s Event Venues; the company has not responded to our request for comment.
