Wedding Invitation Designer Threatening to Sue Bc I Was Unsatisified

[dash1106]

My question involves a consumer law issue in the State of: New Jersey/Nevada


I am currently being threatened with a law suit by the woman I hired to design, create and mail out my wedding invitations.

I found this woman online (she and her business are based out of Nevada), contacted her about a specific invitation design she offered in her online shop, and asked her if she would be able to create a custom couture wedding invitation (based off of the one I saw in her online shop) for me within 2 weeks. I was clear that I was willing to pay any rush fees associated.

After weeks of emailing back and forth, and being VERY specific with the many bells and whistles I wanted on this invitation, she assured me this was doable for her. She was also supposed to mail out all 141 guest invitations on Thursday 3/15/12. To this day, many of my guests have not recieved their invitations, and I must know make new arrangements to ensure new invitations are created (by someone else!) and overnighted to approximately 75 guests. 3/19/12 arrives, and I recieve all the extra invitations that weren't mailed out to guests - this being my first glimpse of the physical invitation (she never overnighted me the sample she was supposed to. I let this slide because of the tight time constraint we were on) - the invitation was severely lacking on many fronts. The quality of the paper was lacking, the invitation was assembled very sloppily, and alot of things (like raised printing, extra bows, and rhinestones) that she promised me would be on the invitation, were NOT on the invitation.

I feel cheated, and mortified at the quality of these wedding invitations. I am so embarrassed for my guests to recieve what she created. She promised me couture, high quality invites and I feel as though these were assembled in her dining room by her children as an arts and crafts project.

I called her to express my concerns, but was screamed at by her, saying I have "harassed" her throughout the entire process (I called OR emailed her appx. once per day for two weeks as we were designing the invite and getting the proofs approved) and was told this by her "if you even try to go for a refund or leave me negative feedback online, I'll file suit against you so fast your head will spin"

I admit I should have enforced recieving a physical proof, but through over 150 emails between us, I was assured by her that she knew EXACTLY what I expected, down to the very last detail. I'm not happy with the final invitation, and it's too late to go back and change it. I have recieved a refund from my CC for approximately 2/3 of the total amount. She is now requesting my lawyer's information.

Does she actually have a case against me? I'm thinking she would try to sue me for harrassment and to recoup the couple thousand dollars I had my CC refund me.

[antrc170]

She does have a valid claim for the money, not for harassment. You also have a valid counter-claim.

You need to gather all of the email communication, phone messages, etc dealing with this person. Save not only the unsent invitations, but any others that were sent that you can get ahold of. If you were promised rhinestones and a substantial number do not have them, you can assert that she breached the contract by not providing the agreed product. Same thing for bows, etc.

The areas where you will have problems is the opinion parts. Paper quality (unless specifically agreed upon) is really up to the preparer. She can claim that in her opinion the paper quality meets the request. Missing pieces or wrong fonts are factual items.