The wedding vendor is keeping your deposit.

GBL § 349 · NY Penalty Rule

Three scenarios, three different answers.

Wedding deposit disputes almost always fall into one of three buckets, and the law treats them very differently. First, you cancelled or changed the date, and the vendor says the deposit is forfeited. Second, the vendor cancelled, closed, or no-showed. Third, the vendor performed, but badly or partially. Figure out which one you are in before you send a single email, because the argument is different in each.

Whatever bucket you are in, gather the contract, every payment record, the email thread, and any texts. Wedding vendors frequently operate on handshake-plus-invoice arrangements, and when the written contract is thin, the emails become the contract.

You cancelled: the 'non-refundable' clause and the penalty rule.

Most venue and photographer contracts describe the deposit as a non-refundable retainer. New York will enforce that language, but only to a point. A deposit forfeiture is a form of liquidated damages, and New York's common-law rule is that liquidated damages are enforceable only when they are a reasonable estimate of the loss the vendor would actually suffer, made at a time when that loss was hard to predict. A forfeiture that instead operates as a penalty, meaning it is grossly out of proportion to any real loss, is unenforceable.

For wedding vendors, the key fact is usually whether the date was rebooked. A venue that keeps a $7,500 deposit on a Saturday in June that it sells to another couple three weeks later has suffered little or no loss. A photographer who turned down two other weddings for your date and cancelled with four weeks to go has a much better argument. The closer to the date you cancel, and the less likely the vendor is to rebook, the more of the deposit the vendor can justify keeping.

Ask the vendor, in writing, whether the date was rebooked. Many will not answer, which itself tells a judge something. Vendors that post their bookings on social media make this easy to prove.

The vendor cancelled or no-showed.

This is the strongest position you can be in. A vendor that cancels, closes, double-books, or simply does not show up has not performed, and a party that has not performed cannot keep the other side's money. 'Non-refundable' language protects the vendor from your cancellation. It says nothing about the vendor's own.

You are owed the deposit, and in most cases more. If you had to book a replacement photographer at $1,500 over the original price because the first one cancelled six weeks out, that difference is a recoverable damage. If the venue closed and you lost non-refundable deposits with other vendors tied to that date, those losses are at least arguable. Keep every receipt. The measure of damages in New York is what it takes to put you where you would have been had the vendor performed.

A vendor that took your deposit knowing it could not perform, or that took deposits from multiple couples for the same date, has moved from breach into deceptive practices under General Business Law § 349, which permits actual damages, possible treble damages up to a statutory cap, and attorney's fees. We address § 349 in more depth in our main guide to deposit disputes.

Partial or bad performance.

The caterer ran out of food. The DJ played for two hours of a five-hour contract. The photographer delivered 80 images instead of the 600 promised, or never delivered the album. Here the question is what portion of the price was earned, and what it costs to fix what can be fixed. A missing album can be replaced; a missed ceremony cannot, and New York courts are realistic about that. Contract damages for a ruined event are measured by the money you paid for what you did not get, plus the reasonable cost of substitutes, not by emotional distress, which New York generally does not award in contract cases.

Document everything immediately: guest accounts, timestamps on photos, the set list, the invoice. Memories fade and vendors' stories improve with time.

Force majeure, postponement, and the pandemic hangover.

Many vendor contracts now include force majeure clauses written after 2020. Read yours. Some allow the vendor to keep the deposit if the event is postponed for reasons outside anyone's control; others require a credit toward a new date; a few say nothing. A clause that lets a vendor both keep your money and not perform is vulnerable to the penalty analysis above, and a vendor that refuses a reasonable rescheduling in order to keep a deposit may have a deceptive-practices problem.

If you postponed rather than cancelled, and the vendor accepted the new date, you have a modified contract and the deposit carries forward. Get that in writing. Vendors who later claim the original date was 'cancelled' and a new deposit is due are rewriting history.

What a demand letter does here.

Wedding vendors care about two things: their calendar and their reviews. A demand letter from a New York attorney addresses the thing they care about less than either, which is a lawsuit, but it does so in a way that makes the calendar-and-reviews calculation tilt toward writing the check. The letter lays out the contract terms, states why the forfeiture is unenforceable or why the vendor's non-performance entitles you to a refund, quantifies the amount, and sets a deadline. Where the facts support it, it cites § 349 and its fee provision. Most vendors, or their insurers, would rather refund a deposit than pay a lawyer to explain why they should not.

Our wedding vendor refund letters are flat fee and handled online through DemandLetterNY. Learn more about how our flat-fee demand letters work.

A letter is not the answer when the vendor has already dissolved or filed for bankruptcy; in those cases a credit card chargeback, a claim against any event insurance you bought, or a creditor claim in the bankruptcy are the realistic routes. And if the deposit is a few hundred dollars, a self-filed small claims case may be the more proportionate step.

Chargebacks, small claims, and other tools.

If you paid the deposit by credit card, dispute the charge with your card issuer now, particularly if the vendor cancelled. Disputes for services not provided are routinely allowed for months after payment where the service date was in the future. If you bought wedding insurance, vendor failure is often a covered event; read the policy and file promptly.

Small claims court handles claims up to $10,000 in New York City and lower amounts elsewhere in the state; see our small claims guide for the mechanics and our comparison of a demand letter versus small claims for which to use first. A breach-of-contract claim carries a six-year statute of limitations in New York, so you are not racing a deadline, but you are racing the vendor's solvency.

Related problems: a camp or school deposit follows the same penalty analysis, and a mover holding your goods after the wedding is a different dispute with its own rules.