Sydney couples bat and maggot wedding hell
By Reception Search on March 12, 2010
Couple invest $30,000 in wedding Unexpected guests ruin the big day
Maggots and bats top the list.
FRIENDS, family, fine wine, a $30,000 investment and a year and a half of planning: it should have been the perfect Hunter Valley wedding
But Sydney couple claim unwanted guests - including maggots in their wedding bed and bedroom invasions by bats - turned their wedding into a bride's worst nightmare.
They stayed in accommodation, which is made up of four separate cottages.
By the time the group left three days later, the newlyweds had allegedly found maggots described by the groom as "the size of chocolate bullets'' in their wedding bed and a dead bat, covered in maggots, above their bedhead.
One guest awoke in the early hours of the morning with a reaction to what he believed were insect bites and spent the night on a couch.
Other guests fled their room in the middle of the night when a bat emerged from the fireplace and "flapped around the room''.
The newlyweds abandoned their suite on the wedding night after allegedly pulling back the sheets to find maggots in their bed, believed to have come from the dead bat on a shelf above their bed.
The couple sought refuge on a blow-up mattress on the floor of a cottage occupied by Mrs Buttell's father and grandparents.
The family were to be charged a total of $3850 to stay in the four cottages they had booked.
The cottages are owned by a company that did not also own the the Chapel or the function centre that hosted the wedding ceremony and reception.
The bride's father, is now asking for a refund of his $2000 deposit for the accommodation.
The cottages' owner, waived the outstanding $1850 and gave a bottle of sparkling wine as an apology, but The bride's father was not satisfied with the offer.
The family said the complaint was not about money. The bride's father said: "They were apologetic and polite and removed the dead bat, but in my view it shouldn't have happened.''
The owner of the cottages has declined to comment on the matter, other than to say the claims are slanderous.
He said the accommodation was subject to "regular pest inspections and treatments, and previous reports have not revealed any problems''.
"I'm upset as well that these events happened but they were not the result of my negligence,'' he said.
The newlyweds, however, said the fallout from the disaster had been long-lasting.
The couple said the family had spent $30,000 on a weekend that guests now remembered as "the bat and maggot weekend''.
"It wasn't up to scratch ... you can't charge nearly $4000 for a weekend and expect us to put up with maggots in our bed on our wedding night and dead bats,'' the couple said.
No compensation could cover the cost of a spoiled wedding, he said.
"Having booked the accommodation - and it's a beautiful location - imagine how embarrassed and angry I was. It was the most important day of my daughter's life.
The rest of the wedding was fantastic - the venue, the food, the reception, the catering was outstanding, it was beautiful ... we were just let down by the accommodation.''
The bride's father has referred the matter to the Department of Fair Trading.
