Bride-to-be says Houston-area wedding planner stole $12K
HOUSTON - Savannah Hawthorne's fiancé popped the question in March 2023, and just like that, they started planning their wedding for December of the same year.
Hawthorne says her friend, who is also set to walk down the aisle any day, referred her to a wedding planner named Jennifer Smith, who goes by 'JS wedding and event planner' on social media.
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"She was already using her and had nothing but wonderful things to say," Hawthorne said.
It was that rave review that led Hawthorne to hire Jennifer, she had plans for a lavish backyard wedding.
"A huge tent, completely floored, lighting chandeliers, table, chairs, like everything that would be a venue," Hawthorne explained.
Then she claims without warning, Smith told her she had put the deposit for all of those items on her own credit card, and that Savannah could pay her back directly, so they gave her a check for $5,600. When it was time for the remaining balance to be paid, Hawthorne claims Jennifer said the payment had auto-drafted out of her account, and again she asked Hawthorne to pay her directly.
"So, at that point it was weird, and we were like from this point moving forward don't book anything on your credit card. We will do it, and we want to see invoices for the paid vendor, so she sent us invoices, marking paid," said Hawthorne.
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After they saw the paid invoices, they sent her the other half of the deposit, $5,600, and she continued planning their wedding.
Hawthorne didn't think any more of it, until last week when she got a call from the friend who referred her to JS Wedding & Event planner.
"Our friend, who is also using her and who had referred her, said we just found out she stole $9,800 from us," Hawthorne claimed.
The next morning, she called the vendor that her venue equipment should've been booked through.
"And they're like, 'nothing's been paid.' In fact, they tried to contact her, and after a number of times, it just got canceled," she explained.
And when Savannah called the wedding planner to get to the bottom of it, she was shocked by her response.
"She said, I'll pay you back over time; she didn't give us one, she kept saying, 'there's no reason that's going to be good enough'," Hawthorne recalled.
FOX 26 made several attempts to reach Jennifer Smith over the phone, but each time we called her phone, it went straight to voicemail.
The Facebook page for JS Wedding and Event Planner has been deactivated, and the Instagram page is now private.
Hawthorne has filed a police report, and we're working to see if they've received other complaints about this business.