Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

How to Ruin a Wedding Night

STOCKTON, Calif. (CN) - Newlyweds sued a hotel, claiming it gave their honeymoon suite to the wrong couple, who made off with nearly everything in the wedding basket, and saw the bride's panties with her new name inscribed in rhinestones.

Amie and Eric Grout sued Wine & Roses LLC and Preferred Hotel Group, in San Joaquin County Court.

The Grouts were married on Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012, and had wedding-night reservations at Wine & Roses, a hotel, restaurant and spa in Lodi.

On the morning of the wedding, the groom says, he went to the hotel and asked if it would allow a close friend to enter their room before they arrived, to set it up with a surprise for the bride. The hotel said it would be no problem, asked him to write down his friend's name, and he did so and left.

But when the friend arrived, the hotel wouldn't let her into the room. It told her to write down what she and the groom wanted, and the hotel staff would take care of it.

Refused permission to see a manager, the friend "reluctantly" wrote down 3 pages of detailed instructions, according to the complaint.

The instructions included what to do with the white panties inscribed with rhinestones spelling out "Mrs. Grout," a photo book, champagne, wine, candles, chocolate, "heart gem jewels" and other keepsakes. The photo book included "very personal and private photographs" meant for only the bride to view. The photo album had been sealed with ribbons.

But on their bridal night, the hotel told the newlyweds there had been a "mix up." None of the bride's presents were in the room they were given.

"Hotel staff informed her that they had placed another couple in the room originally intended for the Grouts," the couple says. "Mrs. Grout, standing in the hotel lobby and still wearing her wedding dress, was reduced to tears in front of the hotel's staff and other patrons."

So a hotel employee went to the room that had been decorated and stocked with gifts, but "several items were missing, including the bottles of champagne and the wine, the bath soaps, the cards, all but three of the candles, most of the silk rose petals, and almost all of the chocolates from inside the basket and box. Most disturbingly of all, however, the ribbons that had previously bound the private photo book had been removed," the complaint states.

The complaint does not state what became of the rhinestone panties.

The newlyweds seek attorneys fees and punitive damages for negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress and privacy invasion.

They are represented by Rachel Renno, with Bowman and Associates, of Folsom.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...