A wedding day experience that no couple should endure
A wedding day experience that no couple should have to endure!
I never imagined I would be writing a review like this following our wedding.
We booked our wedding car through The Wedding Car Hire People, who supplied Hyde Platinum Travels Ltd as the vehicle provider. We paid over £540 for what was supposed to be up to three hours' hire, including transporting the groom, returning to collect the bride, transporting the bride to the venue and remaining afterwards for photographs.
What actually happened was completely different.
The chauffeur arrived on time and took me (the groom) to the venue. However, he then sat at the venue and never returned for the bride - completely unbeknown to me who was by then inside the venue.
The bride was left without the wedding car she had been promised, there were no post-ceremony photographs with the vehicle, and the majority of the agreed itinerary simply never took place.
To make matters worse, the chauffeur arrived dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, despite this being a wedding chauffeur service where any reasonable customer would expect a professionally dressed chauffeur in a suit and tie. That immediately undermined the premium wedding experience we believed we had paid for.
As anyone who has planned a wedding will understand, this wasn't simply a missed taxi journey. It affected one of the most important days of our lives. My wife was left extremely upset, and the memories of what should have been a special part of our day were lost forever.
Initially, Hyde Platinum Travels offered only a £300 refund, despite failing to provide most of the contracted service.
Sadly, The Wedding Car Hire People repeatedly emphasised that they were "only an intermediary" and spent far more time explaining why responsibility lay elsewhere than actively championing the interests of customers who had booked through their platform. Throughout the complaint process, I felt they were far more concerned with defining the limits of their legal responsibility than acknowledging the seriousness of what had happened or facilitating any serious levels of help.
It was only after persistent correspondence and challenging both businesses that Hyde Platinum Travels eventually agreed to refund the full booking price. Whilst I appreciate that they ultimately accepted responsibility and refunded us in full, that only happened after considerable effort and unnecessary stress on our part and with very little accountability from The Wedding Car Hire People. A full refund simply returned us to the financial position we were in before the booking; it could never restore the experience that had been lost.
A wedding day cannot be repeated. You don't get a second chance to collect the bride, to have those photographs or to create those memories.
My advice to anyone considering booking through this platform is to ask yourself one question: if something goes seriously wrong on one of the most important days of your life, are you confident the booking platform will stand firmly alongside you and fight for the right outcome, or will it simply explain why the responsibility lies with somebody else?
Sadly, based on our experience, I know what the answer was for us.
I would avoid.
Reply from The Wedding Car Hire People
Dear Gary,
We are genuinely sorry for what happened on your wedding day. The bride not being collected in the booked vehicle was unacceptable, and we fully understand that a refund cannot restore that part of the day.
We also note your comments regarding the chauffeur’s attire. If the chauffeur arrived dressed as described, that is not the standard expected for a wedding chauffeur service and is something we will be raising with the contracted Vehicle Owner.
For context to anyone reading, this review relates to the same booking and incident as Joanne’s review below.
We do need to correct the suggestion that The Wedding Car Hire People did not support you or simply left you to deal with the matter alone.
The issue on the day was caused by driver error. From the information provided to us, the driver completed the groom’s journey but then wrongly remained at the venue instead of returning to collect the bride. That should not have happened.
We urge both customers and Vehicle Owners to raise any on-the-day issue immediately, as many problems can be resolved in real time if we are contacted quickly. In this case, the venue was only a few minutes away and a prompt call to us or the Vehicle Owner may have allowed the issue to be corrected straight away. Unfortunately, we were not made aware until after the event, at which point our role was to support the complaint and refund process.
You ask whether, if something goes seriously wrong, the booking platform will stand alongside the customer and fight for the right outcome, or simply explain why responsibility lies elsewhere. In this case, we did stand alongside you within the role available to us. We acknowledged the seriousness of the complaint, passed it to the Vehicle Owner, remained involved, challenged the initial refund position and pushed for the matter to be reviewed properly.
When the initial £300 refund offer was rejected, we did not treat the matter as closed. We referred the request for a full refund back to the Vehicle Owner and asked them to address why the bride was not collected, which parts of the itinerary were not completed, why £300 was considered appropriate, and whether they would agree to increase the offer to a full refund.
The Wedding Car Hire People is a booking platform, and the wedding-day service is provided by the contracted Vehicle Owner you choose. Explaining that position is not an attempt to avoid responsibility; it is the contractual structure of the booking. Our role is to arrange and administer the booking, provide clear terms, handle payments securely and support customers where issues arise.
In this case, we did support the complaint process, challenged the initial refund position and helped secure the full booking value refund. We appreciate that this does not undo the distress caused on the day, but we do not accept that no meaningful support was provided.
Kind regards,
The Wedding Car Hire People