Mountain View ruined our wedding

Moholoholo Mountain View completely ruined our wedding photos!

I sent them an email complaining and they said they'd send it to management - but haven't responded to any emails since then and I am left devastated, almost mourning the loss of lots of my once in a lifetime wedding photos, and looking for closure. Go look at their cover photo - that was the dam where we were supposed to take photos - but we ended up being forced to just take photos on the side of the road instead because their guide did not show up. So here I am sitting and crying after looking at the photo of the dam, and thinking of what could've been and the wedding photos we never got to take.

Here's the whole story... (sorry it's so long, there's a TLDR at the end)

My wedding was at Ya Mati. We booked out both Mountain View (MV) and Ya Mati entirely for our guests for the Friday and Saturday nights.

There is no reception to check in as such at MV, but there is a guide on standby who you phone while waiting outside the gate and he opens the gate and meets you in the parking lot to take you to your room (or photo locations). They also had a strict rule where they didn't let people drive without a guide in the wild area as there are no signs and people could get lost and there are also dangerous animals such as buffalo, leopards and hippos. I was fine with this rule - and they mentioned it multiple times.

We went to MV twice before the wedding to pick photo locations and plan out the big day, and even drove with the guide himself to pick spots for the photos and chose two locations - an old overgrown landing strip and (what I was most excited for) the dam which we would be at at sunset for the couple photos.

I'll start with the day before, Friday. The guide let us in at the gate after we phoned him and said he'd meet us in the parking lot, but then was nowhere to be found to check the guests into their rooms once we reached the parking lot. The cleaning staff were even looking for him but to no avail. During this time, two elderly guests were left alone in the parking lot in 35 degree celsius heat and tried to carry their own luggage to the shade, but dropped it and it broke. The guide eventually arrived around 14.30 (check in was at 14.00) and admitted that he was not even on the property when he let us in at the gate and told us he’d “meet us in the parking lot”. I was super busy that day so brushed it off, but let it be known for later in this story that he was MUCH MORE than 15 minutes late.

Now to the wedding day, we had arranged to meet at MV at 4.30 for the official wedding photos. We arrived around 15 minutes late because a guest messed green icing on my dress and my brides****s were cleaning it off - but considering it was a wedding, 15 minutes really isn’t that late and we couldn’t phone MV to let them know we were running late as there was no cell reception at the ceremony venue. When we arrived, we phoned the duty number to open the gate for us, to which the guide answered and said he’d open the gate. He actually answered and said he’d let us in, knowing full well he wasn’t even there and was not actually going to open the gate for us! A while passed and the gate had not opened. We tried phoning again and again, but the person on the other end kept declining the calls. All six of our vehicles filled with the wedding party, photographers and videographers sat outside on the road by the main gate waiting. We eventually phoned the lady who we rented a safari vehicle from (we wanted to use this vehicle as a photo prop) who had arrived at MV a while before us (she was an external vendor and not associated with MV), and thank goodness she was there because she gave us her code and let us in. Not one of the staff, but a random vendor we picked was the one to let us on to the property and I shudder at the thought of what would've happened if she wasn't there and we wouldn't have gotten into MV at all.

When we arrived in the parking lot at MV we waited for the guide (since we were told numerous times that we cannot drive in the wild area without a guide). But after a while, he still hadn't come (and kept declining phone calls) and we were forced to leave and go into the wild area ourselves at the risk of losing all of our photo time. The safari car rental lady had told us that the guide left before we arrived saying “it looks like no one is joining us”. But we were only 15 minutes late, and he had literally checked in half of our guests the day before, so he was well aware that the wedding was still happening. (Not to mention both venues are owned by the same company so there was no doubt as to whether we were still coming or not). And, as mentioned in the beginning, he was about a whole half an hour late the day before, and we didn’t do anything drastic like completely ruin someone else’s once-in-a-lifetime wedding photos because he was late, so why did he think it was just ok to completely abandon us?

We made it to the landing strip and took some wedding party photos there which were extremely rushed as the sun was setting and we had already lost so much time being locked out of the property. Our wedding party was 20 people including the vendors, and we were just running around in the veld scrambling to take photos - and buffalo were around which is extremely dangerous.

After those photos, the brides****s and groomsmen went back to the other venue and we wanted to go to the dam for the couple sunset photos, but surprise surprise we got lost without the guide. After driving around for a while, we were forced to just stop and randomly take photos on the side of the road. During our time taking photos on the side of the road, the guide did show up, with a lady in the passenger seat and chairs and picnic items in the back of his bakkie. He saw us, and quickly U-turned and drove off despite us waving and calling at him (he stopped close enough for us to positively ID him as the guide from the day before and the guide we had chosen and planned photo locations with), leaving us still wandering around the veld unattended.

We lost so much photo time by waiting outside the gate, waiting in the parking lot and getting lost. During the driving, I started crying at the thought that we may lose our sunset photos altogether - and we DID end up losing our photos at the dam (which we had planned and arranged for with MV months in advance) because we never did find the dam. I also had to be looking away in lots of the photos because my face was so puffy from all the crying.

I am still devastated that we lost so much of our precious photo time despite our efforts and organization beforehand. It was also terrifying having to choose between walking around in the dangerous wild area unattended and losing our wedding photos - but what were we supposed to do, just not take any wedding photos?

We formally complained to MV, and they said they'd send it through to management but have not responded to any emails since and it has been over three weeks - and I am left devastated and looking for closure after our once-in-a-lifetime wedding photos were ruined, and we will never get those sunset dam photos ever again. What should we do? Is there anyway to get closure for something like this?

TLDR:

We arranged to take photos with a guide to guide us for our wedding.

He was late the day before the wedding and left guests stranded in the heat.

On the wedding day, he then didn’t show up to guide us for our wedding photos (after we met with him previously and had picked locations with him).

He didn’t show up because he was on a date with a lady.

After he found us wandering around unattended in the veld - he just left us there alone (despite the buffalo as well as the presence of hippo and leopards which are more dangerous after dark - and we were there after dark because of the sunset photos running so late due to him not opening the gate for us - someone could have been hurt or worse. But what were we supposed to do? Miss our wedding photos entirely just because the guide didn’t show up?

Mountain View has not offered any compensation for our loss, not even an apology.