I contacted A1 Limo prior to my wedding on August 28, 2010 to make arraignments for an 18 passenger limo bus to carry my wedding party away from the wedding and to the reception. I was told it would be a nice black bus with wrap-around leather seating (like a limo right?) The price seemed reasonable, $125/hour for 3 hours. ($375 total) They were to pick us up at the church in Nevada, IA at 4:30, drive us around for 45 minutes and drop us off at the country club, also in Nevada. Note that I am paying them to drive from Des Moines, both ways. I gave them the address for both locations and they repeated and confirmed the addressed. I also placed a call to A1 the Friday before my wedding to confirm the reservation, all was good.
Fast forward to the 28th. During my wedding ceremony, I received a phone call and voicemail and also a text message asking where the church was. I didn?t get these messaged until later in the day, but given that we had confirmed the address when I made the reservation, there was no reason the drive shouldn?t have been able to find the church, especially since it was a block off main street.
After the ceremony, my wife and I prepare to walk out of the church, past the receiving line. We get half way down the stairs of the church and I see the bus. Think of the old people, nursing home transporters you see driving around. Blue, white, sagging in the back and beat up looking. NOT IMPRESSED. This is what I get to drive away from my wedding in?
We climb on it anyway to find smelly cloth seats, a CRT television in the corner above the driver, a VCR (really? This just gets better?), an FM radio that won?t play a CD or connect to an iPod. GHETTO, plain and simple. This is not what I was told I would be getting and defiantly not what I had pictured driving away from my wedding in. And 18 passenger? Ya right. We had 18 on it and there were people sitting on laps and straddling the coolers in the middle of the aisle. No way was that an 18 passenger bus.
So, off we go anyway. Each bump in the road felt like we were bottoming the bus out and the suspension was about to come through the floor. The brakes were shot. The radio worked about half the time, the rest was static. My photographer was standing in the front and was directing the driver where to go, because it was obvious he didn?t have a clue. After 30 minutes of this, we told the driver to just take us to the reception, because honestly?enough was enough. Again, the photographer had to direct him to the country club (for which he had the address and should have known where he was going) to drop us off. We were the last ones off and let the drive know I was disappointed and the bus was not at all what we were expecting.
On Monday the 30th, I called A1 to complain about the bus and ask for at least half of my money back and to complain about being overcharged as my credit card showed a charge $450, not the $375 I was told it would be. C
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