A Brooklyn couple were completely screwed over by the company that made their wedding video, with the filmmakers piping in sitcom-style clap tracks, missing key moments in the ceremony and trying to get the groom to “play a transvestite,” the bride claims in a new lawsuit.
Monica Nickchemny, 26, and the owner of Monica’s Bridal in Brooklyn, paid $12,750 to film company Visualez in August 2011 to produce a wedding video and a “love story” that would be played for the wedding guests at the reception, court papers state.
Visualez decided they wanted her fiancée, Felix Komrash, 33, to play a transsexual in the video and threatened not to produce the “love story” when the horrified couple refused, states the $72,000 Brooklyn Supreme Court suit.
“They wanted him to wear women’s clothes, he would look like a woman, I would have to put him in a dress and he would fall in love with me. It was a very stupid story,” said Nickchemny, who wanted the company to produce a “Coming to America”-style film with her hubby cast in the Eddie Murphy role.
“The defendant had issue with changing their artistic creation, up to the point where they provided plaintiffs with an ultimatum whereby they threatened not to provide the love story portion,” states the suit, which also asks for punitive damages.
And on the day of the wedding Visualez – which had also emailed Nickchemny the week of the wedding saying they wouldn’t show up if they had to edit the final product – failed to provide almost everything promised, including a camera crane, four digital cameramen, and a Russian-speaking cinematographer.
Vizualez turned over an incomplete film with ridiculous sound effects like a fake sound of breaking glass rather than the real sound it made.
“When I was watching my wedding video it sounded like I was watching an episode of ‘Seinfeld’ with the sound effects in the background,” Nickchemny said. “I was hysterical. I almost had a nervous breakdown.”
The company also missed the signing of the Jewish marriage contract and various toasts, the suit states.
“They acted in such an outrageous way that it emotionally damaged my clients,” said attorney Mikhail Usher.