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The Matawan couple signed a contract back in March 2023 with owners David Garsia and his wife, Donata, and put down $14,000 upfront for their Oct. 18, 2024 wedding.
"They said we had access to the premises at all times," said Fowlie, 33. "They said we were family, we were this, we were that."
But earlier this month, the brides-to-be came across a news article saying that the popular Paterson wedding venue, located in a refurbished warehouse on Spruce Street, was going bankrupt.
They showed Donata the article at a meeting to go over the final details last week, but Donata denied everything, Fowlie said.
"She promised us everything would be fine," Fowlie recalled. "She looked us dead in the eyes and said, 'I promise you everything is going to be fine, you're going to have your dream wedding.'"
That was the last time Fowlie and Nodolny heard from the Garsias, they said. Until several days ago, when David Garsia shared a message with clients saying Great Falls Industrial Park/The Art Factory filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 23. Garsia said at the time of the filing, the Art Factory intended to honor all events.
But on Sept. 23, the bankruptcy court directed the Art Factory to discontinue doing so, the statement reads.
The Art Factory published an Instagram post blaming its lender, Billy Procida of Procida Funding & Advisors.
In a statement to ABC7, Procida said:
"This is one of the saddest things I've witnessed in my 43-year career, I feel so bad for all of The Art Factory clients. It's a great venue and it was poorly managed."
Procida did not immediately return Daily Voice's request for comment placed Thursday morning, Sept. 26. David Garsia was also not immediately available for comment.
Fowlie and Nodolny are just one of the countless couples out of thousands of dollars left with no choice other than to find a new wedding destination. A GoFundMe for their wedding had raised more than $1,200 as of press time.
"We still want to get married on Oct. 18," Fowlie said. "We have family and friends coming from Hawaii, Canada, and California — all around the country. But everywhere else wants $20,000 or is already booked.
"It's devastating."
Yasmeen Faraj, 29, of West Milford, was one of the last brides to hold her wedding at the Art Factory on Sept. 21, but even she lost thousands of dollars.
She and her now-husband went in for a tasting on Sept. 5, and no one said a word about financial woes, despite hearing murmurs of it in the days leading up to the tasting, Faraj said.
"It was business as usual," Faraj said. "Dave [Garsia] said that they were going to continue having weddings and that they were going to have hotel rooms in the coming months."
But things started falling apart as her wedding day approached.
"The days leading up to it, we weren't getting responses from anybody," Faraj said.
Garsia said only that his father was sick in the hospital and that neither he nor Donata could be there, Faraj said.
The bride-to-be would soon come to discover that the Art Factory had stopped paying its staff, and so, she and her future husband ended up paying the staff themselves, costing them approximately $10,000, Faraj estimates.
"It turned into a DIY wedding for a not DIY price, all in less than five days," Faraj said.
And, on top of it all, the night before the wedding, Faraj learned that the hall she had booked, The International Room, was double-booked. Faraj's wedding was moved into a different hall, and she was given no choice in the matter, she said.
"We found out through hearsay and were told we'd be switched the morning of our wedding, and no one was going to tell us... so we lost that money too," Faraj said, noting the stress of it all landed her in the doctor the day before her wedding. "It was totally disorganized. No one was there to set up a 260-person wedding the morning of."
Faraj's friends and family ended up doing it all themselves.
"We also lost that time that should’ve been with our families," she said.
Despite the fact that Faraj's dream day had been turned into a nightmare, she was still able to find the silver lining of it all.
"It was beautiful to see our loved ones come together for us," she said. "It was a testament to how loved and supported we are by the people around us. But no thanks to Dave and Donata and the Art Factory. It was not what I envisioned, or even close to what we had envisioned for our wedding."
Alex Hallstein and Tara Longo, of Fair Lawn, were planning on having their May 3 wedding at the Art Factory. They went on Saturday, Aug. 10 to check out the venue.
"Looking back, it’s like, we probably should’ve known something was up," Hallstein said. "Everything we asked, Dave was like, 'Yeah I can do that, I can do that.'"
On Aug. 23, the Art Factory filed for bankruptcy. On Aug. 25, Longo and Hallstein paid the Garsias $2,000 to secure the hall.
"He filed and still requested my money afterward," Longo said. "Fully knowing what he was doing."
In fact, Longo says Garsia asked for even more money as the initial payment. She says he wanted $10,000 out of the full $17,000 upfront.
"Asking for such a large sum at once is a true sign he was just trying to take as much money as he could from us as soon as possible," she tells Daily Voice. "When I told him 10 grand in one shot wasn't going to happen he texted back saying, 'Whatever you can swing.'"
Included in the package were three massive cocktail stations, 20 kids for free, a free overnight suite, no extra fee for a Sunday in May, no extra free for the ceremony on-site, unlimited use of the building whenever we wanted after our wedding, and a free tasting event.
"All I did was ask and without thought, [Garsia] instantly said yes," Longo said. "After paying him, he vanished."
Longo and Hallstein say they're grateful they didn't lose as much money as some of the other couples, especially the ones with weddings in the next couple of months.
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