AUBURN — A bride-to-be has her $500 deposit back and a new wedding venue after her disagreement with the new owners of Lost Valley went public last month.

Ashley Goddard received a check from Lost Valley a few days after a marketing representative reached out to her on Facebook. Goddard and her fiance, Jeff Slefinger, have booked Prospect Hill Golf & Banquet in Auburn for their 118-person August wedding.

They won’t have to change their wedding date or move the venue far from the hotel reserved by out-of-town friends and family, but the new location will cost more.

“It is about $1,500 more than Lost Valley, so that was a little tough for us since our budget is so tight, but we will figure out ways to make it work,” Goddard said in an email.

Goddard, of Buxton, had booked Lost Valley last July when it was owned by Connie King and Lincoln Hayes. The Auburn mountain resort was sold to Scott Shanaman in October, but Goddard said no one told her about the sale until she happened to email King with a question in January and the email bounced back. 

Goddard said she spent three weeks trying to talk to the new Lost Valley about her wedding, but a manager failed to show up for an appointment and emails and phone calls either went unanswered or left Goddard feeling even more unsettled. She learned the gazebo and decorations she’d been planning on were gone. She said she was also told pricing might be different.

Goddard decided to cancel the venue and requested her $500 deposit be returned. She said she was told she’d have to track down Lost Valley’s former owners for the money.

Goddard did, reaching out to King on Facebook. King replied, saying she’d retired and was in Florida; she referred Goddard back to Lost Valley.

At one point, the disagreement between Goddard and the new Lost Valley owner, Shanaman, became so heated that she took her frustrations public. In return, he threatened to withhold her deposit, even though he acknowledged that she was owed the money.

“She has just taken to bashing us on Facebook and now calling the newspaper, which is just out of hand,” Shanaman said in a Sun Journal interview last month. “Her chances of getting her deposit back are diminishing constantly with everything like this that she does.”

He quickly changed his mind. About 30 minutes after that interview, Lost Valley’s marketing and public relations manager reached out to Goddard over Facebook and said the owners were willing to refund her money.

Goddard got that check in the mail a few days later.

Finding a new venue was a relief because her wedding is fewer than seven months away. It’s scheduled for the weekend of the Great Falls Balloon Festival and other local venues have long been booked.

In an interview last month, Shanaman said he wanted to connect with other couples that had booked Lost Valley weddings with the former owners. Michelle Gosselin, marketing and public relations coordinator for Lost Valley, said Tuesday that the resort has followed up with all of those couples — there were fewer than 10 — and most decided to stay with Lost Valley.

Last month, Shanaman said he wasn’t sure whether he’d accept new wedding bookings for Lost Valley in the future. On Tuesday, Gosselin said that still hasn’t been decided.

“As far as making announcements publicly, we’re not ready to do that yet because we’re unsure of the direction,” she said.

ltice@sunjournal.com

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