Las Vegas bride-to-be’s short-term rental cancels venue days before her wedding

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - Emily Blakeley and her fiancé is making last-minute changes to their wedding after their venue, a short-term Vrbo rental, canceled.

Blakeley had just started her drive from Colorado to Las Vegas for her wedding week when she heard the news about her dream venue.

“We booked it in July, 2022,” she explained. “So it’s been booked for a long time and we thought everything was good.”

The plan was to rent a big house with enough rooms to accommodate the couple’s closest friends leading up to their ceremony. It was dashed away when Blakeley’s fiancé noticed a refund on his credit card from Vrbo.

“That was Monday, and our wedding is supposed to be on Saturday,” she said. “So we were just in for a big surprise.”

Blakeley’s dream wedding was over before it began.

“It was just such a heart-sinking moment,” she remembered. “My wedding that I’ve dreamed of my whole life and what I planned for a year-and-a-half just wasn’t going to happen. Even if we found somewhere new, even if we figured it out, it wasn’t going to be what I had planned and what we had put all this money into.”

Blakeley says she was told by the Vrbo’s property manager that police had warned about hosting big events at the home. FOX5 reached out to Metro with the address and learned the homeowner was notified recently of several Clark County ordinances, one of which prohibits the use of short-term rentals for large parties. Police did not say why they initially reached out to this address.

Luckily for Blakeley, she did find a new venue. She’ll now be getting married in The Dark Room, near Tropicana and Maryland.

“They were so accommodating and just ready to jump in and hurry up and help us out,” she said of her new venue.

Blakeley still needs to switch up some of her vendors, which means lost deposits, but she’s confident that with a venue secured, the wedding will work out. She also knows now that weddings and other large gatherings at short-term rentals won’t fly in the Las Vegas Valley.

“If that was your plan, maybe pivot to something else,” she said, laughing a bit. “It’s such a bummer because it’s such a great idea.”

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