This bride is suing an airline for allegedly destroying her dress en route to her wedding
A bride is taking matters into her own hands after an American Airlines flight attendant allegedly “egregiously” destroyed her wedding dress while en route to her destination wedding, and is clapping back with a $3.4 million lawsuit.
According to the Courier Post, Yewande Oteh, then 31, flew from Philidelphia International Airport to Jamaica for her wedding ceremony in August 2015, where she planned to fulfill her lifelong dream of having her wedding at her grandparent’s Montego Bay hotel. After being advised by a ticketing agent to remove her wedding dress from her checked luggage and hang it in the employee aircraft closet, Oteh claims she was met with hostility.
As the lawsuit states, an air stewardess by the name of Melanie became “indignant and agitated” at Oteh’s request to hang the dress in the closet, and laughed when Oteh spoke of filing a complaint. Ultimately, Oteh was instructed to store her dress in an unoccupied overhead bin in first-class and to return to her seat in the economy section.
Keeping an eye on her dress’ bin from her seat, Oteh claims she and her now-husband, Chidi, watched as Melanie and other flight attendants opened and gathered around the bin mid-flight. “It was her belief that the flight attendants were placing something in the bin and making fun of [Oteh] and her wedding gown,” the lawsuit states.
Upon landing in Jamaica, Oteh reportedly discovered that her dress had been covered in red wine, rendering it “absolutely unwearable and unfixable.”
“American Airlines and its personnel robbed all of us of this once-in-a-lifetime experience,” attorney Yvette Sterling, Oteh’s mother, told the Courier Post.
According to the lawsuit, Oteh’s sister flew to Fort Lauderdale to buy several replacement gown options, all unreturnable, after she could not find any alternatives in Montego Bay. Oteh’s sister made the trip for her in part because Oteh was “terrified that she would encounter the American Airlines flight attendants” again.
Since the suit has been filed, Melanie, who is not named as a defendant in the suit, said of the events: “It really didn’t go like that at all.”
Meanwhile, American Airlines released a statement that they “are reviewing the lawsuit.”
