Vows broken: How dream wedding venue left Charlotte couples out thousands after foreclosure

Shann Fulton and Michele Edwards were divinely aligned on a perfect vision for their wedding day.

They both wanted a ceremony that was regal and opulent. And for their special day, Fulton and Edwards wanted to incorporate that vision with spirituality — something that bonded them as a couple.

They looked at venues from the Biltmore Estate to the Bella Collina Mansion in Stokesdale. But they settled on the picturesque Champagne Manor — a 10,000 square foot castle-like mansion in Union County.

The venue had everything they needed to bring their vision of a royal wedding to life — an all-white affair with 150 guests. But just months before their April 25 wedding date, that vision came crashing down.

In early January, the venue’s owner, Jason Lottmann, informed the couple via email that their wedding wouldn’t happen. The venue had been foreclosed on and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t keep up with the payments, his email said.

The email left Fulton, Edwards and dozens of couples in shock and filled with questions. That was until his arrest on Jan. 28 — on nine felony counts of obtaining property under false pretenses — illuminating an alleged scheme brewing behind the venue’s pomp and circumstance.

Lottmann took approximately $1 million from 30 hopeful couples intended to pay for the venue and their all-inclusive packages, giving the illusion that everything was taken care of, according to James Maye, a spokesperson for the Union County Sheriff’s Department. Couples who did have weddings were met with calls from vendors demanding payment for services they thought had been taken care of. Or, in the case of Fulton and Edwards, their weddings didn’t happen at all.

Lottmann’s email announcing the foreclosure promised the couples refunds. But to this day, Fulton and Edwards haven’t seen a dime of the over $20,000 in payments they made to him.

While they’re happy Lottmann was arrested, the emotional toll of his actions and the venue’s closure still lingers.

On a March afternoon, squeezing the hand of their fiancee, Fulton reflected on what their wedding could have been.

“For us, it wasn’t just a venue,” he said. “It was a part of a dream.”

A deal too good to be true

The Champagne Manor is a marvel.

The massive, stately castle sits surrounded by ponds on Sugar and Wine Road on the east side of Union County, about a 40-mile drive from uptown Charlotte. A black metal gate sits open at the charcoal gray estate, a path of white concrete leading to its doors.

Its elegance extends inside of the building to the expansive bridal suite with rooms designated for hair and makeup, and its ballroom for rehearsal dinners. A small wooden arch overlooks the pond outside where couples can exchange vows.

“I mean, it was just absolutely beautiful,” Edwards said.

The couple shared their vision with Lottmann and he leaned into it, they said. He assured them their dream wedding could happen there. Lottmann even showed Fulton and Edwards a massive room full of props that could be used to customize the venue to their liking.

“Everything that you would want, he would say, ‘Oh yeah, we can make that happen,’” Fulton said.

The beauty of the facility and its grounds, in combination with an all-inclusive deal, made booking the Champagne Manor a no-brainer, they said. For $35,000, Fulton and Edwards would have everything they needed: the venue, catering, a florist, overnight lodging for five bedrooms, bridal and groom suites, their rehearsal dinner and more.

But after securing the deal, couples started to notice a shift.

Lack of communication

Unanswered calls and emails to Lottmann last year started to worry Clara Vengoechea. She was originally supposed to be married at the Champagne Manor on May 17.

A friend of hers who got married at the venue last summer mentioned that Lottmann’s unresponsiveness brought a massive hassle to her wedding day. When Vengoechea started to experience this pattern, it worried her so much that she demanded an in-person meeting with him last December, she said.

She said she wanted to ensure that despite his spotty communication, everything with her wedding was going as planned. And during the chat, he put her concerns at ease.

“He was saying that 2024 wasn’t exactly how he wanted things to go ... that 2025 was going to be so much better,” she said. “(He) said all this stuff that honestly reassured us so much.”

In November, just months before their April wedding, Edwards said she still hadn’t heard back from their caterer or florist, even after asking Lottmann directly for their contact information.

“I kept saying to Shann, we haven’t even spoken to a caterer yet,” she said. “We’ve sent wedding invitations out and we can’t even put the meal choice on the RSVP because we haven’t spoken to caterers.”

Unbeknownst to the couples, Lottmann’s unresponsiveness was just the beginning of their troubles.

‘That money was gone’

In January, after months of not hearing from her, Edwards got a response from the florist. Hours after Lottmann had sent out the email informing couples their weddings were off, their florist reached out to offer support and alternative venue options.

But the couple hadn’t yet seen Lottmann’s email.

“What?” Edwards exclaimed after reading the florist’s message. Her reaction prompted Fulton to check thier email. There, he found a long message from Lottmann explaining the foreclosure.

Lottmann’s email said that he bought the property in 2021 on a “bridge” loan, a short-term loan designed to provide financing until it’s paid off or a long-term loan is obtained. These are most commonly used when selling an old home and buying a new one.

But the venue’s size and use complicated his ability to secure a long-term loan, he wrote. And an option to rent the property from the lender was more than he could afford, he explained in the email.

At the end of the email, he assured couples that he’d be reaching out in a few days to set up a refund plan. But those calls never came.

“From the time that I found out from the florist, in my gut, I felt like that money was gone,” Edwards said.

Fulton and Edwards were willing to spare no expense to get everything they wanted out of their dream wedding. Over the past year, they made major sacrifices to save over $20,000 toward their big day.

“We’re just going to buckle down. We’re not going to eat out, we’re not going to travel,” Edwards said. “It was a sacrifice, but we swallowed the pill because we looked at the end goal. But then to find out that you’re out doing whatever with our money, and we’ve lived like this for over a year? It was tough.”

In the following weeks, Fulton and Edwards said they and the other couples compiled pay statements, emails and other evidence of what Lottmann had done to send to the Union County Sheriff’s Department.

“He probably thought a lot of people would just let it go because they can’t get in touch with him,” Vengoechea said. “But he messed with the wrong group of people. A bunch of pissed off brides and their parents who paid a lot of money.”

At the end of the month, deputies arrested Lottmann through setting up a meeting via Facebook marketplace. He had been using the app to sell furniture from the foreclosed Champagne Manor.

He is being held at the Union County Detention Center under a $1 million bond. An attempt to reduce his bond amount in February was denied.

While the couples were happy to see Lottmann arrested, Fulton said the moment felt bittersweet.

“(Just) thinking about all of the hustling that you did and the money that you put into it you may never see it again,” he said. “But (we’re) thankful that he’s in jail, so he can’t do this to anyone else.”

Lottmann’s past

The Champagne Manor was just one of Lottmann’s many business ventures.

Under his company, The Veretta Group LLC, he’s organized specialty parties and events, operated multiple vacation rentals across North and South Carolina and claimed to be the owner and real estate developer for an upcoming hotel and venue project he called the Grayside Chateau, according to his Linkedin profile.

Since 2017, Lottmann, The Veretta Group and the Champagne Manor have been named in at least 26 lawsuits ranging from claims of money owed, breach of contract and obtaining property under false pretenses, according to court records.

According to criminal court records in his case, Lottmann is accused of defrauding someone out of more than $170,000 for the upgrades at Champagne Manor and purchase of a catering business.

A Facebook group called Gatsby 2020 Jason Lottmann Scammed Me and complaints on The Veretta Group’s Better Business Bureau page list allegations from people who purchased tickets to a Gatsby-themed party that was to be hosted by Lottmann at the Biltmore Estate. But the 2020 party never happened.

Tickets ranged from $225 to $495. People claimed they requested refunds from Lottmann, but never received them.

And public records show that Lottmann was evicted from his SouthPark apartment in September 2024 for failure to pay rent.

Ernest Collins, Lottmann’s lawyer, declined to comment on his pending charges.

‘There’s nothing we can’t survive’

Through credit card disputes, Vengoechea and her fiance, Will, were able to get the $30,000 they paid toward their Champagne Manor wedding back. Their wedding will still go on, two weeks after their original date, at a venue in Charlotte.

Even with their money back, the short time frame forced them to make sacrifices. Instead of a caterer, Vengoechea’s father will be cooking all the food for their wedding. And her bridal party, which was supposed to happen at the Champagne Manor, will be hosted at a friend’s condo downstairs from where she and her fiance live.

The past two months have felt like she’s picked up a second job, Vengoechea said. Planning a second wedding and the stress that comes with it was not something she was expecting.

But it’s worth it, she says.

“I just didn’t want that taken away from me,” she said. “What I actually wanted my wedding to be...”

Without their refund from Lottmann, Fulton and Edwards say they are holding off on planning their wedding. Instead, they plan to have a “hot couple summer,” by taking trips originally planned for their honeymoon and bridal party in Curacao and Tybee Island.

Edwards and Fulton said the experience has strengthened their bond.

“Through it all, we have realized that we can survive anything,” she said.

This story was originally published March 25, 2025 at 5:00 AM.