The former owner of a glamorous North Carolina wedding location has admitted to stealing more than $1 million from couples and investors.
Jason Lottman, 43, ran the popular wedding venue Champagne Manor in Monroe, a city situated around 25 miles from Charlotte.
Lottman, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud on July 6, carried out his scheme from October 2023 until January 2025, according to Russ Ferguson, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.
The now-43-year-old solicited investments into Champagne Manor by promising guaranteed returns, ownership interests and other incentives while making false statements in order to secure the money, Ferguson said.
Lottman also marketed all-inclusive wedding packages that required customers to pay upfront for florists, DJs, caterers, photographers, and hair and make-up artists. The former wedding venue owner would claim that he would pay the vendors directly or reimburse customers who chose their own vendors.
However, Ferguson says Lottman failed to pay the vendors. That would leave customers to repay for services they had already paid for through the now-former wedding venue owner.
Travis and Rachael Marshall, a couple from Myrtle Beach, told WMBF News that Lottman’s scheme caused them to lose nearly $20,000. In January 2025, they were told that Champagne Manor had abruptly closed just four months before they were set to tie the knot.
“Having all that money that we saved for years and years that we saved for that special thing, all of a sudden, be gone, it made us have to stretch things a little thin,” Travis said. “We weren’t able to get the things we allocated other resources to, whether it be repairs or saving up for a house.”
Travis added, “A lot of stuff just had to be pushed to the back burner.”
Foreclosure proceedings at Champagne Manor began in mid-2024, when the venue defaulted on its mortgage, according to Ferguson. Despite being aware that the venue would ultimately cease operations, Lottman continued to solicit payments from customers and investors.
All the while, he was concealing Champagne Manor’s bleak financial situation.
Lottman also claimed that the venue was in the process of acquiring a glass ballroom that would serve as collateral for certain investment programs, despite the ballroom never being purchased, Ferguson says.
Investment-style programs and promotional discounts that promised future repayments or refunds that could not be fulfilled were also offered by Lottman, who suggested that payments would be received by certain dates. Once those dates had been missed, Lottman would misrepresent the reason for the delay in payments.
Lottman’s sentence for the wire fraud charge will be determined by the court, with a sentencing date not yet being set, according to Ferguson. The maximum penalty for the charge is 20 years behind bars.
Travis said that he was glad that justice was served and that Lottman is being “punished” for his crime.
“But I just can’t help but feel sad for him that he’s more or less thrown his life away for some elaborate scheme,” he added. “We forgive him and hope that when he gets to the end of this, that he’s learned a valuable lesson and that hopefully he can still be able to salvage and make something productive of his life.”
Travis also revealed that the couple was able to recover some of the money that they lost through credit card disputes. They had also been able to find a wedding venue for the same mont they originally planned to marry.
