Small claims court, need help with wedding vendor

Evening everyone,

I'm in a situation where I hired a wedding vendor and after not meeting any deadlines that we gave we fired him. Problem is, we paid a R19000 deposit. Before he would have started with anything we had to sign a Terms and conditions that said the deposit is non refundable. I have researched and found that since no services has been done that the contract is null and void. I dont want to spend more money on a lawyer than how much I would get back. My wedding is in three weeks and then Im leaving the country 3 days after. I do not want him to get away woth this, accepting deposits and then creating excuses until he gets fired, then not paying the deposit back (fired him a month before the wedding because we couldnt trust him to actually show up for the wedding).

Any tips or summary of what my steps should be would be great please.