2Chic Events & Design

fort here as with all of my events, I'm disappointed that I never could get to this point with Katrina. I attempted to reach out to her to clear things up with no response, so here we go.. Katrina hired me for month of planning services, meaning that our first meeting was about 8 weeks out. Some of her first words to me when we met were "So, am I allowed to talk to you now?" in the most incredibly condescending tone. I knew that I was in trouble in that moment and my gut told me to walk away. I genuinely wish I would have. Katrina continued to address me in this manner throughout the planning process. I never could make any headway with this client and was met with tremendous resistance to everything I did. Nothing was ever right....even if it was. At the rehearsal, the bridal party was as unruly and talkative as is typical - no big deal. We ran through the rehearsal, and gave exact positioning for where to stand multiple times. They were standing in their designated spots asking me where to stand. We politely answered them over and over. At the end, I asked if they wanted to run trough it again for good measure. Katrina herself said they felt it was good and that they did not want to run through it again. And, they all lined up just perfectly on the wedding day with with no issues. :) The rental company did call the bride on her wedding day although I had provided them my contact info. and I was disappointed that this happened. Because the order was in her name, I was a back up contact. Things like this happen even when we try to avoid it. Most of my clients would have just given them my number so that I could handle it. But, the gentleman on-site informed me that Katrina screamed at him and hung up on him twice instead. He stated that he felt really sorry for me for having to deal with her when I arrived because she seemed "really terrible". The vases that Katrina mentioned were on the head table the entire time, placed there by the florist while I was gathering Katrina's cake, cupcakes and favors {aka - nowhere to be found}, which I needed to move out of the bridal suite before the venue locked up for the day. During this time, as I was carrying two large boxes, a guest approached me and said "I think you need to start participating in this wedding today or you will surely be getting a bad review. I'm just letting you know what I've been hearing". This review was planned long before I ever had a chance to do my job. That guest later apologized saying that they understood my challenges, with a wink and a hug. Shortly after, one of the members of the wedding party also expressed to me and my assistant that they felt sorry for us re: the type of treatment we had been dealing with - and then complimented us on an amazing job. In spite of mine and Katrina's obvious personality conflict, the day was absolutely smooth with no issues at all. The brides mom hugged and thanked me at the end of the night for going above and beyond and for making arrangements to return some items to a vendor on the other side of the lake for them. Her dad, however, continued to yell in my face for not packing things up fast enough at the end. Note: we couldn't begin to pack everything up until the event was over but they clearly expected their car to be packed by that time. *I think it's important to understand the scope of this job as you read this. It was two large truckloads of decor and alcohol, along with all of the floral arrangements, that we are talking about me and my assistant moving. It was no small feat and takes time. We absolutely did gather and pack up their stuff at the end and did 90% of it for them, along with the caterers help. In fact, they were completely packed up and out of the venue (including a full truckload of excess alcohol that was loaded before the event ended) within 45 minutes of their event concluding. I worked incredibly hard on this wedding but it was never fast enough, good enough or right enough. I was basically treated as a servant, yet I continued to work tirelessly in hopes of making this client happy. I believe that some people fail to recognize that there is a human being behind the business when they get caught up in the wedding planning. In this case, someone who worked behind the scenes for weeks, trying like hell to get it right, knowing that I likely never would. Someone who worked 12 hours and walked 12 miles on the wedding day giving their all in hopes of finally winning a client over with great service, to no avail. It is disappointing to hear Katrina's account of her day, after all the hard work that went into it!

written here is simply false or exaggerated information. Unfortunately, Marissa and Alex had never expressed any concern over the work that I was doing for them or rendered any complaints regarding my services during our wedding planning process, which left me unable to rectify any concerns of theirs before things escalated to this level. When I received their cancellation just a few short weeks after retuning from Mexico, they expressed how helpful I had been and how sorry that they were to have to cancel, but that it seemed to make more sense to hire a planner on the ground in Mexico. It wasn't until I mentioned that they would still have to pay me for services already rendered that their hostility began. It has now become clear to me that this was a situation where there wasn't anything I could do to make this customer happy. I referred them to the venue that they ultimately ended up booking just 2 weeks after we entered into contract. I provided them with detailed spreadsheets and worksheets outlining the costs, amenities, etc. at hotels selected by both me and them, I traveled at my own expense to Mexico {because my husband and I own a timeshare in Cabo and were already in the process of booking a trip}, gave up days of my vacation time with my husband to work for them, made several out of country calls, rented a car at my own expense to tour venues for them and paid my assistants to help with this wedding as well. I simply had to recover my costs for that work and be paid for mine and my staffs' time. Marissa and Alex were due to pay me for those services under the terms of their contract 6 days prior to their cancellation and failed to make that payment. As a small business owner, as much as I would like to appeal to their emotions, I'm just not able to absorb that kind of loss. Unfortunately, after they refused my offer to settle for 1/3 of their balance, I did have to take them to small claims court in order to obtain the money that was owed to me, and the judge did rule in my favor. I am deeply sorry to hear that this caused them such great turmoil and I wish them the best.