Unfortunately we did not have a positive experience working with Kelley. I hate writing bad reviews, but I'm doing so in hopes that it will help you avoid what we had to deal with.
For context:
- We paid $7K for the full service package
... - We actively loved most of our vendors, and this is the only negative review we're writing
- We addressed our disappointment with the service we were getting several times throughout the year and to her credit, Kelley admitted she was over-subscribed with clients and was more engaged for a period of time. But then she would revert back to status quo within a few weeks.
PLANNING: Throughout the entire process, we felt like we were pulling teeth trying to move things forward. We chose her for her Hudson Valley vendor connections, warehouse of existing decor (which was great and likely saved us hundreds of dollars in decor) and glowing reviews. But we had an entirely different experience than the other reviews. Rather than reduce our stress and be a partner in planning, Kelley's lack of communication and initiative was our main stressor. Kelley would go weeks without responding to emails or texts. And when she finally responded, she would give half answers. She would say she was reaching out to vendors, then never did. And if she did, she often stopped short of finalizing things and didn't copy us on communications (despite several requests to keep us CC'd on all vendor emails), so we couldn't actually push things forward ourselves. It took months to lock in vendors - some of that was due to vendors being slow to respond, but often it was because Kelley failed to reach out or follow up. We'd wait weeks for her to review something (e.g., vendor contracts, our floor plan), and then she'd send responses that made it clear she didn't even take the time to review it. When interviewing planners I specifically asked for her help to stay on budget and negotiate pricing with vendors, but it was clear her loyalty was with the vendor vs us and wouldn't push them on pricing, forcing us to do so. Having Kelley working with us added a ton of stress--not only did we have to do the same amount of work as if we didn't have a planner, but we had to manage her as well. Dozens of extra emails, hours, and stress. And so many wedding week-of - and even day-of work we had to do, that we could have solved weeks or months in advance.
DAY OF: We thought this is where Kelley would shine. Unfortunately we were wrong. She did lead the reception decor which looked stunning, but was MIA for us and our family. Our wedding started at 4pm. As of 1pm, no one had heard from her and she was not responding to texts or phone calls. Nightmare scenario. We had to send family members in cars to go find her 15 minutes before our first look. We ended up leaning on our other vendors (photographers, makeup) to help keep the day on track. You can imagine how surprised we were to see she had spent time posting Instagram stories *of someone else's wedding* on our wedding day.
Overall, not only did we not nearly get our money's worth, but honestly I think it would have been easier to have just done it all ourselves. It certainly would have been less frustrating.