Belle Fete

to know us better. She offered to comb through our contracts and offered suggestions when warranted. Unfortunately we were disappointed with her dedication to us when it came time to properly help plan the wedding. We live several hours from our wedding venue so we worked very hard to organize all the parties to be at our walk through one month before the wedding (meeting was scheduled months in advance). The walkthrough was required by our venue as was the presence of our planner. Two days before the walkthrough Cara let us know that she would no longer be able to attend because her child was receiving an award from her elementary school that she could not miss. While we appreciate that she wanted to be there for her child, we feel that certain occupations require a commitment to clients, and that if you choose wedding planning as a career you should be prepared to make tough decisions. Her decision was to not be present at our walkthrough, during which dozens of details were to be discussed. While she offered to be on the phone with us during the walk-through, we felt that not being there in person would not allow her to perform her job adequately, and that having her on speaker-phone or video call would be actually be a distraction to a meeting that had been planned months ahead of time. Cara told us that “we would understand when we have children.” Despite insisting that she was trying to be solution-oriented, Cara refused to do what would have helped us the most, returning our security deposit so that we could move in a different direction. We were charged $1300 for her services and paid a $650 deposit up front. Somehow she calculated that she had already done $550 worth of work for us, which seems strange considering the $1300 would have covered a few hours at the walkthrough, not to mention at least 15 hours at the actual wedding. She offered to refund us $100. Suffice it to say that during one of the most stressful periods of the planning process, Cara did nothing to alleviate our anxieties, and did not give us faith that she was prioritizing us as her client. For this reason I cannot recommend Cara as a partial planner for your wedding.