I enjoyed getting to work with Dayna. She’s such a nice person and was so pleasant in every interaction. She’s a stand up business woman and I really appreciated that about her. Dayna came to our meeting/tasting with the venue coordinator just ...weeks before her due date, she took notes and had good input, and we were grateful to have her there. Unfortunately we had some complaints about the handling of our wedding by Shanda while Dayna was out on maternity leave. However, despite the challenges leading up to the wedding, the day of went perfectly. I have no complaints about the hard work that I know Shanda and Katelynn carried out on the day of my wedding. My decorations were set up correctly, they worked hard to make sure things ran on time etc. Shanda and Katelynn were sweating running around the hotel, there for whatever we needed, tore down the decorations.. basically everything you’d want a DOC to do. And I don’t want to let that go unrecognized.
However, our complaints arose because we paid for a premium planning package and unfortunately the planning aspect just fell short. In the weeks leading up to my wedding, I had to initiate all contact with Shanda to do the items listed in the contract. No vendor contracts were collected, no communications database was created, and a master schedule was only finally made upon my request. I was still vetting emails from vendors days before my wedding, but per the contract, she should have taken over as point of contact two weeks out. I actually had to ask her multiple times to send an email to them to take over, and to respond to emails I was getting from them because I was so stressed. No one helped me with the final to do list, no vendors or family got a schedule sent to them (well, they did, but I made and sent it - after I asked them to help with a draft, which they did), and Shanda was surprised to hear that I needed her to do our welcome party setup despite it being literally outlined in the contract. I felt the need to make an extensive spreadsheet of how I wanted my decorations set up because no one kept track of decorations at any point and the sheet I got to fill out only asked what I wanted returned to me, nothing to tell them how to set up. It left me feeling angry and disappointed in the weeks leading up to my wedding, and that’s not how a bride should feel.
I spoke with Dayna over the phone about all of this, and she was very receptive to the feedback. She kindly refunded our money to reflect the services we received, effectively lessening the package to a day of coordination package. We were pleasantly surprised of the offer for a refund, greatly appreciated it, and felt it was very fair. Dayna was open to hearing our perspective, understood our complaints, and had already started writing some policies surrounding some of our complaints. We really hope that the expectations set for the team in the future help ensure brides have a great experience no matter who their coordinator is, because we know how much Dayna cares about her clients!